– photographs and messages from inside the Sausurrean Bar –

Blog archives for March, 2012


Archive for March, 2012

Wednesday, March 14th, 2012

Crystal River, FL

St George Island

From St George I kept wandering down the coast today, with some side-stops in Steinhatchee and Cedar Key (more in Cedar Key than in Steinhatchee), and saw a lot of pelicanes and some dolphins and manatees, as well as herons and birds that I cannot identify. Tonight I am in Crystal River, as you can see, and I’m going swimming with Manatees tomorrow in the am, before I keep wandering south.

Photos, as previously, are in the photo album for the trip.

Tuesday, March 13th, 2012

St. George Island, FL

(I am naming the postings after the places I am overnighting, by the way.) I headed south from Dothan and had my first glimpse of the Gulf of Mexico at Panama City Beach, where spring break was in full swing. Panama City Beach itself is a mix of beaches, high-rise hotel chain buildings and fast-food chain places, and was filled with scantily glad college kids, some of them wearing funny and/or unfortunate headgear.

Panama City Beach

I, however, declined to join in on the spring break fun (even though it is technically my spring break, too), and headed along the Florida Panhandle, stopping in pretty places along the way, until I finally found St George Beach, which was so pretty that I just kind of had to stay there – I spent some time on the beach at first and then went to the car to drive off once the sun started going down, but there was that Motel next to the parking lot and … so you get day and sunrise photos from St George Island – the sunrise one in the next post, however, as they belong to the next day, and the sunset at so (and no sunset photos, as I did not take my camera along).

St George Island Lighthouse

 

Monday, March 12th, 2012

Dothan, AL

Today I spent most of my day in and around the Talladega National Forest, where the weather went from sunny to overcast, and thus the scenery from colorful to much less so (a lot of the trees a still bare, with the leaves just sprouting, so there’s not a lot of greenery around as of right now). (I’ve added some photos to the photo album I linked in the last post.) From the Talladega Forest I drove southwards, stopping by in Enterprise – a little for the name but mostly because they have a monument to honor the Boll Weevil there. It’s as quirky and strange as the idea would indicate. It’s also stuck in the middle of a busy intersection with no pedestrian access to it, so taking photos of it is hard and good angles are impossible. But I crossed the street a couple of times at the pedestrian lights, probably bemusing the shop vendors next to the lights (though most likely they’re used it it, them being in guide books and all). One apparently’s gotta make do, on the quest of taking in all the details of the “My Boll Weevil, let me show you it!” monument.

I’ve also learned that there’s a lot more water in Alabama than I expected – there are lakes and bogs and puddles everywhere! Also more mountains, but those surprised me less. But definitely a lot of distinct units of water (of which I took no photos, so there are only shots of hills to be had!).

Sunday, March 11th, 2012

Huntsville, AL

shuttle mock-up behind trees in parking lot

What do you mean, no oversize parking?

Hello from Huntsville, Alabama! I made it to the US yesterday save and more or less sound (of the 10 hour flight, 7+ featured ‘fasten seatbelt’ signs and some pretty rough spots of turbulence, bleargh), and headed out this morning Alabama bound. Spent the day making my way to Scottsboro via country lanes, and from there to Huntsville. In Scottsboro I went to the Unclaimed Baggage Center, where you can basically buy everything that comes out of airline luggage left unclaimed after 90 days. In the guidebook the idea sounded kind of interesting, but in reality it turned out both more boring (they need to wipe all photos from memory cards and cameras before selling them etc) and more sad (an abandoned “Happy birthday mom!” present etc) than it was made to sound in the writeup. So I mostly felt sorry for the people who were missing their luggage – the place somehow was bad karma central. Didn’t buy anything, nor stay very long.

Onwards to Huntsville it was, where I went straight to the Space & Rocket Center and basically stayed there until they threw everyone out. Saturn V rockets are really tall (yes, something one knows in the abstract, but walking along one makes it a lot more concrete – its like flying to space on top of a skyscraper)! Their non-permanent exhibit right now is on Wernher von Braun and his life and times (“I’m learning Chinese now!”), and the two movies on at the IMAX theatre are Hubble (awesome! watch it!) and Space Junk (bad! avoid!). I didn’t get to read all the details about the development of the Saturn V (see ‘until they threw everyone out’) and spent too much money in the gift shop bying all the special collection issues of newspaper articles dealing with the Apollo program, space exploration etc. It felt a bit like cheating, given how painstakingly I went through newspapers on microfilm last year in the British Newspaper Library for my Apollo 13 – Earth Day and Space Day paper, and I have no idea what is actually inside those collections, since they were all shrink wrapped and I’ve not opened one yet (they will travel better in their shrink wrapped condition). We’ll see. I might also have bought Space Shuttle earrings, so it wasn’t all money spent on future work, though.

And, you lot, Space Camp is here in Huntsville! Who knew? (Lots of people, probably, but not I.) I hadn’t thought of the Space Camp movie in ages (before seeing the sign for the actual camp today), but I loved it when I was in my early teens. (“Max und Jinx! Freun-de für im-mer!”)

I’ve also made a photo album that I will be posting my trip photos into, you can find it right here (some of the photos that show up in there might also turn up as individual photo posts at a later date, though).

Monday, March 5th, 2012

To seek out the diagonal

 

Sunday, March 4th, 2012

Galanthus nivalis

Galanthus nivalis

More than one, actually, but I am not certain if the proper plural would be “Galanthus nivalii” or “Galanthi nivalii” or what, so … . I shall ponder this when I am more awake. For now, I shall go sleep all the sleep and leave you with the knowledge that the German word for snowdrop is Schneeglöckchen, and the French perceneige. In Spanish, incidentally, you can call it both campanilla de las nieves and narciso de las nieves. I cannot recall ever hearing and Old English word for it, but since research reveals that is was most likely introduced to Britain only in the 16th century, that is probably not too surprising. (I am not saying a term for it does not exist, only that it might not have featured centrally in what OE vocab I’ve managed to acquire [and still recall].)

Friday, March 2nd, 2012

How it went down

I don’t like to brag, but since I posted a moany “let time pass” post yesterday and I know a lot of you were crossing your fingers for me and/or sent me good wishes yesterday or in the days before, it’s only fair to tell you how it all ended up turning out.

Everything’s graded now and done with (except for publication) and I am chuffed (chuffed! Ha! An understatement!) that you can now call me Ms Summa-cum-Laude. :-)

(Or alternatively, totally still Sib or Sibylle or whatever else it is we usually call each other, but yes, it’s all done, and today went well, and I had fun and could have kept fielding questions for a while, I felt. If all is well that ends well, then all is well indeed, today.)

So, things are good – now to do some hovering and cleaning up, and then we’re going out for dinner! (Untidy flats, they wait for no woman… . They shall, however, be cleaned up with extra jazz hands &c today).  *\o/*

Thursday, March 1st, 2012

 sign of disputationTomorrow

If time is relative, then can it be 10 am tomorrow right now? I want the waiting over with.

Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
[…]*

Though I hope I’ll manage more than a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, tomorrow … or at least the right and convincing amount of sound and fury. Whether or not things signify anything we can argue about … .

(And I don’t even have any olives.)

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* Tomorrow and …? what?
(Yes, that is a rap version of MacBeth. Shh…)