March into Spring

Yesterday was a beautiful, sunny day. I took a stroll in the gorgeous fresh air. By the cemetery.

Presently I came upon this:

On closer inspection, I saw it was this:

A motorized, bipedal...thing. Two spindly aluminum legs attached to a sort of mechanical pelvis, apparently powered by an electric drill. This robotic hind-end was strapped to a pivoting, horizontal flagpole so that when it's turned on it walks in a circle, like maybe a steampunk horse mill.

It was then I realized I was in the backyard of the Institute of Human and Machine Cognition and I thought, jeez, with such a spiffy name you'd think they could build a better robot than this half-assed model.

Still, for something without a head I think it has personality.

Directly beyond sat this quonset hut.

I love the shabby, rusty, tropicality of it. It puts me in mind of some WWII film set in the South Pacific. Cue Patty, Maxine, and LaVerne.

I can also see the potential of quonset as loft-type dwelling space.


On my way home, I pulled over to take a phone call. In a tree by the parking lot I spied this pair of bluebirds engaged in a feathery flurry of activity. Sorry for the quality of the photo. They were far away and in the shade. I was shooting blindly and had to crop a lot and over-tweak to make them show up at all.

Weatherwise, things are looking up.

Snowflake

How to Preserve a Snowflake

Shameless Whinging About the Weather and Other Things

It's freakin' 30 degrees. Right here in Florida. Tonight the forecast is for a near-record low of 21 degrees, with wind chill of 10. It's weather like this that chased me from the Northeast. Why move to Bodunk, FL, USA if I'm still going to freeze my ass off?! I could be home in NYC, desperate for a glimmer of sunshine and watching the snow accumulate in grey curbside mounds. But there'd be access.

The new Sherlock Holmes movie, eh, not so hot. I miss movies that feature human beings over special effects. Movies meant to evoke emotion, not induce headaches and motion sickness. If you've seen one explosion, you've seen 'em all.

Otherwise: Robert Downey's English accent sucked. Jude Law's Watson was more attractive for being unglamorous. Holmes/Watson, so married.

Watson to Holmes: You old cock.

Holmes to Watson: Mother hen.

The best parts were the sketched scenes in the closing credits and the Dubliners' rockin' "Rocky Road to Dublin."