Fishing and Birds

I found this Osprey hanging out on the rooftop of a small building about halfway out the Naples Fishing Pier, in Florida, last month. He(?) was hooked, with a fishing lure hanging from his beak. It didn't seem to have affected him too much, though he seemed very tame and was letting a few of the regulars feed him by tossing small bait fish out onto the deck for him to swoop down and grab. Otherwise, he flew around the pier a few times and then perched, watching things, on top of a fake owl.

There were plenty of gulls hanging around and a fair number of pelicans in the water below looking for fish as much as the retirees and tourists on the pier.

And there were birds that I didn't recognize. The fellow at right was swooping in close. I think he was after the fish that the anglers were offering to the Osprey.

What Did We Call This Place When?

In order to save electrons, allow me to point to a blog post I just wrote on the NSGIC Blog: Getting Serious About Original Place Names.

It is about a recent small grant by the Federal Geographic Data Committee to the state of Hawaii to add audio pronunciation guides to geospatial place-name data for that state. It builds on an idea developed by the Coeur d'Alene Tribe, in Idaho. The Tribe's GIS program has created audio map data, including for Google Earth and has entries outside of Idaho.

The project is open to input on names outside of traditional Couer d'Alene areas. Philadelphia, in Pennsylvania, for example, is at the same spot as what was once known as Tsi wahswèn:to (MP3) which translates as "at the coal forked mouth."

I think this is a cool idea.

Unexpected Fact #195

I found out today that the spell-checker in Microsoft Outlook includes the word "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious."

I had added an extraneous "l."

How and why did I learn this unexpected fact? I found a use for the word in an e-mail at work. Every once in a while it helps to use absurd language. Even if the sound of it is said to be "quite atrocious."

Delaware, Victorious

There's been lots of reaction this week to the decision by the US Supreme Court to confirm Delaware's denial of a Coastal Zone Act permit for the proposed Liquid Natural Gas terminal at Crown Landing, in New Jersey. Plenty of news coverage and blog reactions; from Delaware and New Jersey and elsewhere. Some positive, some neutral, and some negative. I've been tagging what I find in del.icio.us.

Second Golf Game of 2008

I almost broke 100! I scored a 102 on the par-72 course at the Naples Beach Hotel and Golf Club in Florida. Had I not had a complete blow-up on the par-5 14th, I might have done it.

It turns out that using the 5-iron, which looks remarkably like the sand wedge when you are flustered (5 vs. S) , in a green-side bunker is a bad idea. When you've already hit a tree, the water hazard, and a half-submerged log that bounced your ball right back at you, on the same hole, these things happen.

I was playing in my walking sneakers and with rental clubs (very nice clubs), but had a wonderful time (except for the 15th) I played the first nine with a dad teaching his 15-year old the game. I played the second nine with an older gent who plays that course regularly and either his son or son-in-law. These guys were playing very well and they helped me raise my game a bit, I think.

The course was built in the late 1920s and has been redesigned a few times since. It is mature and tree-lined and, though flat, fairly challenging. And nice folks, too.

And... We're Back

We're back in Delaware after most of the last week at the Naples Beach Hotel and Golf Club, in Florida.

We flew down to Tampa early on Monday and drove down to Naples from there. We stayed in a vintage hotel on the beach in Naples. We swam, we sunned, and we burned a bit. We visited the zoo and the everglades. I golfed. Th e girls shopped. We ate at a variety of restaurants, from a classic burger joint to a relatively fancy place.

I took about 380 photos, and Colleen took a few more. So far, I've only posted a few from the Naples Zoo and the beach view from the Naples posted at right. I'll get through the rest and post more in the next few days.

I liked Naples, but it struck me as very like the Rehoboth area on steroids. They have very large developments in Florida and the sheer volume of shopping malls and restaurants on the main drag was daunting.

But the weather is so nice. And the Golf of Mexico shows many moods. And I got to spend five days disconnected from the world and with my wife and children. I like that.

Aloha, Eh?

It's time once again for (our small part of) the Mahaffie clan to wander off into the world to seek a new climate and a different view of things.

Translation: We're going on vacation.

We'll be back when this great green globe has spun a full week's span around the life-giving bright sun.

Translation: We booked a week in a hotel.

Until that day, dear friends, I bid you a fond, if temporary, farewell and adieu.

Translation: I'm turning off the web now and staying disconnected until we get back.

A Lost Opportunity?

There was a bit of a stink this past week in the Indian River School District here in southern Delaware. I take a mostly cynical view of it, but a story in Time this week suggests that there could have been a very positive learning experience, if we had only looked for it ahead of time.

The requirements of the settlement of the Prayer in Schools lawsuit against the District had teachers and administrators reviewing an updated Religion Policy and a set of real-world examples designed to help them avoid unconstitutional proselytizing. Somewhere along the line, it was suggested that the School District had commanded a cancellation of the pre-Break parties set for this week; parties that traditionally have a Spring/Easter theme.

This caused something of an uproar, even after the District issued a statement saying it had not commanded any cancellations. It doesn't even really make sense, given the status of "easter" as as much a secular holiday as a religious holiday. I don't think it diminishes the special and deeply felt meaning of this holiday for true Christians to see other folks mucking about with the bunny rabbits and the eggs that symbolize new-birth and spring. So there isn't really a lawsuit-based reason to cancel such parties.

My inner cynic suggests that someone angry over the settlement of the lawsuit planted the party-pooping story to generate parental anger and protest. It wouldn't surprise me to see someone try that as a way to gather support for making the public schools more parochial.

But that 's just the voice of the little Elmer Gantry perched on my right shoulder. On my left shoulder is an angel holding up a print-out of the Time story about the many religious traditions that celebrate this time of year and the curious convergence of those holidays this year.

...on this particular Friday, March 21, it seems almost no believer of any sort will be left without his or her own holiday. In what is statistically, at least, a once-in-a-millennium combination, the following will all occur on the 21st:
Good Friday
Purim, a Jewish festival celebrating the biblical book of Esther
Narouz, the Persian New Year, which is observed with Islamic elaboration in Iran and all the "stan" countries, as well as by Zoroastrians and Baha'is.
Eid Milad an Nabi, the Birth of the Prophet, which is celebrated by some but not all Sunni Muslims and, though officially beginning on Thursday, is often marked on Friday.
Small Holi, Hindu, an Indian festival of bonfires, to be followed on Saturday by Holi, a kind of Mardi Gras.
Magha Puja, a celebration of the Buddha's first group of followers, marked primarily in Thailand.

Yesterday would heave been a perfect opportunity for comparative religion parties in the schools using the many holidays, traditions, foods, dances, music and art to explore a wide variety of cultures.

"Half the world's population is going to be celebrating something," says Raymond Clothey, Professor Emeritus of Religious studies at the University of Pittsburgh. "My goodness," says Delton Krueger, owner of www.interfaithcalendar.org, who follows "14 major religions and six others." He counts 20 holidays altogether (including some religious double-dips, like Maundy Thursday and Good Friday) between the 20th (which is also quite crowded) and the 21st. He marvels: "There is no other time in 2008 when there is this kind of concentration."

The article points out that, in fact, it's only nine times in 800 years that "Good Friday, Purim, Narouz and the Eid would occur in the same week" and only one time that they would ever happen within a two-day period.

I guess we missed a chance to teach. Maybe next time?

99,999 ... and ... 100,000

I reached 99,999 miles on my 2005 Prius this morning at about 7:20 and just south of the St. Jones River on my way into Dover. I pulled over to take the traditional odometer-graph.

I have to say that I am most impressed with RSmitty, who predicted that I'd hit 99,999 on this very date in the Fun for Math Heads contest on Delaware Liberal back in November. There's no mention there of a prize, but we should all now do that polite little clapping noise your hear in golf broadcasts.

RSmitty used the data about miles per day that I've been tossing into these mileage posts to calculate his remarkable estimate. So here's the updated data: it took me 130 days to drive the 11,111 miles between 88,888 and 99,999. That's 85.5 miles per day, on average. It had been 145 days between 77,777 and 88,888.

I was so pleased with reaching this milestone that I immediately set out to reach 100,000 miles. By carefully driving another mile over the next few minutes, I was able to bring up a sixth digit on my odometer.

So. What should the next milestone be? An additional 11,111 miles from 99,999 would be 111,110 and my particular mania would insist on 111,111. On the other hand, I think 101,010 would look really cool given the way my odometer forms numbers. Based on what it looked like at 91,088, I think it would say "10 10 10."

I Like it When Jon Stewart is Serious

For example, this evening as he wrapped his review of Barack Obama's speech in Philadelphia:

"And so, at 11:00 a.m. on a Tuesday, a prominent politician spoke to Americans about race as though they were adults."

The Wall Street Journal posted the text of the speech as prepared for delivery. It's worth a read, given that none of the news shows are likely to play the whole thing.