Snake eyes

Freddy the snake-man came by when Becky and I were sitting outside on the smoking bench at Vaughans Lounge. When he came close we could see the two snakes coiling and writhing around his hands.

One was pale ivory speckled with coral-colored markings. The other was even paler, with markings that were lavender-pink ghosts of those of its sister.

They were young snakes, Freddy said, only a few feet long and harmless. They were boa constrictors, and he had a name for them that I can't remember, but it was something flowery.

Becky held one and let it crawl up her body and coil its tail around her index finger. She stroked its flanks and let it nuzzle its arrow-shaped head on her throat. "It feels so silky," she said.

I'm less enamored of snakes, but I worked up the nerve to touch one. And she was right. Its skin, though shiny, was not "slimy" or moist at all, but rather, it felt like a finely woven silver chain, the scales like tightly braided wire slipping cooly past my fingers. I could feel the taut muscular energy beneath the skin. The pale snake - Freddy said it was an albino - cantilevered its body out from Freddy's grip, a miracle of physical strength.

The snakes fluttered their little forked tongues, flicking against our fingertips.

I don't think I've ever handled a snake before - certainly not in recent memory. I'm not sure I like them, but I can't forget the feeling of the silky, muscular energy of them coiling against my hands. Freddy the snake-man is a professional dealer in reptiles.

Open the door

This is the entrance to one of the quirkiest "museums" in the South. It's the ICM Museum in Abita Springs, Louisiana; a collection of oddball stuff thrown together. Or, as one of the signs says, "a hobby that got out of hand."

There are ancient pinball machines, re-engineered bicycles. There are funny, doll-house-like dioramas featuring juke joints, general stores, trailer parks and oil refineries.

One room is wallpapered with paint-by-number paintings.

There's a tank with big old algae-encrusted snapping turtles. There are fake stuffed alligators everywhere, including a giant one, a dog-gator, a duck-gator and a pony-gator riding a bicycle.

It costs $3 to tour the place, and you can buy a souvenir t-shirt on the way out. It's well worth it.

Butterflies are free

August is Museum Month in New Orleans - members of participating museums get free admission for themselves and a guest at other participating museums.

I'm a member at three local museums, so this was a fun opportunity to visit other places. Sunday, my friend Becky and I went to the Audubon Butterfly Garden and Insectarium - a museum devoted to insects and their relatives.

Cool stuff

I'm working on some cool stuff these days.

 My department, though we're closing soon, and morale has been it, is right now working on a big project that's fun and show-bizzy and highly visible, that tests our capabilities in our profession. And you know what? we're all rising to the occasion like the professionals we are. I am so proud of my co-workers, beaten down and unappreciated as we've felt over the last several months.

In the middle of all this, there are a lot of transitions at the workplace. Good news for people who are moving to new jobs. New assignments and responsibilities for me - interesting yet time consuming and a little pressure-y. New challenges and opportunities.

Also - our son is coming home to visit. He arrives on Saturday, and next week we are going to enjoy spending time with him. I hope to share some of our adventures with you.

Prime directive met

 Tonight I was in the same room as Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner.

Monster in the kitchen

Tonight I encountered a monster in my kitchen.

She flew into the sink and clung to the side of an empty jar of pasta sauce that was soaking clean. She fluttered down and her wings became drabbled in the water.

I fished her out with my fingers and startled at her raspy, thorny carapace, I dropped her on the floor. She raced past [The Man I Love]'s feet.

Finally I scooped her up with a paper towel and laid her on the dining table. She clambered up into the flower arrangement there.

She's a little monster. A California praying mantis, or Stagomantis californica.

"I'm ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille."

Her compound eyes sit wide apart in her arrow-shaped head, which can swivel around 180 degrees, all the better to seek out prey in the form of other bugs - and other manti.

The praying mantis can truly be characterized as "The Worst Girlfriend in the World," because she's just not a nice girl. She doesn't play well with others.

Shh! Don't speak!

A solitary animal, really, except when they mate, but even then, she's not much for conversation. Sometimes during the mating ritual, the female mantis eats the male's head while he's in the middle of the act.  It doesn't matter to her - she wasn't paying much attention to anything he had to say.

She could use a manicure.

Up in the air

Photo courtesy L. Lind

This morning, with much fanfare, the Space Shuttle Endeavor flew over California, taking off from Edwards Air Force Base and making an extended loop over the state.


Coming in low over the Pier and the beach hotels

The route took it over California landmarks like the capitol in Sacramento, the Golden Gate Bridge, Santa Barbara and Point Mugu. Here in Los Angeles County, it flew along the coast of Malibu, past the Getty Villa, and at almost exactly 12:00 noon, it flew over the Santa Monica Pier, then banked east over Shutters on the Beach, Cha Cha Chicken, and the Bay Shore Lanes Bowling Alley, headed for a loop over downtown.

View of downtown Santa Monica

We hung out on a rooftop, watching all the people on all the other rooftops, high school kids at the outdoor amphitheatre at SAMOHI, and straining our eyes for a glimpse. The skies were hazy, though the sun was bright.


Yellow parasail right below it, people on the roof at Rand

 When it came, it came in low. we could see it through the angle of a construction crane on Ocean Avenue. Some lucky guy in a parasail over the beach got a close-up view of it.

It angled overhead, then passed and faded into the southward haze.

I got a few shots of it, but my friend Louis got the fantastic shot of it that's above. Click any photo to "embiggen."

Santa Monica interlude

Palisades Park path

Even if it weren't part of the Greater Los Angeles area, the placid coastal city of Santa Monica would still be a tourist attraction. Walkable streets, lots of hotels, restaurants and shopping attract as much as the wide sandy beach and the carnival rides on the Pier. On a regular basis, the city seems full of tour buses and tourists, many of them international travelers. It's not unusual to hear groups speaking Japanese, or French, or German.

Little black spot on the sun

Image from Wikipedia

"There's a little black spot on the sun today
It's the same old thing as yesterday
There's a black hat caught in a high tree top
There's a flag-pole rag and the wind won't stop"
                             - "King of Pain", Sting

Today, June 5, 2012 the orbit of the planet Venus passes between the Earth and the Sun. To those on earth who can view it, Venus appears like a small black dot crossing the orb of the sun.

This astronomical phenomenon is called the Transit of Venus, and it was first observed in 1639 by the English astronomer Jeremiah Horrocks. Horrocks and other astronomers who followed were able to use their observations to calculate the distance between the Sun and the Earth.

Here on the West Coast, you can view the Transit between 3:05 and 6:25 pm - be sure you use a safe method - do not look directly at the sun. A pinhole camera or welders' glass or one of these techniques here.

 The Transit of Venus occurs in a pattern that repeats every 243 years.Occuring in June or December, a transit is followed by a second transit in eight years. 105.5 years later, the next transit occurs. Then eight years pass, another transit, then 121.5 years.

The last Transit of Venus took place in 2004. It won't happen again until 2117.

Image from NASA

UPDATE: I was at work during the Transit, and I tried to see it through a welder's mask. I saw the sun just fine, but couldn't distinguish Venus, as the sun was about the size of a dime through the dark glass. [The Man I Love] was luckier - where he works, someone had rigged up a telescope to gather the image and project it on a wall.

How'd it look where you are?