Waked this morning with the headache from hell after NO party last night, which is not fair at all. I still have a bit, and a nagging post-nasal drip cough. Xyrtec is good, but not that great. Benedryl plus 2 Sudafed seems a better combo for me—they used to sell it in that combination in a capsule, but thanks to the meth problem (makers wanting Sudafed) that went off the market. I have my DIY version, but opted for Xyrtec as a one pill solution, and since it’s one per 24 hours, I’m stuck with it and it’s not working that well. 🙁
It’s raining…and will rain for days: a surge of Pacific equatorial air, AKA the Pineapple Express, is headed our way, bringing moisture we need, but it’s kind of a drizzly four day event.
So WHEN do we need to a) wash out the Matala filter and b) install the waterfall pump? Of course we didn’t do it yesterday when the sun was shining. We do it today. In the rain.
So I put on my rain suit (if you don’t own one of these, I highly recommend them: Walmart, cheap, but a way to work pretty toasty warm in a blizzard or to stay dry in a monsoon. Goes on over as much coat as you think you need. With hood. Anyway—the Matala spitting water once it needs cleaning and our automatic topoff being disconnected, the pond was down enough to just pump out the waterfall skimmer well, so we could (she says: Jane actually does this miserable job) attach the waterfall pump to the very stiff 3″ hose.
We then had to fuss with the hoses, in the brass octopus of connectors that branch five ways, then have another brass Y connector attached to one of them—it’s a mess, but it let us get the topoff running to refill the pond. The fish are all accounted for, and have grown immensely while asleep—I swear, I think they digest the algae they inhale all winter, and use that for fuel. I otherwise can’t account for it. The fish are tootling about, the Matala filter is running after I washed out all 8 filter pads, some of which were impossibly gunky, as in four times their normal weight. Which is why it was spitting water.
We haven’t fired up the lotus pond yet, but we are now possessed of a functioning koi pond. I stayed dry and relatively clean. The rain suit, totally disgusting, is drying off in the kitchen before I send it through the washing machine.
All this a few days before St. Paddy’s Day, so we’re pretty well on schedule with the pond.
Now that the pond is going again, to explain how it works, you can say, “DUANG!” in an impressively remonstrative tone!
Wikipedia’s home page right now has a newly-coined Chinese word and ideogram, “duang,” apparently onomatopoeic, with an explanatory article. It has to do with Jackie Chan and shampoo. (No, really, not making this up!)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duang
The word was newly coined and became the top trending topic on China’s equivalent of Twitter. Yes, thousands of Chinese people coming up with meanings for a new word.
So the next time you want to use some cool Chinese, possibly while watching Firefly, just insert a dramatic “duang!” at a suitably tense moment.
Just thought I’d brighten your day a bit. It brightened mine.
(I downloaded the graphic for the new Chinese character, too. It’s included on the Wiki page.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Duang_simplified.svg
OK, so today is “Pi Day”, 3/14/15 926535…..
So you know it goes on forever. That’s because it’s an “irrational number”.
Did you also know that you can find any arbitrary string of digits you want somewhere in it? “1234567890987654321” it’s in there.
Need a random number? Did you also know that the successive digits are random? Being unpredictable strings is one of the properties of irrational numbers.
Need a different one? Try e=2.7182818284590452353
I decided to commit more than the usual number of digits, 20, to memory in college, 1961 or 62, and it’s still in there. (Not all that hard once you recognize the repeating and related substrings.) But I guess that’s what comes with being a certain type of Aspie. 😉
and if you look, Gutenberg has both pi and e to one million digits. Which is great when you need a few thousand random digits, like you do for this pullover.
Good catch! I didn’t even think of it being Pi Day! Oh, the ignominy!
Somewhere, I’ve seen something about tau for 1/2 pi, and I think that had a riff on three-legged and four-legged hybrid signs for 1.5 pi and 2 pi.
As I bought a chocolate pie at the store, and have been good (well, OK, pretty good) this week, I think a proper celebration of Pi Day includes a serving of pie. Cherry pie is favored, but chocolate pie will do nicely. But one has few (if any!) objections to pie in general.
Happy Pi Day!
Aha, I found the Tau reference in the Wiki article on Pi:
Citation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pi#In_popular_culture
Quote:
{
In 1958 Albert Eagle proposed replacing π by τ = π/2 to simplify formulas.[154] However, no other authors are known to use tau in this way. Some people use a different value for tau, τ = 6.283185… = 2π,[155] arguing that τ, as the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its radius rather than its diameter, is more natural than π and simplifies many formulas.[156][157] Celebrations of this number, because it approximately equals 6.28, by making 28 June “Tau Day” and eating “twice the pie”,[158] have been reported in the media. However this use of τ has not made its way into mainstream mathematics.[159]
}
So if any of us are still around, 06/28/31 8:50-something a.m., to celebrate that more precise Tau Day….
Or we can get a less precise jump on it on June 28th this year. 😉
Tell me about that “meth” business. (Like I could make meth out of Sudafed — I can’t make cake out of a box!) (Getting pseudoephedrine out of the VA is like pushing a rope!) I’m a 3-piller, myself: pseudoephedrine (Sudafed), guaifenesin (Mucinex), and Benadryl is what works for me. We’re in the throes of the Blooming Ornamental Pear Trees at the moment. That’s “blooming” as in “producing flowers” and as a euphemism for “bloody!” For the two or so weeks that they bloom, my sinuses read me the Riot Act.
Speaking of pi/pie, there’s a company locally that makes the best fold over pies. http://augustpies.com/ Wish I had a couple. Either apple or cherry — better yet, one of each.
Glad the Koi are copacetic.
Yep, the early pine trees are puking out pollen, the plums are done and the Malus (apples) have started.
Pseudo-Sudafed and Loratidine, with occasional doses of acetaminophen as needed seem to keep the world livable for me, otherwise…. sigh…
pollen. Truly wish the plants would stop attempting to procreate in my sinuses.
With all the rain we’ve had, everything is pouring out spores and pollen a-purpose. My nose has declared war on the rest of my person with thunderous sneezes, and I need another Brillo pad for my eyes. The poison of choice is generic Allegra, the only medication that will knock my sneezes and itches down to manageable.
This undoubtedly means that shortly to follow will be the crab spider infestation, followed by the field mouse explosion. We’ve already had one unidentified scrabbling in the attic (time to get out the mouse bait), and during last week’s downpour, the Three Stooges presented me with a large rat on the back doormat. I imagine they felt they had to contribute something in exchange for (or perhaps instead of) all the kibble. I haven’t seen the B&W cat for the past week or so; I wonder if he was actually a traveling salesman.
Squad Car (B&W) cleaned up the leftover kibble last night. Still spooky.
Allergies still in full swing. I mowed
lawnweeds yesterday, kicking up all types of spooge, and took Benadryl last night because it puts me to sleep as well as making my nose shut up. Snored like a chain saw 😀I just took a big mug of Emergen-C, which I heartily recommend. I prepared lunch for Jane with tongs—literally, while trying not to exhale. If I don’t have a secondary infection I’ll be surprised.
It’s going to be a while before we have much spring. We finally have had almost a week of 40 + weather. If we didn’t have many inches of snow still on the ground we would be doing yard work. (There is not much point in raking snow!) We are now able to see the outline of the fish pond. The pond itself is under several inches of snow and ice. This mean that spring pollen season is going to come all at once, which should be interesting to say the very least.
Hope your allergy season goes away soon and that there are no additional infections! I love spring but…..