American in Spain

Nora, my dear, we’ve finally got your bed ready for you when you decide it’s time to enter this bright and chilly world. While you’re in there becoming a Kung Fu master (seriously, I wouldn’t be surprised if you emerged with a ninja mask on), your mother and I are out here getting things as ready as we can for your arrival.

The first blanket you will sleep under in this house was a gift from your Abuela, Marce. It’s got three little bears and some balloons and is suitably adorable and infantile. And soft! I don’t recall things being so soft in my childhood. Science has really come a long way in the field of fabric softness in my lifetime.

Your first crib ornament is a giraffe that clips onto the side of your crib wall. It was a gift from your great aunt, Marga. There’s no doubt that she will be your favorite great aunt, as she seems incapable of curbing her addiction of buying you gifts. I doubt that, later in life, you will be able to recall a visit from her from your childhood when she didn’t have a present for you.
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The first time I heard the phrase “IKEA nesting instinct” was in Edward Norton’s narration of Fight Club. I’d never heard of IKEA, despite living in Scandinavia at the time. When we bought our house in England, almost all the new furniture we bought was from IKEA. Our first load of new flat pack furniture required the use of a rental van. We went to IKEA once or twice when we first moved to Spain, and we haven’t gone back or made any domestic layout changes for years.

So this time I saw IKEA with somewhat fresh eyes. What amazed me the first time, and amazed me again this time, is the sheer efficiency of the whole store. The entire retail is as well designed and consumer-driven as their furniture. Presumably they’ve made some iterative modifications to The IKEA Process over the lifespan of the company, because they’ve really perfected the process of maximizing sales of cheap, not-at-all-ugly furniture in bulk. I’m very impressed. (more…)

Our Christmas tree looks extra lovely this year, in my opinion. I think it’s because I took extra time to separate each branch as much as possible. In past years there was too much haste involved. Growing up in the carpet-dominated United States, I never knew the joy of Christmas tree floor reflections. It’s like having two trees in one!
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I surprised and impressed myself this weekend. September 20th was the three year anniversary of when we bought our house, making this the house Marga and I have lived in together longest. The biggest reparation that our house has needed since well before we bought it is to sand and varnish the outside window frames. All new houses built around here are built with either PVC or aluminum windows, but our house still has the older wooden windows. Several months ago, we replaced our three worst windows with new aluminum ones, but we decided we couldn’t wait any longer to give the remaining wooden windows more protection against the elements. We should have taken before and after pictures, but I didn’t think to do so. The difference is amazing.

I wouldn’t say that I have a fear of heights. I rather enjoyed looking down from the Empire State Building, for example. But I have had several nightmares that involve precipitous ledges. Not falling, necessarily, but being in a very dangerous place. Part of what make humans such good survivors is the ability to imagine, very vividly, the consequences of actions before deciding which to take. I have a very, very vivid idea of what it would be like to fall from my seventh floor apartment window. I can feel the terror, the wind rushing through my hair, and the realization that these are the last sensations I will ever have. Frankly, it freaks me the hell out. When I lean out the window, I’m always very aware that my center of gravity and a good portion of my mass is clearly inside the house. As soon as there is any doubt, I’m all the way back in.

So when it came time to paint the panels above the window frames this weekend, it really sucked being the tallest family member.
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In the bathroom where I shower, we have a glass shower stall. After about a week of use, it gets little dots over it and must be cleaned. These are calcium deposits from the water that remain when the droplets dry.

When I was a kid, I always thought it strange that my grandparents had a squeegee in their shower stall. When I was visiting, I used to dry the glass in their shower stall after my showers, not because they asked me to, but because it was fun to pass the rubber squeegee over the glass and watch the water all run down to the bottom. It never occurred to me to ask why they had a squeegee in there. It just seemed fun to me.

About a year ago, it hit me that my grandparents’ squeegee was a solution to calcium deposits dirtying the glass. But it took me a year to remember this revelation when I was anywhere other than using or cleaning the shower. Finally we bought a squeegee for the shower!
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In preparation for hosting our July 4th party, we had to move a table that we had never really moved since we moved into our house. Most of our furniture came from the previous owners, and this table was no different. Also on the table, left by the previous owners, is a ceramic bulldog. Upon first seeing it, both Marga and I exclaimed, “Oh my god! How horrible!” We immediately agreed that we couldn’t stand having that thing in the house and we agreed to throw it away. But, in the move, actually discarding it got overlooked, and it’s been there ever since.
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A couple years ago we bought a Brita water filtering pitcher that we pass all the water we drink through. We don’t really need it, but the water does taste just slightly better after filtration. But the difference is so subtle that we can often go several months without changing the filter that you’re supposed to change every three weeks. My skeptic mind immediately saw through the “change every three weeks” logic. How spent a filter is depends on two things: 1) How much water you’ve passed through it, and 2) How dirty the water is. Time should have almost nothing to do with it. But, like I said, we’re pretty lazy about changing them.
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Do you know what happens on your office desk at night? Last night, I got up to get a drink of water, and I heard some noise coming from the office. When I went to investigate, I was amazed…
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A few Christmases ago, my parents gave me a Crookes radiometer. Although I did not know the official name of the device, I had first learned about them watching Mr. Wizard, and had later seen some in science classrooms during my jaunt through the public school system. The explanation I was always given of how it worked was Crookes’ original “light pressure” theory that was disproved back in 1876. Go public schools!

From what I can tell from the Wikipedia article, it sounds like the best explanation we have for why a Crookes radiometer spins is a combination of two theories put forth by Osborne Reynolds and some unknown guy named Einstein. They are both sound theories given what we know about radiation and fluid dynamics, but they, due to the nature of the object they describe, haven’t been (and can’t be) tested experimentally.
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Last Sunday, my inlaws, wife, and I climbed a mountain peak that we can see from our house: El Pico de las Nieves. According to the info panel, there has been some sort of church on the mountain dedicated to the cult of the Virgin of the Snow since 1356. The peak is 778 meters above sea level. The tiny little chapel is clearly visible from my window in Colindres. The church there is called the Ermita de las Nieves. Ever since learning about this church, I’ve wanted to take my camera up there on a clear day and take panoramic pictures. Sunday was that day.
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