…and for any catalog modeling scouts that may stop by.

Hands up! This is a robbery!

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‘bow in the forest.

‘bow on the rocks.

The outer rainbow has its colors reversed.

Then, as I was transferring the above photos to my computer to upload, the western horizon turned gorgeous with a big mushroom-cloud-looking sunset formation, with some crepuscular ray action.

Have a great final weekend of January! It feels like it’s almost 2013 already!

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This occurrence is so common that I felt it didn’t deserve much more than a tweet. What I heard a few minutes later was, ironically, exactly that, a bunch of tweeting. It is fairly common for birds to be perched on my building’s antenna at dusk, but today there were so many that they didn’t all have a place to sit. And then I saw…

Flocking birds really must be one of the most gorgeous phenomena in all of Nature. The natural ebb and flow and organic rhythm of their movement is what ballet dancers mimic on stage. Up and down and left and right, all in perfect synchronicity, and…without a choreographer!

What I love most about flocking birds is that we scientifically minded apes, using computers, have figured out just how incredibly simple an algorithm is needed to create such a seemingly complex emergent phenomenon. I know, because I wrote a program to do it. And yet, none of the beauty of said phenomenon is lost by our understanding of it.

My ability to identify birds is almost as strong as my ability to identify flowers or mushrooms or insects in that it’s pretty much non-existent, so I don’t know if these were starlings, and could thus merit the awesome term murmuration, a word which came to the attention of internauts recently with that video from Ireland. My video is not nearly as jaw-dropping as the one from Ireland, but I was certainly mesmerized as I was filming it and the several times I’ve watched it since. I just wish I’d had a less obstructed view and a better microphone to capture the whoosh! as they changed direction in an instant.

As quickly as they arrived, they departed, leaving me feeling lucky to have witnessed their momentary aerial ballet.

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The house with the brick ground floor is the one that has burned down. I walk by it every day. I’ve shopped in the store to the left, but the building to the right has been abandoned with aging Banco Santander decals on it for the six years I’ve been living in Colindres.

Because of the weather today, the smoke is completely invisible from ground level.

But seen from above, you can clearly see just how much of it there is.

The house is totally gutted. No, I don’t know why there’s a bathtub on the neighbor’s balcony. It’s been there ever since we bought our house.

The neighborhood is filled with that thick acrid smell that triggers strong emotions in anyone that has ever experienced a house fire. My closest brush with a fire was when a dorm room at my boarding school burned down. No one was hurt, but it was a traumatic night, and the emotions are still vivid.

I hope everyone got out okay. Disasters are always sad, but it’s especially poignant when it happens on one of these days when Society expects us to be joyous.

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The Moon and Venus

Touching the horizon over the motorway bridge I can see from my house.

My nine shots in a timelapse animation.

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I have witnessed the festivities in Mondragón for several years. There is a parade through town with the jolly old Olentzero tossing hard candy into the crowd. The parade ends in the main town square, where children dance, songs are sung, and the Olentzero continues giving out candy to the crowds. Young people who have carried torches during the parade then light a big bonfire in the middle of the square. In some parts of the Basque Country, they actually burn an effigy of the Olentzero. From what I can tell, the bonfire is an old pagan solstice practice of rebirth.

A little complimentary plate of beans, with blood sausage, to go with my Rioja.

Nora and her Tía Marga serve a champagne sorbet that Tía Marga makes.

It looks like the party’s gotten out of hand, but really it was just me demonstrating the proper amount of brandy to put in a snifter. It should just reach the lip of the glass when it’s set on its side. Nora said, “Poppy’s wine fell over!”

Chocolates after dinner.

Nora was delighted to receive a toy ironing board and iron from the Olentzero for Christmas.

While I an generally against gender stereotyping and am 100% sure that there’s no way this would’ve been the present if she were a boy, I cannot deny that she really and truly loves her ironing board.

She kept asking people to give her some item of clothing that needed ironing.

She also got a sleeping bag and some mittens.

After going to bed at 2 AM on Christmas Eve and having an exciting Christmas morning of presents, Nora was exhausted.

Later we met up with the rest of the family for even more presents! Here she is opening a Hello Kitty dollhouse.

Playing with her Hello Kitty dollhouse.

Life is not peaceful for Hello Kitty in her house, as it is rocked by furniture-rearranging earthquakes every few minutes.

We had a great time eating, drinking and playing with our family in Mondragón.

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The full brochure.

The first pincho we tried was at La Marina Company. It was by far the most elaborate and special in a “you’re not going to ever make this at home” sort of way.

La Marina Company: Panacota de frambuesa con anchoas – That’s a cooked cream of raspberries with anchovies.

The presentation was gorgeous, but the combination of flavors was a little too bizarre for our philistine tastes. It came with a little dropper of Modena olive oil. There were too many flavors for my wife’s expertise in anchovy quality to gain any purchase.

A close-up of La Marina Company’s pincho. In general we were pretty displeased not only with the pincho, but also by the service. It took about ten minutes for the pincho to make its way down from the upstairs kitchen. By that time, we’d almost finished our wines.

La Casona: Suprema de buey – This “Ox Supreme” was described in the brochure as “Hamburger of ox meat with onion, egg and cheese”. After La Marina Company, our eyes were immensely disappointed when the tiny little burger rolls were plopped down before us. But wow, had hour eyes deceived us! The first bite had us both moaning with pleasure. The grainy bread, the tender meat, the sweet caramelized onions and the cheese made an excellent combination. Supreme, indeed!

It’s really not much to look at, but I could happily eat a dozen of these little treats.

Cafetería Colón: Hamburguesa de potro a la barbacoa – “What’s potro?”, I asked my wife. “Baby horse”, she replied. Whoa! Well, this is the place that had kangaroo meat in 2009. The ingredients listed were: sweet roll, colt meat, tomato, onion, garlic, pepper, parsley and barbecue sauce.

Like most foods with barbecue sauce, the sauce completely overwhelmed any other flavors, making this a very boring pincho to eat. The potato chips on the side did little to make it any more special. I’d certainly never have guessed that it was foal meat. It was a big let down after the previous hamburger in La Casona.

La Abadía: Destinos Pejinos – Apparently pejino is a local word meaning “a humble resident of coastal Cantabria”, so the title translates to “humble Cantabrian destinations”. Indeed, the primary ingredient was respigos, a local winter delicacy. The ingredients were listed as: pastry toast with cumin and respigos.

Visually, it looks like something your sick cat might leave on the carpet, but it was quite tasty in a humble, healthy sort of way. I didn’t care much for the “pastry toast” on the bottom; it reminded me of a bland granola bar.

The second night, we went to El Concept, but they were out of pinchos, and had enough business so that they didn’t really give a damn. Boo!

El Somera: Guiso de jabalí al chocolate – The name means “wild boar stew with chocolate”, and sure enough, that’s what it was. Unfortunately, for cost saving motives, there were a lot of potatoes, and very few chunks of boar meat. I must say, however, that I was impressed.

The little bowls were lovely. It definitely took second place away from La Albadía’s respigos.

A bore eating boar.

El Guti: Hamburguesita de ternera con salsa de queso y su guarnición – The title means “Little beef hamburger with cheese sauce and garnish”. The meat was fantastic, and the potatoes were fresh out of the frying pan.

The little burger looks insignificant, but the taste was powerful. I think it just barely edged out El Somera for second place.

Conclusion

Of the six pinchos we tried, I would rank them as follows:

1. La Casona – Definitely the best tasting pincho of all, despite presentation.
2. El Guti – Excellent flavor, though simple presentation.
3. El Somera – Wonderfully warm stew, with a slightly sweet chocolate tone.
4. La Albadía – Very hearty and healthy, but nothing spectacular.
5. Cafetería Colón – Too much sauce, but a decent snack.
6. La Marina Company – A lot of work put into preparation, but a very eccentric taste.

So concludes this year’s Pincho Week. I hope to do much better than a 33.3% sample size next year. ¡Hasta entonces! Until then!

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The immense irony of the situation being that they are dressed as shepherds and need shepherding themselves.

It took me a while to spot my daughter. She’s the one at the back with the grandma scarf on.

That one.

The “everyone hold onto a rope with loops tied in it” trick is what makes such an excursion remotely feasible.

My little old lady.

The Nativity Scene

I encourage you to check out the detail in the large version.

There was a “moon” in the sky. Also, sometimes there was lightning and thunder.

Many of the characters were animatronic, the fires were flickering, the water flowed, the windmill spun, and one house had smoke emanating from the chimney.

The star of the show.

The magi arrive from the east, one on camel, one on an elephant, and one on a horse.

The house with the smoke had lamps inside, a kitty on the deck, and a sow nursing piglets in the yard. You can see the blurred windmill in the background.

I struggle to imagine the number of hours of detailed work that went into this nativity scene. I was very impressed.

A group photo. Nora seemed content walking to the church with her friends, but as soon as she saw me, the balance of desires swung hard towards her needing to be with me holding my hand at all times. I was the only parent there, and she was the only child crying.

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Drinkin’ mah coffee.

It’s cute to watch her make bilingual mistakes. It’s rare that she attempts a direct translation from one language to another, but when it happens sometimes it can go wrong. I remember when I learned Spanish, I had great difficulty with the words “todavía” (still) and “ya” (already), particularly as they were combined with “no” to form phrases: ya no = not anymore; todavía no = not yet. I know I’m not the only one who gets confused by this, because Spaniards make the same mistakes going the other way. Anyway… That was a long preface to tell you that the other day Nora said “already no” when she meant to say “not anymore”, which I found cute.

One weekend this month the weather was really horrendous and we had no plans, so we spent most of Saturday and Sunday at home. At one point when we were bored and getting on each others’ nerves a little, my wife suggested we play with the Wii, which, like most gaming consoles, sits dormant after the initial novelty wore off. The only game we thought Nora might have any shot at playing was Wii Bowling. We set up a “three person with two remotes” game, with me and Nora going first and third with one remote, and with her mother bowling second. We explained to Nora how she had to hold down the button, swing her arm, and then release the button at the end of the swing. It was pretty complicated holding her finger on the button, swinging her arm, and pulling her finger off the button to demonstrate. About her third turn, her mother said, “Why doesn’t Nora use my remote instead?” I said, “No, that won’t work since we set up the game for her player to use my remote.” To which she repeated, “Why doesn’t Nora use my remote instead?” Aaaahh, yes! An excellent idea. So for the rest of the afternoon, we bowled with Nora swinging her mother’s remote while I, seated on the sofa with my remote hanging out of sight, flicked my wrist in time with Nora’s flailing. It worked perfectly. A little too perfectly, in fact, as Nora won almost every game. No matter what I did when playing for my character (Nora made me stand up and do it properly), I could never best the wrist flick that was controlling Nora’s ball.

Nora has begun a strange habit of asking for things with a negative question. For instance, rather than ask, “May I have a cookie?” she’ll say, “I can’t have a cookie, can I?” Rhetorically, it’s a terrible way to achieve your objectives. “You won’t hire me, will you?” isn’t going to advance your career. Negated boolean questions are also annoying because no one is ever clear what “yes” and “no” mean in response to them. The social norm is for “yes” as a response to “I can’t take my tricycle to the park, can I?” does not mean “That’s correct”, but it means, “That’s not true; yes, you can take your tricycle to the park.” It’s just confusing. Perhaps a case could be made that playing the poor “I never get what I want…” victim could be a potentially successful strategy, but it’s certainly not something I’d want to encourage. I suspect it’s just a phase, but it’s a strange one. Here it is in action:

Several weeks ago, at a local bar, the bartender gave her some chocolate euros, disc-shaped chocolates wrapped in foil to look like big 1€ coins. With no subsequent mention of them at all, weeks afterwards, she had some coins – she asks for money before she pretends to “go to work” in “her office” so that she can bring back the coins afterwards having “earned money at work” – and she started prying at them saying, “Let’s see what’s inside!” It took me several minutes to realize that she was referencing the chocolate euro coins from weeks earlier.

My two year old loves bar hopping. Often, as mentioned above, she will suggest we go in a bar that we walk past. She likes them because there are stools to climb on, flashing slot machines to bang on, and the bartenders often give her a little piece of bread or candy or something. I don’t need much of a push to enter a bar for a glass of wine, so she can be a dangerous influence on me. It sure is cute, though, when she says, “Let’s go to another bar!”

I’ve been trying to get her to apologize when she does something bad by accident, but it’s not going very well. She knows what to say when I prompt her, “What do you say?”, but with no prompting, she never initiates the apology herself. Today she did for the first time, but said the wrong thing. She said, “Poppy, I stepped on you by accident. It’s okay, I forgive you.” Hmmm…

As we finish out 2011, the state of the offspring is strong!

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To the geometrymobile!

This is the composite photo, taken by Letian Wang in Beijing, China, on December 10, 2011, that originally sparked my interest. You can see that the radius of the Earth’s shadow is slightly greater than the Moon’s diameter.

First of all we need to define what we mean by “shadow”.

For the purposes of this post and subsequent calculations, we will only be dealing with the umbra, the dark bit where no direct sunlight hits the moon. We will be ignoring the indirect sunlight that is refracted through the Earth’s atmosphere during an eclipse, bathing the lunar surface in reddish hue.

Okay, let’s do some math!

Here we can see the relationship between the radius of the umbra to all the distances involved. Do I even have to mention that the diagram is not to scale?

If we draw two more lines, we get two congruent right triangles.

Since we know they are congruent, we know their sides are proportional and can write the following equation:

…which we can solve for the radius of the umbra:

When we plug in the values for the radii of the sun and Earth, we get:

Over time, with the two elliptical orbits involved, both the numerator and the denominator of our distance ratio vary. The ratio of the distance from the Earth to the Moon (d_moon) to the distance from the sun to the Earth (d_earth) is at its maximum when the Moon is at its apogee and the Earth is at its perigee (we are ignoring the likelihood of these two extremes coinciding, of course).

The ratio is at its minimum when the Moon is at its perigee and the Earth is at its apogee.

When we plug these back into our bigger equation, we discover that the radius of the Earth’s shadow at the distance of the moon varies from 4479 km to 4735 km, or from 2.578 to 2.725 moon radii.

To visualize this, let’s look at the minimum and maximum shadow sizes compared to the Moon.

Not a very big difference, I think you’ll agree. We did, however, answer our question.

At least now astrophotographer and artist Laurent Laveder will know the range of sizes for his hoops for his incredible lunar eclipse photography.

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