“inside out there” >> 05.04.09 >> May 21st from 5 to 8 for Salt’s Spring 2009 Graduate Exhibit, inside out there.
Maine stories in radio, writing, and photography…
The show features images of my beekeeping friend Erin. The have a Facebook page for the show…
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Last weekend, I had my second “Bee School” class with Rick Cooper up at BEES-N-ME in Bowdoinham, Maine. Afterward, realizing all the stuff that I will need to put together for my first season with bees, I was feeling pressed for time and anxious to get to work. Fortunately, he had all the parts I needed to start building my supers and I filled up the back of the car with fresh-smelling pine boards.
hive wood at bees-n-me
I made the decision that I will go with all “mediums” to start out. This will mean that instead of two “deeps” (9-1/8″ tall) for brood chambers I will use three “mediums” (6-1/4″ tall). Rick explained that it was the amount of space the bees needed (about 20″) and not the specific configuration. On top of that, I reasoned that bees had been doing their thing for about 27 million years now and they probably didn’t care what we had arranged them (since around the 1860′s) traditionally in boxes. It also makes a whole lot of sense in terms of only having one size of equipment to deal with. The heft of the “Deeps” can also be an issue – as when they are full they can weigh close to 100 lbs. Not a fun size to lift repeatedly.
wood ready to build into a hive
So I got my materials all laid out to build and started to bang away. The hive bodies (woodenware in beekeeper parlance) that I put together come from a local producer called Humble Abodes in Windsor, ME. Viola, a beehive super put together!
completed medium super box
After that, I put together a couple more and stacked it up with the other stuff I had purchased from Rick. The bottom boards is a Brushy Mountain 10-Frame IPM Bottom Board (that means it has a screen for the bottom so the mites will fall off the bees and not be able to climb back up). The top is a bit of an extravagance – an “English Copper Top“- that is just a wonderful design. I could not resist. I am looking forward to watching the material develop a nice patina over time.
First hive completed: 3 medium supers and an English Copper Top
Next thing to start building will be the frames for the interior of the hive….
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Sausalito Team Wins Häagen-Dazs-UC Davis Honey Bee Haven Design Competition
http://entomology.ucdavis.edu/news/honeybeehavenwinner.html
The Sausalito-based Sibbett Group created a series of interconnected gardens with such names as “Honeycomb Hideout,” “Nectar Nook” and “Pollinator Patch” to win the international bee-friendly garden design competition, a gift to the University of California, Davis, from Häagen-Dazs.
sibbett group plan
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In October I went to an interesting talk at the Cumberland County Beekeepers Association. It featured a retired Biologist (and beekeeper named Matt Scott) who spoke about “Bee Pasturage” and had a slide show that showed a number of the different examples.
He also shared a number of publications that he thought would be helpful to beekeepers in identifying local flowers, etc..
What I found most helpful was this chart (below) that he passed out (and said was fine to use as long as he was attributed) called “Range of Maine Honey Plant Blooms” – basically, it is what honeybees want to “eat” and when they want to eat it, in Maine. I hope to be able to get some of this stuff planted for my first hives, this Spring.
What honeybees want to "eat" and when they want to eat it, in Maine.
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On Sunday, Feb. 8 (Tu Bishvat) the Little Lad’s Restaurant on 489 Congress St. Portland, ME is offering a free waffle breakfast to the entire Jewish community in honor of their becoming a kosher restaurant.
little lad portland maine's only kosher restaurant (so far)
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The New York Times: The Diluted Mystery of Absinthe starts out with a headline of “Care for an Absinthe? Ptooey!” which made me giggle. But the best stuff I must quote:
If absinthe were a band, it would be Interpol, third-hand piffle masquerading as transgressive pop culture. If absinthe were sneakers, it would be a pair of laceless Chuck Taylors designed by John Varvatos for Converse. If it were facial hair, it would be the soul patch. If absinthe were a finish on kitchen and bath fixtures, it would be brushed nickel.
and then later on:
You could say that absinthe is a kindred spirit of so many falsely subversive things: ear piercing for men, tattoos on women, those cigar bars, pole-dancing-aerobics classes, mind erasers, blogging about one’s bikini grooming, naming one’s bong after a cartoon character.
and tops it off with:
“It was lots of people who knew each other through the online absinthe community,” he added. (Like Chuck Norris ephemera and role-play games, absinthe has a big Internet presence.)…”
I hope it wasn’t just me who was ROTFL
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Naughty words in Google Maps here.
Which is funny, especially since is is my understanding that the satellite images are 6+ years old…
Naughty Words in Google Maps, Brunswick, Maine
…so I did a little more digging, and it turns out that the Google Maps are indeed old.
The Town of Brunswick has a GIS site (for tax maps, I believe).
It shows the property (23 Hillside Rd.) to have the graffiti on the roof in their Aerial Photo from April 2001.
Graffiti on the roof - April 2001
The graffiti on the roof is gone in the Aerial Photo of April 21, 2006 (or has been digitally removed).
Graffiti removed - April 21, 2006
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Though Consumer Reports had remarked about the Wolf dual-fuel ovens’ lackluster self-cleaning (model number DF304 – 30″). I took that as requiring just a little more effort on my part. I should have listened.
The images tell the story. There is just lots of stuff that will not come out if run throught the self-cleaning cycle. On page 42 of my manual it states: “Never use oven cleaners. They are not necessary with the SELF-CLEAN mode.” What am I supposed to do, live with huge black stains?
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Telegraphics – Free plugins for Photoshop & Illustrator…and other software: http://www.telegraphics.com.au/sw/
ICO (Windows Icon) Format
An easy way to create your web site’s favourites/shortcut/bookmark icon in Photoshop (all versions including CS and CS2), Elements or Paint Shop Pro (v9 recommended)
Popularity: 4%
famfamfam.com: Silk Icons: http://www.famfamfam.com/lab/icons/silk/
Silk is a smooth, free icon set, containing over 700 16-by-16 pixel icons in strokably-soft PNG format. Containing a large variety of icons, you’re sure to find something that tickles your fancy. And all for a low low price of $0.00. You can’t say fairer than that.
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Buy Local – Keep Portland Maine Independent: portlandbuylocal.org
The Portland Buy Local campaign has been developed by business owners and citizens in an effort to educate the public about the importance of supporting Portland’s locally owned, independent businesses.
We believe the Portland Buy Local campaign is critical to our community and our way of life. Locally owned, independent businesses contribute far more to our local economy than chain operations controlled by out-of-state interests. And it’s locally owned businesses that give Portland Maine its unique identity and character in an increasingly homogenized consumer culture.
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I saw the Matweeds, a Boston band, a couple of times in the mid-late 80′s.
The best time was at a Thayer Street loft party (de rigeur for Museum School types – present company included) I believe they played with the Gigolo Aunts (who are still around!). Pretty sure it was 1987 and that it was their loft.
Anyway, a song that they played that night has been stuck in my head ever since – especially the sax playing for some reason, and it pops up from time to time. So, today when the song popped into my head I finally googled it to see what the deal is.
According to this read-only page about the Matweeds, there exists a demo tape that has that song on it. The title of which (the song, not the demo) is I Can Feel The Fire. I had no idea that it was a cover, much less a Stones cover (kinda).
It’s a longshot, but anyone out there have this? I would be happy to convert it from any sort of analong format to digital, if that would be helpful. Anybody know any of the people in the band who might have one and be willing to make a duplicate? Anybody have a live recording of them?
According to the afformentioned web page (and some more google-ing), Richie Hughes and Dave Fredette (is he related to Stephen Fredette of Scruffy the Cat?) played in the Matweeds along with Dave Collins (D.Y.S) Jerry Lehane (Dogmatics and here) Frank Shacht (Last Stand) John Goetchius (Keyboards: Mighty Might Bosstones, Cherry Poppin Daddies) and Nate Bowditch – I think he played saxaphone (Enormous, Sorry). Also Jimmy Keough (link to photo of him performing by Anita L. Maffei) and Mike County.
Again, I know it’s a long shot, but what the hell.
You never know.
Thanks.
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iTunes-LAME
Trying to figure out how to convert the super-high bitrate FLAC files from some live shows somebody loaned me. Have been using xAct to convert to AIFF for importing into iTunes. The only problem is that the files are HUGE. I think this might be the ticket for squishing them down a bit. “The iTunes-LAME Encoder combines the simple interface of iTunes with the high quality of the LAME encoder“.
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Google Earth Blog: Bowdoin College Campus – A Google Earth Map Review
The actual map can be found here:
http://www.bowdoin.edu/about/campus/maps/earth/
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Are there any benchmarks on how fast ovens heat up?
I did a bit of searching online and came up with nothing.
The reason I pose this question is that I recently purchased a Wolf 30″ Dual Fuel Range (Model DF304) and the oven takes much longer than our old cheapo range to heat up. For instance, it takes 15 minutes to get to 350 degrees (starting at room temperature) and another 5 1/2 minutes to get to 425.
21 1/2 minutes to warm up a high-perfomance range?
Is this normal?
Am I overly impatient?
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I just subscribed to This Old House Magazine online and was greeted with this message after I checked out.
Subscriber’s Automatic Renewal Program:
You authorize This Old House Magazine to charge your credit/debit card or your PayPal account at the price above now and in time to renew your This Old House subscription, without interruption, before the start of each new annual term at the guaranteed low rate then in effect unless you tell us to stop. You may cancel at any time during your subscription by contacting customer service and receive a full refund on all unmailed issues. If your credit/debit card or your PayPal account cannot be charged, we’ll bill you directly instead.
I immediately called and and had them take off this “feature” on my account. To be fair, I went back and looked a the fine print in the checkout proceedure and that language was there beforehand.
In this day and age of identity theft, to have a major corporation hold onto my personal and credit card information for two years, just to auto-renew my subsriptions seems foolish. Foolish for me in the exposure to my personal credit, and foolish for them in that the cost of keeping that data 100% secure (do you think consumers would ever give them their credit card numbers if they were stolen en-mass?) for those 2 years has got to be outweighed by the risk associated with that. Perhaps someone did a cost analysis that proves me wrong. I just think you could figure out a more creative way to keep subscribers – without the risk to all parties. It is quite easy – have good product.
Also, I still think it is an obnoxious business practice.
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How to do the Math with Google Earth Pallete Icons. How to select icons for your Google Earth map.
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Media Juster BBEdit HTML Plugins V1.20
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Lightbox JS
Lightbox JS
Lightbox JS is a simple unobtrusive script used to to overlay images on the current page. It’s a snap to setup and works on all modern browsers.
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How to turn your dual-monitor PC into a dual mac-PC system, from Lifehacker
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