The Emperor’s New Mind

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“According to quantum mechanics, any two electrons must necessarily be completely identical. […] This is not merely to say that there is now way of telling the particles apart: the statement is considerably stronger than that. If an electron in a person’s brain were to be exchanged with an electron in a brick, then the state of the system would be exactly the same state as it was before, not merely indistinguishable from it! […] What distinguishes the person from his house is the pattern of how his constituents are arranged, not the individuality of the constituents themselves.”

—The Emperor’s New Mind by Roger Penrose

Handrails

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When we built our home in 1986 we decided we did not want railings on the stairs. We liked the clean, open lines of the stairs and figured we were smart enough to avoid falling off. The upstairs is mostly my domain and I go up and down many times every day.

I recently decided it was time for some handrails. Just something to hold on to when going up and down. I reached out (once again) to artist/machinist Andy Cain and he came through.

These will look even better when painted.

Lost gas cap found

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This is one of those “I left my phone/coffee/purse/baby on top of my car and drove 10 miles without it falling off” stories.

Couple of months back I forgot to put the gas cap back after filling up the pickup and drove home.

When I discovered it was missing I went back to the convenience store but if anyone found it they hadn’t turned it in. So I purchased a “universal” cap because there was no way to replace the original which had been on the truck since 1977.

Yesterday my neighbor flagged me down and held up a gas cap asking, “Is this yours?” He had been raking gravel from his yard back into the road and discovered my gas cap. It somehow remained balanced on the bed of the truck for five miles of turns and hills and only our steep, bumpy gravel road shook it off.

Powerful forces at work here, friends. I’ll come up with some sort of chain to insure this doesn’t happen again. Minty Fresh is once again perfect.

UPDATE: I replaced earlier image with the one above.

Riley: Two days

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We’ve been a one dog home for the last nine months and have spent much of the last six months searching for a Golden Retriever puppy. After a couple of set-backs, we think Riley  has arrived. Not home yet but in the world.

The photos below are of Bimini and Coconut with their two-day-old litters. (Not sure which is which but it doesn’t matter) Nine puppies in each litter. Bimini has six males and three females; Coconut four females and five males. All healthy and doing great. So Riley in one of these two photos.

Can’t tell much at this point but I’m sure we’ll get more photos. So, sometime around the middle of May Riley will join our family.

Just look for the red Buddha

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We live at the end of a gravel road, at the top of a hill. I can’t imagine living anywhere else. Not all of our neighbors agree, but mostly only those that would like to sell and move, so…

Most of us don’t have house numbers (on the house) rather some kind of sign out by the road. Today I upgraded ours with a little color. Before/after pics so you can see the scale better (The log is about 30 inches high).

This will look much nicer when Barb’s flowers start blooming.

“Entirely practical”

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“This is the sort of vehicle that most of us need, one that is entirely practical… there is no carrying about of weight more or less uselessly devoted to fashionable appearance and not really essential luxury.” — The Autocar (1948)

Came across the quote above in a magazine. True in 1948, less so today (okay, not at all). I’ve been driving mine almost daily for seven months and still having a blast. More Rover love:

“Perfectly reasonable people seem to take leave of their senses upon first meeting a Land Rover. It is less a car than a state of mind. Its owners are the most partisan group imaginable and its would-be owners are legion.” — David E. Davis, Car and Driver

“Yes, it’s loud, and rough, and slow, and unreliable. Yes, the Jeep Wrangler is better than the Defender in every objective way. But that’s the point of the Defender: it’s unique. It’s special. It’s unusual. The Jeep Wrangler is for people who leave their dealership license plate frame on. For people who drive past six gas stations to get to a Texaco two miles from their house because gas there is three cents cheaper.” (Jalopnik)

When bumpers really bumped

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Several months ago I bought an old (’77) pickup truck. Just for fun and hauling stuff. Like me, it’s a little beat up.

While stopped at an intersection today, waiting for the light to change, I got a little bump from the car behind me. (A Hyundai, I think.) In my mirror I saw the woman making cringing “I’m sorry” signs so I just smiled, waved and drove on. Don’t know if it did any damage to her plastic car (and don’t much care since she wasn’t hurt). It was just a nudge but who knows how much damage it would have done had I been in a ‘nice’ car.