She's so sweet, she really is my dove

[austin_dern]

Hey, that mathematics blog? That's a thing, right? Here, enjoy that thing.

• Reading the Comics, November 23, 2016: Featuring A Betty Boop Cartoon Edition which is actually a Screen Songs cartoon that arguably doesn't belong in the Betty Boop canon.
• The End 2016 Mathematics A To Z: Local and my excuse to run some old vacation pictures
• Reading the Comics, November 26, 2016: What is Pre-Algebra Edition (nobody knows)
• The End 2016 Mathematics A To Z: Monster Group Any excuse to mention Futurama or use the word ``Brobdingnagian''.
• When Is Thanksgiving Most Likely To Happen? Not the 23rd of November.
• The End 2016 Mathematics A To Z: Normal Numbers with a description of the things that I so love.
• Reading the Comics, December 3, 2016: Cute Little Jokes Edition with no big blobs of text for a change.

Now let's step back to July and summer and driving up to the vacation home in Omena. Most of this is pictures of our pet rabbit.

At the Clare Welcome Center/rest area, several hours deep into Michigan but a pretty good marker between the inhabited lower peninsula and the vast wilds. And here are statues to the work crews that made Interstates possible.

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Peering over the surveyor statue. There is, in front of the flagpole and to camera's right of bunny_hugger, a figure holding that ruler that surveyors use when surveying to ... survey ... things. The point of contention and something bunny_hugger's father wrote the Department of Transportation about: is the surveying ... stick ... thing actually in line with the surveyor's scope? Shouldn't it be?

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Our pet rabbit given a chance to step out of his carrier at the Clare Welcome Center. You can see in his bin the cilantro he was too offended to finish eating. He'd draw a small but steady crowd of onlookers admiring how big he is. Also you can see how he struggles to get quite upright, given his hind legs' issues.

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bunny_hugger and bunny being petted. He really liked the novel setting, I think, and the small berries that I suppose we have to conclude weren't dangerous for rabbits to snork down like they were life itself?

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Finally, the house up north in Omena! bunny_hugger's parents had got there first and started setting things up. Here, we've finally arrived and unloaded the pet rabbit, whom you can see as the brownish blob taking up surprisingly much of the lawn, and probably some other stuff too.

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The dining room, which dominated my memories of the house. It's a really long one, the kind that can fit maybe 60 people and a stockholder's meeting. We'd fill a lot of it with Mice and Mystics boards and still have plenty of room for meals and miscellaneous clutter. Underneath was a trap door to the cellar that I tried not to worry about my chair sitting atop.

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Trivia: Britain's first iron-hulled gunboat was the Nemesis. Her keel was laid in summer 1839. The ship was launched in November. It ran trials in December, and was ready for service in the middle of January. Source: Compass: A Story of Exploration and Innovation, Alan Gurney.

Currently Reading: The Secret History of Wonder Woman, Jill Lepore.

Comments

[resonant.livejournal.com]

In surveying class, we'd aim the theodolite at a stick, then turn it and aim it at something else. We'd read the angle off the dial, aim back at the stick, and then aim at something else again.

After measuring the angles from the stick to all the points of interest in the area, we'd have the theodolite and stick swap locations. We'd then aim at the stick again, and turn and aim at each point of interest to measure the angle.

If you know the exact distance between the theodolite and stick, and you know the angles from each end to a point, you can plot it precisely on a map.

[bunny-hugger.livejournal.com]

This makes me so happy, because now my father can shut his cakehole about the statue being pointed wrong!

[resonant.livejournal.com]

Tell him that staff is used to mark the survey baseline.

You could have someone run around with a second staff to hold at each point of interest, to help you locate them if there are low hills in the way. However, if the points of interest are tall enough to see from the theodolite, then it's not necessary.

In surveying class, we would aim at the corners of buildings and various trees around campus, so we didn't need a second staff. If you were surveying low-lying things (exact position of drain covers), then the staff would help.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Now we just have to worry about keeping the explanation straight!

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

He can still talk about whether it was relocated in response to his queries, though.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

I'm glad to know this. When I was in grad school that area of campus was always being surveyed by students, but I never paid close attention to it since I wasn't taking surveying or any related course, and I wanted to not be in people's ways more than I had to.

[porsupah.livejournal.com]

Ye gods and little fishes, even for a bun, he looks so adorably snuggly, although he might disagree with the idea of me smushing my face into his chest.

Good to see he immediately claimed his rightful territory.

Underneath was a trap door to the cellar that I tried not to worry about my chair sitting atop.

On the other paw, that's a very subtle way of dissuading people from going down into the basement. We've all seen how that works out.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

He is adorable and you'll see much more of him in the next couple weeks. Photographs of him on the lawn were irresistible.

It seems to be the only way into the basement, which looks like it was for storing ... well, food, for the winter. Very productive. I'm sorry not to have a good photograph of it unless I forgot.