p i x e l s c r i b b l e s – Page 47 – the thoughts and experiences of Heather Meadows

The real issue with swine flu/H1N1 flu/whatever’s PC now

The main reason health officials are worried about H1N1 is not because it is somehow deadlier than other flus. The flu is pretty deadly. It kills around the same number of Americans each year as car accidents. That’s why we have flu vaccines; we try to predict which flu strain will be the most common and then prepare ourselves for it.

The issue with swine flu is that we don’t yet have a vaccine. We had no idea it was coming, so we were unprepared. As with any other flu, people who are very old, very young, and who have health conditions are the most at risk of actually dying, but anyone is in danger if they don’t take care of themselves.

Because we weren’t prepared for this, there’s more of a chance that it will affect more people. And the more people who end up sick, the harder it is for the nation to go about its business. If no one at a certain factory is able to work, for example, that’s a huge hit to that company and to all the other companies that depend on it. If police, firemen, doctors, and/or nurses get sick, that’s a safety issue. We need to have enough healthy, well people in our society to function.

So you can stop worrying about dying from swine flu. Instead, worry about staying healthy. Wash your hands and encourage others to. Eat right, get enough rest. And don’t let fear of the flu cripple your life.

Chocolate Gateau

And Wes.

Thai Chicken Salad

At the "new" White Elephant. It has three pieces of tempura-fried chicken and a glob of mango sorbet.

Funny

Occasionally a newspaper employee will joke that all local TV stations do is read that day’s newspaper on air. This is silly for a couple of reasons. First of all, all news organizations read/watch each other for tips. They’d be stupid not to. There are plenty of times that TV breaks the story first. This was true even before the web.

But what makes this joke a little dangerous is the fact that it ignores a perhaps uncomfortable truth: all local news organizations make heavy use of Associated Press content. So sure, TV might have repackaged an AP story for air. But how many newspaper stories are copy-and-pasted from the AP wire?

This post contains the opinion of Heather Meadows and no one other than Heather Meadows. The above should not be construed as the perspective or conclusions of anyone but Heather Meadows. Heather Meadows!

Where is all my time?

This week has been both the longest and the shortest in recent memory. Laborious things drag out and fun things fly by–or I don’t find the time to do them at all. I’ve been wanting to post on various topics for quite some time, but I’ve barely even turned on my laptop this week. Last night I finally pulled her out of standby, only to lie down to stretch my neck for a minute and then find myself waking up blearily at 4 am.

I’m not discouraged–yet–but I am irritated.

Wanted: Entry-level digital SLR recommendations

I’ve grown increasingly unhappy with the quality of my digital photos. I feel that I could be doing so much more if I had a camera with more manual options. I think I’m ready to move to an SLR.

Even though I’ve been taking pictures since I was a teenager, I’m a novice when it comes to camera use. I don’t want to go out and spend several thousand dollars on a camera without knowing what features I want. Instead, I’d like to buy a gateway camera, something that I can use to get my feet wet in “real” photography. I’d like to spend a few hundred.

Anyone have recommendations?

Stay away from the farm: Swine flu

If you’ve been sick recently, doubtless someone has joked, “Maybe it’s swine flu!” The name may be funny, but the issue is serious. The virus is spreading and has already killed.

While it probably started in pigs, it’s obviously moving human to human now. So while avoiding pigs and birds is a no-brainer, there are other things you’ll want to do as well. Wash your hands, take your vitamins, try not to touch your mouth or nose, and stay away from sick people if you can. Make sure you’re getting enough sleep, eating healthily, and exercising. If you do get sick, don’t go to school or work. There is no vaccine, so be careful!

Here’s some general information about the outbreak.

Here’s some general information about swine flu from the CDC.

Here’s more specific information about the current outbreak from the CDC.

Here’s the CDC’s main page about swine flu, with links to more resources.

Here’s an interactive map of locations where swine flu has been reported and confirmed.

And here’s a dose of reality. Do some research before you freak out! Remember, you can’t get swine flu from eating pork–it’s a flu virus. Just do what you would normally do to avoid getting sick, and pay attention to whether or not swine flu has been reported in your area.

The Best Salad Ever

Today when I got home from a lovely hour-long bike ride at the Greeneway I was in the mood for a serious salad. I immediately started pulling all the fruits and vegetables out of the fridge. A little washing and chopping, and voila:

In this salad:

spring mix
locally-grown, fresh English peas
1 locally-grown tomato
seedless red grapes
strawberries
baby carrots, sectioned
1/8 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese
a handful of celery stalks

I intended to use a packet of Berry Balsamic Vinaigrette from Chick-fil-A, but that turned out to be completely unnecessary. The salad was absolutely amazing just as it was. I enjoyed it at my desk with the blinds open while working on my laptop:

Chocolate Banana Bread and Muffins

A couple weeks ago I made chocolate banana bread and muffins. I promised at the time to post the recipe, but then never got around to it. This post is a product of my recent energy and motivation!

I got the original bread recipe from allrecipes.com, here. I made a couple of changes to the already light recipe to cut out more calories and fat. Also, since I didn’t have two loaf pans, I used half the dough on a loaf and the other half on muffins.

They turned out extremely well–moist and delicious! I brought the bread to work and no one could tell it was “light”.

Ingredients

1 cup margarine, softened
2 cups baking Splenda
2 eggs
2 egg beaters
6 bananas, mashed
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 cup light sour cream
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease one 9×5 inch loaf pan and one 12-cup muffin tin.
In a large bowl, cream together margarine, Splenda, eggs, and egg substitute. Stir in bananas and vanilla. Sift in flour, baking soda and cocoa; mix well. Blend in sour cream and chocolate chips. Scoop batter by 1/4 cup into muffin cups; pour rest into loaf pan.
Bake muffins in preheated oven 15-20 minutes. Bake loaf for 60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into center comes out clean.

More pictures of the baking process can be found here.

Flowers under the bridge

Near Hammond's Ferry on the Greeneway. What a great idea!

First ride since the muddy Canal

I probably ought to wash my bike…

The corpse of the premodern Japanese studies field

Frog in the Well posted about two classical Japanese studies symposiums, one this weekend and one coming up in May. They both sound fascinating! While I would love to go, that isn’t the reason I’m posting. I just wanted to spotlight the opening paragraphs of the announcement post, which made me smile:

Premodernists, particularly those who focus on history, sometimes feel gloomy about the state of premodern Japanese studies in the U.S., where a number of large graduate programs have shrunk, disappeared, or fundamentally changed in emphasis in the past two decades. Some of us have even been known to eulogize the field, as if the heart of our collective endeavors had already stopped beating. Is the field more like a rotting corpse, or perhaps a mummified one? Have we been subject to cremation, leaving behind only bone fragments to be buried in an urn? Or was the corpse of the field left lying on the banks of the river, food for the crows and source of anxiety for locals, known as “wind burial”? (Thanks, PMJS!)

Two upcoming events prove that the rumors of the death of medieval Japanese studies were greatly exaggerated.

Love it.

The original Terminator

So apparently the next Terminator movie will feature Arnold Schwarzenegger…or at least a CGI version of him, created from a full body mold taken when he made the first movie.

I’m actually pretty excited about this. I love continuity and cameos. I was only mildly interested in the movie before; now I actually feel like seeing it.

When we first started seeing CGI in movies, I was unimpressed. It looked fake and, worse, like it was drawn on top of the scene rather than existing in it. I could spot even the best-rendered model.

Around the time of the Star Wars prequels, that began to change. Watching those movies, I knew that most of what I was looking at didn’t actually exist…but it was all seamless. Nothing looked like it had been added in later. Part of that was surely due to more realistic modeling, but I believe the fact that the movies were filmed digitally also made a difference. After that, it started getting harder to tell what had existed tangibly and what had been created with a computer.

At one time, I believed CGI could never surpass stop-motion animation in terms of feeling real. Despite the sometimes jerky movements, stop-motion objects have always had a depth to them. You got a sense, looking at them, that you could touch them. But nowadays I am rarely jarred when I see a computer-animated portion of a movie, and sometimes I don’t realize it at all.

I don’t know if I’m just getting used to CGI or if it’s improved to the point that it looks real, but whatever it is, it has changed my approach to computer animation. Ten years go, upon hearing that a CGI version of Schwarzenegger was going to be in a movie, I would have thrown up my hands in annoyance and despair. But today, I think it’s going to be awesome.

Don’t run

I mentioned in my previous post that I’ve always had a problem properly pacing myself. Here’s a little story that illustrates that fact pretty well.

My first trip to Japan in 2001 was not a leisurely excursion. We were constantly on the move and we were always walking, whether it was to explore a certain area or just to get to our next destination.

In Kyoto, we spent a day wandering through the sprawling temples and shrines of Mt. Hiei. It was long day of hiking through the mountains.

Towards the end of the day we were headed back the way we came, so we could get to a trolley that would take us back down the mountain. We came to a temple at the foot of a long flight of wide stone stairs. I was feeling good. I’d made it through the long day and felt energetic enough to tackle those steps. And so I started briskly jogging up, to make the trip to the top shorter.

Our instructor Todd and my classmate Jason, both experienced hikers, immediately yelled at me, “No! Don’t run!” Startled, I slowed down as they explained: running up the stairs would take more energy than walking up them, and I’d wear myself out for the rest of the trip back.

I wasn’t sure I believed this was true. At least if I ran I could get it over with, and I might even enjoy it. Plodding up the stairs seemed like a neverending trial.

Still, I did as they suggested. It turned out that after that we had longer to go to the trolley than I’d thought. By the end of our hike my legs were only moving through the sheer force of my will. The trolley ride was but a brief respite, and soon we were trudging through the streets of Kyoto. When finally we stopped at a restaurant for a meal, I was so exhausted that all I could manage to eat was a bowl of white rice.

I wondered how it would have been if I had gone ahead and run the stairs. Would I have even made it to the trolley?

I realized even then that this story was a metaphor for life, but until yesterday I hadn’t applied it to my work. Now I see that I’ve been trying to run from 10 in the morning until 7 at night. Some days I’ve managed it. Some days I’ve stumbled. And some days I’ve been numb while I recovered. The end result? I’ve managed to excel at work, but pretty much everything else has fallen to the wayside.

I want to do more. I don’t want to pass out before I even get to the trolley.

I’ll just have to remember, when the urge to plow into a project consumes me, the lesson I learned on that historic mountain.

Don’t run.