The sting

I have reacted in a funny way to those wasp stings. They got all hard and hot, not soft and puffy like usually happens when I get stung:

I also thought I would point out my oh so sexy calf muscle there, as well as the silly tan on my feet from my sandals that cancels out any sexiness of my calf.

Stupid Things I Do #1

This is the first in what I expect to be a long series of stupid things I do. Being #1, you could be forgiven for thinking this is the first stupid thing I’ve done. I know I seem like the epitome of perfection and wisdom, but I have to shatter that image and tell you that the only reason I started at #1 is because I lost count of the other stupid things I did long ago. But I digress….

I went out walking at the McFarlanes Hill nature reserve just west of Wodonga the other evening, hoping to work on my insect photography skills a bit. Shortly after I got there, I noticed a nice paper wasp nest under a rock ledge located about 3 meters up a rock slab. Even though I knew it was a dumb idea and I knew I was going to get stung, I decided to get closer and try and take some close-up photos. I moved slowly and carefully so as not to disturb them, and managed to take a few photos without any troubles at all – they didn’t care that the lens of the camera was only 15cm away from them. Then, for an unknown reason, they suddenly changed their mind and started attacking the camera lens. At about this time, I said to myself, “aw shit, this is gonna hurt”. And then they came for me. Because I was perched on a rock slab holding an expensive camera, I couldn’t exactly just run away, so I had to slide/scuttle down the rock, all the while trying to brush wasps away from me before they stung me. I was surprisingly successful and only ended up getting stung 4 times, but three of them are located almost right on top of one another on the back of my leg and have now turned into a slightly swollen, hot, hard mass that kinda hurts. Serves me right.

Anyway, here are two of the photos I got before they went all psycho on me:

The green goo in her mouth is a caterpillar that was munched up and passed to a few different females. In this photo, she is getting ready to feed it to a larva in the cell.

And, just so you know what McFarlanes Hill nature reserve looks like:

I’m Finally Mobile

Well, I bought that car on Saturday, and was able to pick it up Tuesday afternoon. When you buy a car in Australia, you don’t just drive it off the lot. It can take up to two weeks to get everything sorted out – Australians don’t seem to like rushing things (maybe not surprising when the most popular sport takes 5 days to play). Anyway, I am quite happy to have a mode of transportation that allows me to actually car something larger than what will fit in my backpack. Now I can buy larger things like a broom or vacuum or some house plants.

More car shopping

On a whim today, on the way back to work after lunch, I and a friend stopped at a car dealership to have a peek at what was available. Turns out they had a reasonably priced 2001 Hyundai Accent hatchback, which I think I will probably buy. I was a little leery of getting an Hyundai, because I have always thought of them as crap cars, but starting in 2000, their reviews are actually quite positive. Some people definitely get lemons with them, but overall their ratings are good. The dealer was a typical used car sales person – high pressure and always trying to figure out ways to get me to walk away with the car right that instant. I managed to knock $1000 off the price, but only after he talked to the boss, of course. Car sales people always have to go talk to the boss. Once I said I wasn’t going to buy the car right then, he said they would only be able to knock $500 off the price. But, I am sure if I go back, I will get them back down.

They are also willing to finance, and they actually have better rates than the bank. My payments are only going to be $75/week, which is almost what I spend on cigarettes. Since I am quitting smoking on Monday, I won’t actually see any difference in my net income. Very nice indeed.

I am heading up above the tree line for the next few days to help teach an Alpine Ecology course to park rangers and other land managers. I am looking forward to it because the daily high temperatures up there are usually in the low 20’s. I guess the collecting and teaching will be good too.

The 2007 Darwin Awards are in!!!

It’s amazing how stupid people can be. Read themhere.

I’m lazy

It’s almost 4:30 and I still haven’t put pants on.  I was going to go car shopping, but there were some thunderstorms going through and I didn’t want to ride my bike in it.  Also, all the car stores close at 1PM.  I would say I will go tomorrow, but even if the stores were open on Sunday’s, I would probably be too lazy to do it anyway.  It’s the weekend, and I only will do things I want to do.  Today, all I want to do is sit around in my underwear.

Currently Reading

I thought I would start to make an annotated list of what I am reading, watching, or playing.

Currently reading:
Phylogeography:
The first book on the subject of using molecular methods to study the relationships and history of distributions of species. This is an area I have recently become interested in, particularly since it can help determine species limits. Often, what appears to be one widely distributed, highly variable species can turn out to be a complex of reproductively isolated, genetically distinct species.
So far, the book is excellent and is written by the founder of the field. The examples provided, however, are often not adequately explained, nor is the math (although I have little math background, so maybe I am just stupid).

Mr Stuart’s Track. Haven’t started this one yet, but looks like it could be interesting. Stuart is one of the most famous early explorers of Australia (but don’t confuse him with ‘Sturt’, who is one of the other famous explorers).

Love and the Platypus: a historical novel about a Scotsman who came to Australia in the late 1800’s to determine whether Platypuses really lay eggs. I finished this the other day – it was absolute shit. Terribly written, predictable, and full of stereotypes. The only redeeming feature was some of the interesting notes on natural history.

The Path of Daggers (book 8 of the Wheel of Time series) by Robert Jordan. I started to reread this classic fantasy series as Robert Jordan died recently (before he finished the last book in the series, the bastard!). The Wheel of Time series is great, but wordy and repetitive. I think the best thing about the series is it is one of the first to really go beyond the trilogy format and provide a truly in depth world. The series ended after book 11 when Jordan died, but supposedly his wife is going to finish the last book.

Currently playing:
Oblivion: the Elder Scrolls IV. A great game, but graphically intensive. My laptop can’t quite handle the game, even at low settings. A person could play this role playing game for months and months and still find new things to do.

Neverwinter Nights: Another role playing computer game. It’s old (2002), but still one of the best and it has tons of user generated mods and an active online gaming community, although I haven’t played any of the online games because, well, that’s just geeky. One of the best things about NWN is it plays natively on Linux.

Currently watching:
nothing. I got a TV from a friend when I first moved here. Someday, I might actually bring it in from the garage, plug it in, and see if it works. Someday.

A busy week

Well, I was hardly in town this week. On Monday, I went up to Falls Creek to do some collecting in the Bogong High Plains. We were after one type of mayfly in particular, a new species of Coluboriscioides that is commonly collected as larvae but the adults aren’t known yet. So, we unsuccessfully tried to catch the adults and brought some larvae back to rear – which all died before we even got back to Wodonga. Coluboriscioides are very finicky things. We also collected a few other streams and visited one of the few locations where the vulnerable stonefly Thaumatoperla alpina is found. It only lives in very small (1-2ft wide) streams that are cold, clear, and consist of series of small pools and cascades. Most of the streams where it is found are not even visible because they are usually covered with vegetation. However, the fires of 2003 burnt the area and now the streams are exposed to the sun. We are unsure of the long term effect the loss of cover, but we expect it will result in the water warming slightly and we know the stonefly requires very cold water. A mayfly Ameletoides also occurs in the same habitats, and it seems every mountain area has its own species, but most are undescribed species and so no legislation can be passed for them. One of the aims i have while in Australia is to formally describe and name some of the rare mayflies so they can be protection can be provided if needed.
Many of the rarer aquatic insects and fish and rare because of the introduction of trout to Australia. The fish that used to live in the streams, Galaxids, and quite small and have small mouths, so they aren’t able to eat the larger mayflies, stoneflies, etc. As a result, these insects tend to act as if there aren’t any predators and just swim around in the open. The trout, however, are voracious predators and can easily eat them. If there are trout in a stream, the large mayflies are eliminated. There was some talk recently by the government to try and eradicate trout from some streams, but the public was outraged because trout are the most popular angling species and are considered ‘good’. They are willing to support the eradication of other introduced fish such as carp, even though they may actually be less detrimental than trout.

A quick pic of the Bogong High Plains:

And the effect of spending the day bent over looking in streams with loose shorts:

It looks kinda like a whale tail. It hurts.

On Wednesday, I went down to collect west of Melbourne to the upper Yarra Valley, near Warburton for 2 days to collect and attempt to get adults of another new species of Coluburicioides. This time I managed to get the larvae back to Wodonga alive, but the airpump died overnight so they all died – again. Stupid, sensitive mayflies. We also tried to collect adults using black lights, and we sat there until 2am, but no luck. I did get several other species of mayflies though, so that was good. I may go down there again in a few weeks and camp at the creek until I get some adults.
The trip down there was beautiful, especially when we drove through the Black Spur an area of temperate rainforest of mountain ash (not related to ash trees of the northern hemisphere) and huge tree ferns. That part of the drive is only about 30km, but it takes awhile because of the hairpin turns. There weren’t any places to stop to take any pictures, though, so you will just have to believe me that it’s beautiful.

I had a bit of a disappointment this week too. I thought I found a car to buy – a 95 VW Golf that looked to be in great shape, drove and sounded good, and was reasonably priced. I went ahead and signed a contract with the dealer, pending a mechanic’s inspection. The inspection revealed that the car had been severely overheated in the past and hadn’t been fixed,so, I didn’t buy it and now I need to find another one. I hate car shopping.

The next few weeks and going to be quite busy again. I am going up to the Falls Creek area again to help out with an Alpine Ecology course for a few days, and then the next week I am going to South Australia for several days. An then, in February, I am going to Tasmania for 10 days and in April I will be going to the tropics in northern Queensland. And it’s all paid for

Flickr

I finally set up a flickr account, although there aren’t many photos on it yet. I will work on uploading a bunch.

ciao for now.

Climate comparison

Because the drought is such a big issue here, I looked at some climate statistics for Albury and compared it to other places I have lived. The results surprised me:

	Avg Precip	Max	Min	Avg Daily Max	Avg Daily Min
Albury	737mm	43.7	-5.0	22.3	9
Saskatoon	347mm	41	-50	8.42	-3.42
Indianapolis	1013mm	41.7	-32.8	16.8	6

Saskatoon gets only half the amount of precipitation that occurs in Albury! I guess the important difference is in the average temperatures, since it affects evaporation so much. But if you look at the average amount of precipitation per day per degree of temperature per day, then Saskatoon effectively gets almost three times more water than Albury (0.38mm precipitation/day/degree C vs 0.13mm precipitation/day/degree C). I’m 99% sure that that isn’t a valid comparison, but it may be a (very) rough way of compensating for the effects of temperature on evaporation.

Well, I thought it was interesting.