I find this fascinating...

You know that bats use echolocation to navigate at night, in extreme darkness, right? They emit a sound and use the echoes from the sound to locate and avoid objects, or to locate and catch and eat bugs or other prey.

But did you know that humans can develop this ability, too?

A recent article in Psychology Today magazine tells of some blind mountain bikers who use echolocation to navigate the trails. Amazing.

The article describes the basic process of echolocation:

To get a sense of how echolocation works, try this. Hold your hand up about one foot in front of your face with your palm facing your mouth. Put your front teeth together, open your lips, and make a continuous shhhhhh sound. As you make this sound, slowly bring your hand toward your mouth. You will hear the shhhh sound change. What you’re hearing is the sound reflecting from your hand colliding with the sound leaving your mouth. This interference turns out to be one of the most important types of sound dimensions we use to echolocate objects at close distances.

But this demonstration is exaggerated. The interference patterns used for echolocation are usually too subtle to be consciously heard. This highlights one of the most amazing aspects of echolocation: It’s rarely experienced as sound. Try using your shhhh sounds to walk slowly toward a wall with your eyes closed. As you come close to the wall, you’ll experience its presence as more of a feeling than a change in sound. It may feel as if there are air pressure changes on your face, an experience also reported by the blind (echolocation was once called “facial vision”). Echolocation is truly one of your implicit perceptual skills: It allows you to detect aspects of your environment without even knowing which sensory system you’re using. And it could very well be that you’re constantly using the skill to recognize properties of the rooms you occupy.

Fascinating.

I Will No Longer Do Business With Chase Bank

So in 2008, I was traveling a lot and not doing a very good job of keeping up with paying bills on time. I made a few late payments on my Chase credit card, which also serves as the overdraft protection credit line for my business checking account. They raised my interest rate to 21.99 percent on the overdraft protection portion of the account, and 29.99 percent on the credit portion of the account.

Since September 2008, I have not made a single payment late. Not one. Not only that, but I've paid the balance down to just over $1000. Yet two months ago, they raised the interest rate to 29.99 percent on the overdraft protection portion of the account, for no apparent reason.

I called and asked why. They said they were "standardizing the interest rate."

I asked why they didn't "standardize" it at the lower rate. They said that's just not the way it works.

I asked them to lower the interest rate on both portions to something more reasonable than 30 percent. They refused.

Why, I asked? They said they simply "don't have a lower rate to offer."

I submit it's because they want to suck as much money as they can out of the people who actually pay their bills, to subsidize the mountain of bad loans and speculative deals they made over the past decade that are now biting them in the butt.

So I guess they leave me no other options: I'll simply have to pay it off and cancel it, and take my business elsewhere.

I will also have to move my business checking account (they charge $12 a month for that particular privilege), lawyer trust account, and business savings account to a different bank. Why would I want to do business with blood-sucking bastards?

This is a little sad, because I actually like the people at my local branch. They are friendly and professional.

But they work for blood-sucking bastards, so I won't be seeing them anymore.

One for the Women

My little girl is growing up.

Yes (as you may have guessed by the title and the first sentence), her first period started today, just over halfway through sixth grade.

There was awkwardness and tears (from her), and smiles and encouragement and a rather long-winded explanation of the function and proper deployment of various pads and tampons (from me), and some stocking of her bathroom and her backpack with the necessary items, and some excitement about my little girl growing up, becoming a woman, developing just as she should . . .

. . . and then a tinge of regret from both of us about a childhood so fleetingly gone. As she phrased it, "Whatever happened to second grade, when I had nothing to worry about? Nothing! Second grade . . . good times." And she shook her head slowly and wiped away tears. I hugged her.

Then we realized neither one of us could remember her second grade teacher's name, even though we both could rattle off the teachers' names from Kindergarten, first grade, third grade, fourth grade . . . . Funny how that works sometimes, for both kids and adults. You declare it the best year ever and then figure out it was only the best year because you don't really remember it; you've forgotten all the heartache.

But second grade was a good year; I know it was because I remember most of it. It was back in the days when the boys could still be, simply, her friends; when the kids still had in-class birthday parties with cupcakes and little hats all 'round; when recess was still a time to hang upside down from the monkey bars and skip rope and play in the sand instead of a time (as it was by fourth grade) to stand around looking awkwardly at the boys who, suddenly, inexplicably, acted like they didn't want to know you anymore.

We pulled up digital photos of her from second grade. We found a photo of my little girl in her second grade classroom, wide eyed and happy and standing with her teacher, who was telling the whole class to wish her "Happy Birthday." Her teacher was wearing a name tag. Aha! We zoomed in to read the tag. No luck - just a fuzzy-looking smear where the letters should have been. I guess my digital camera wasn't the best back then.

We laughed a little about how we could remember all the other teachers' names, about how her first grade teacher had pulled out her first loose tooth at school one day ... and how her second grade teacher, Mrs. ..... ? who? ... had also pulled one for her...

It suddenly seemed the most important thing in the world to know this teacher's name, this kind and young and beautiful woman who now stood for everything that was innocent and carefree and wonderful about childhood. I dug through my files of old progress reports.

And then, laughter again. My beautiful baby girl - the one who, at birth, weighed just barely over five pounds and was so utterly dependent on me; the one who, when she was a few years old, looked at me with such sweet, loving, admiring eyes; the one who, up until fourth grade or so, thought I was smart and kind and pretty and the best mom ever, and wanted me to come visit her classroom - yes that beautiful baby girl - she had the gall to laugh at me for being such a pack rat. "Why do you even keep all that stuff, mom?" she asked, a little too self-righteously I thought, for a girl whose room looks like a tornado hit it.

But I keep these little mementos - the random progress reports, the school event programs, the science fair ribbons and soccer team participation certificates - for just these moments, when we need, right now, to remember a name, a place, a moment in time....

Wouldn't you know it? I had various mementos from kindergarten, first grade, and third grade, but nothing from second grade in my little girl's school file.

Tears welled in her eyes again, as she thought of the beautiful and kind teacher from second grade whose name was now lost forever from our fickle stupid memories.

And then, just when it all seemed hopeless, finally, success! I pulled the second grade teacher's name from the dark recesses of my brain: Mrs. Slattery!! And my baby was happy again. And I was, for one more shining moment, the smart and wonderful mom that she used to know. And we both smiled and laughed. And she went to bed content, if a little nervous about what tomorrow will bring, at school, with this new problem to handle.

And I am left here, sleepless, with my memories and with my tears for her vanished childhood ...

and, if I am honest, for mine.

I'm So Proud of Her!

My daughter won third place in her class at the Science Fair today. I'm so very proud of her!

I had taken my son to karate class while my husband went to attend the award ceremony at her school science fair.

He brought her by the class to tell me that she won third place! I hugged her tight and kissed the top of her head and told her I was so proud of her!

Meanwhile, my husband made jokes like, "When they announced that she won third place, I felt this really strange sensation, almost like an emotion or feeling or some kind, I'm not sure what that was... do you know?" "Pride!" she said, smiling. "Hmmm," he said, "yeah, maybe so.... or indigestion, maybe. It was strange, anyway." Or, later, "Well, that's ok, kiddo, maybe next year you can win first place."

* * *

Then later, my daughter came to me crying and said she was sad because when she told me about winning third prize at the science fair, I didn't tell her I was proud of her.

What? How do I get blamed for being the one who didn't say "I'm proud of you," when it's my doofus husband who is the constant joke machine and can never simply say, "I'm proud," or "I'm happy," or "Wow, great job!" Does it need the jokes and humor to even be heard? Am I going about this all wrong? Or were my direct and honest words simply drowned out in the sea of sarcastic jokes?

Save that for later analysis; it just doesn't matter when your kid is crying. I hugged her and told her I'm very proud of her. I told her that I did tell her before that I was proud of her but that I could understand if she didn't hear me - maybe I had hugged her too tight and blocked her ears or something, but anyway even if she didn't hear it or even if I didn't say it loud enough, I felt it, I'll say it again and again until she has heard it enough times, and I still mean it. I am proud of her.

She worked hard on that project. She did it all herself, and it was an actual experiment, and she worked hard to calculate and graph the results properly. I am proud of the effort she put in, proud of the fact that the final project looked great and was well-written, and yes, proud of the fact that she won a prize.

I hope she knows that now. I hope it sunk in. I hope she remembers it.

Next time, I'll have to say it louder, and more often.

Or maybe just more sarcastically?

Olympics Closing Ceremony

Did anyone watch the Olympics Closing Ceremony last night? I did. Wouldn't have missed it for anything. Well, OK, so I had to miss the beginning of it, dealing with kids and dinner and grocery shopping and laundry, but I caught that part later on the replay.

I loved it. My husband said it was "boring."

There was, of course, some ceremonial pomp and circumstance, with the athletes entering the stadium, the Olympic flag-lowering ceremony, the passing of the flag to the IOC president, who gave it to the mayor of Sochi, Russia, as the host of the 2014 Winter Games.

There was a choir singing, and a tribute to the Olympic Luge contestant who died in a horrible accident on the first day of the Olympics.

All of that was necessary, moving even, but perhaps not "entertaining" in the usual sense of the word. But in addition to the necessary ceremonial duties, Canada put on quite a show.

First, I must say, those Canadians cracked me up. They did a skit making fun of the now-famous glitch in the opening ceremony when one of the cauldron's pillars did not emerge from the floor and left their former gold medal speedskater Catriona Le May Doan standing awkwardly holding a torch, with nothing to light. In the end, she got to light the cauldron for the closing ceremony.

Can you imagine if the Chinese had a glitch like that one in their opening ceremony? I doubt there would have been a closing ceremony making fun of it; instead, it would have been an embarassment, hush-hushed, no one allowed to talk about it. Those Canadians, though - like the good hosts and good sports that they are - they brought it right back out into the limelight and encouraged us to laugh along with them at their misfortune. And gave Catriona Le May Doan her chance to light the cauldron after all. I love that!

Canadian-born actors William Shatner (Captain Kirk of Star Trek, Denny Crane of The Practice and Boston Legal), Catherine Anne O'Hara (Best in Show, Waiting for Guffman), and Michael J. Fox (Family Ties, Back to the Future, Spin City), also made me laugh a few times with their humorous monologues.

Michael J. Fox looked better than I've seen him look in a while. His Parkinson's tremor wasn't as noticeable as it sometimes is, and he looked stronger than he has looked in the past couple of years.

And you had to love the very tongue-in-cheek performance by Michael Buble, dressed in Mountie gear, complete with giant inflatable beavers and moose, giant cardboard cutout table-hockey players and a kid wearing what looked like a giant tire starring as the hockey puck.

And there were great performances by a huge variety of performer such as Neil Young, Nickelback, Alanis Morissette, and more.

The whole closing ceremony was a good mix of ceremony, humor, music, and a beautiful light show. Were there some parts that didn't make me go "wow"? Sure. But overall, I thought it was spectacular and fun and a fitting end to the games.

I loved it.

Post-Olympic Blues

So that's it, then. They're over. Done. Gone. No more Olympic skiing, skating, snowboarding, hockey, luge....

It was so fun to watch as the athletes, the best in the world, did simply amazing things. Skiing unbelievably fast around a tiny track. Performing flips and turns and twists mid-air on a snowboard or with skis. Ballet on ice. Sliding down a track at 90 miles an hour on a sled. And hockey played with the passion to win not just for your team, but for your nation.

I've had two weeks of the constant Winter Olympics presence, and now it's gone. For four years. It feels like a favorite visitor has left to go home. I'll miss them.

Just two and a half years until my next Olympic "fix": the Summer Olympics in London, in 2012.

SPAM inspirations

My friend sent me this:
Did you know that SPAM haiku
is now called SPAM-ku?

Here is a sample
(Far better than I can write
five seven five -- hard!):


Does SPAM contain tongues?
When you eat it, does it taste
you as you taste it?

--Chris Fishel, ctf2m@virginia.edu


Did that make you laugh?
Click here, to see many more
at this cool web site:

http://web.mit.edu/jync/www/spam/top_1-1000.html

A Spam Rant, and a SPAM Story

First, the rant:

Lately it seems every time I log on, I have a bunch of "unmoderated comments" to review.

And every time, most or all of them are spam. In the words of Monty Python's Vikings: "Spam spam spam spam...."*

I am so sick of these spammers!!

Note to spammers:

-- I can't read Japanese kanji. Nor Arabic. Nor Russian.

-- I don't need or want to call this number to chat or click that link to get that prescription. (I don't even have the "equipment" that particular prescription goes with!)

-- I don't want to invest my life savings with some numbnut who can't spell and whose best marketing technique involves leaving poorly written spam comments on a post about my grandpa dying, about how I can make "millons" if I'll just click on the link.

It's annoying, and it's stupid. Does anyone click on these links? Does anyone call those numbers? What are these spammers hoping to accomplish?!?

Oh, how I wish they would just go away... I'd wish worse for them, but I'm trying to avoid that whole bad karma thing...


On the other hand (as my Dad, or Grandpa Simpson, sometimes says before launching into a ten volume novel recited from memory)... that reminds me of a story:

When I was in college, my friend - I'll call him Scott, since that was his name - had some goofy housemates (I'll call them Jim and Martin, to protect the privacy of the innocent) and goofy parents. His parents once sent him a box of treats, and in the box were all sorts of wonderful and mostly non-perishable stuff that college students might enjoy. Things like homemade cookies and brownies. Boxes of cereal and Pop Tarts and muffin mix. Cans of soup. Packages of cookies and crackers. Chocolate. And a can of SPAM* brand canned pork product.

Yes, you read that right. SPAM. A staple in every college kid's kitchen, right? Plus, Scott was Jewish, so he technically wasn't supposed to eat pork products. It was very clear that his parents sent it to him as a joke.

It worked. His housemates laughed and teased him mercilessly when he pulled that one out of the box!

So, Scott did what any normal college kid would do. He waited until his housemates were in class and he hid the SPAM in Martin's sock drawer.

Martin had a sense of humor. So, when he found the SPAM a few days later, he put it in the soapdish in Jim's bathroom. And Jim put it in Scott's bed. And Scott put it in Martin's backpack so he'd find it during class. And so on and so on until eventually someone found a small box to put it in, and hid it in the top of Jim's closet.

The guys got involved with other things and sort of forgot about the SPAM.

Until months later, when Jim was looking for a winter sweater or some such, he came across the box and opened it..... "What the...? OH! The SPAM!!"

So, he did what any normal college kid would do... he wrapped the box and gave it to Scott as a holiday gift.

That can of SPAM made the rounds between those three guys for years. Every few weeks or months, someone would find it and surreptitiously hide it or (after they all moved away after college) would wrap and mail it to one of the others. Last I heard, Jim, who was getting a Ph.D. in Nuclear Physics at MIT, received a small can of SPAM as a birthday gift from his best pal across the country....

***********************

* According to Hormel's SPAM website, Hormel does not object to the use of the slang word "spam" to denote unsolicited commercial email (which it calls "UCE") (or, presumably, to denote unsolicited commercial blog comments ("UCBC"?)).

(Well, they might have objected, but as their website makes clear, that battle has been fought and lost already).

However, Hormel explains, one should spell the slang word with lowercase letters, and when spelling the name of the pork product produced by Hormel, one should use all capital letters, like so: SPAM.

Did you know that the original term "spam" to denote UCE came from a Monty Python skit, in which a group of Vikings sang an increasingly loud chorus of "spam, spam, spam, spam...." drowning out all other conversation? (I remember that skit, but I didn't realize that was the origin of the word "spam" to mean unwanted commercial messages ....) As Hormel explains, the analogy to the increasing volume of unwanted, unsolicited commercial email is apt - it certainly drowns out other correspondence. Same with UCBCs, I suppose.

***********************

By the way, if there are any SPAM lovers out there reading this (and I understand there are literally millions of SPAM lovers worldwide!), feel free to tell me all about how much you love your SPAM canned pork products. You likely won't convince me to eat any, but hey, one never knows.... perhaps I'll send a can of SPAM to the most convincing entrant.

And if there are any spam lovers (or spam writers) out there reading this, I don't want to hear about it at all. Just one word for you: DON'T! Don't read, don't comment, and especially, don't leave me any spam!!! (Nor any SPAM, for that matter).

Thank you. Enough said.

LegalMist's Amazing Super Bowl Prediction 2010

Once again, LegalMist has dusted off her crystal ball and will now predict the winner of this year's Super Bowl.

(Sadly, my Cardinals aren't in it this year - but my Aunt Lou's Saints are, so you'd better believe LegalMist is tuning in to the Super Bowl this afternoon/evening! I wouldn't miss it for the world.)

My Aunt Lou (see here for more about my "Aunt Lou") said that when New Orleans won the playoff game that got them to the king of all bowl games, New Orleans felt like Mardi Gras had come early. Everyone was celebrating, everyone was smiling ... the whole city just felt "alive."

New Orleans needs this. It still has not fully recovered from Hurricane Katrina. It will always be a vibrant, beautiful city, with much history and life to it, but Katrina definitely robbed some of its "joie de vivre." The Saints playing in the Super Bowl has restored some of that. And because they need it so badly, want it so badly, and are so happy to be competing in this most fantastic king of bowl games, surely the Saints will have their miracle and will win.

All of that is a very long intro for a very short conclusion - my prediction:

Saints, 31

Colts, 24


Happy Super Bowl Sunday, everyone!
__________

*
Photo by Isobel T on flickr, used under a creative commons Attribution/Noncommercial/No Derivative Works license.

To My Daughter, and Her Team

To my dear daughter:

I am so proud of you today.

You finished your last basketball game of the season with pride in your effort and joy all over your face.

You were born tiny - 5 pounds, 1.8 ounces. You have hovered between the 5th and 10th percentile for height your whole life.

You are the smallest girl on your team, and your team (the only team of 6th graders in a league of teams that have a few 6th and 7th graders and lots of 8th graders) is the smallest team in the league. There were games in which you were the smallest girl on the court, and the tallest girl towered over you by two feet or more. There were games in which the tallest girl on your team was about the same height as the smallest girl on the other team. Anyone would have predicted it and, indeed, it happened. Your team lost 11 games, and won only one.

And yet, I don't consider the season a disaster. There could have been tears, and frustration, and a "loser" attitude. You could have vowed never to play again.

Instead -- wow, what you learned this basketball season!

I'll never forget that first game. The girls on the other team ranged from 5'8" to 6'2". And they weren't twigs, either. Not a soul on your team is over 5'8". Your entire team looked wide-eyed and lost. You didn't know what to do, or how to do it. This was nothing like your team practices! You stood and chewed your fingernails and watched helplessly as the other team (Amazon women, I tell you - just huge!) shot basket after basket. One of your teammates saved you from a scoreless first game by making a free throw. I think the final score was 44 - 1.

But none of you gave up. You came back for the next game, and the next game, and the one after that....

And at each successive game, you all looked a little less lost, a little more confident, a little more capable, a little more competitive.

The heartbreaker of the season was the game that you lost in the final seconds, by one point. It was a close game all the way, but your team was leading throughout most of it. This particular team had only 5 girls - I'm sure they must have been tired by the end of the game, with no subs! - so even though they were bigger than your team, it was a lot more evenly matched. It was a fun game, but oh-so-painful to watch as the other team scored the winning basket just as the clock ticked down to zero.

But when you played that team later in the season, you won! It was your team's only victory, and oh it was sweet.

Another highlight, for me: You scored one of the only baskets for your team in last week's game against a bunch of 7th and 8th graders. I was so proud of you! How you managed to throw the ball high enough to get over that gal's arms, and still make the ball go into the basket, I'll never know. But you did, and it was amazing!

And your defense!! At that first game, the girls on the other team could easily walk up to you or your teammates and simply take the ball away, run down the court, and score.

Today, a girl on the other team tried that with you. She was at least a foot taller than you, and outweighed you by at least 30 pounds, but you weren't about to let her get that ball. No way, no how!! You held onto it as if your life depended on it. She grabbed the ball and pulled upward. You held on. She nearly picked you up off your feet. That would have been a sight, huh? Her holding the ball and you hanging onto it, with feet dangling in the breeze? In the end, the referee called a jump-ball, and your team got the possession!

Several times today, I saw you guarding the tallest girl on their team, and actually doing such a great job of getting in her way that she had to pass the ball and couldn't take a shot. Wow. You've really come a long way from the shy girl in the first game of the season. No more fingernail-chewing for you. Oh, no - now it's pure hustle and effort for the entire 24 minute game! Perhaps in recognition of your effort, your teammates even elected you team co-captain. How very cool.

There were some bumps along the way. You played one team - I'll just call them "team B" - that apparently thought they were a hockey team. They pushed and shoved and poked at you every time the ref's turned their backs. They body slammed your players, knocking them down. They called you all names and made mean comments and cursed throughout the game. It was so hard to watch as they literally caused three injuries to your teammates. Despite it all, your team continued to play by the rules, and persevered, and played as well as you could. You lost, as usual, but you won the moral victory. You didn't stoop to their level. And compared with the usual 6-50 or 4-47 losses, the 8-16 loss to Team B didn't seem so bad, really. I kept thinking if they would focus on playing basketball instead of trash-talking and sucker-punching, they might have beat your team as soundly as most of the other teams in the league did!

Your coaches, with the support of your team, decided to concede the second game against that team rather than subject you all to that again. But in the end, the league president called them to the mat. The Team B girls wrote letters of apology, and you all agreed to play them again. Sadly, you were sick and missed that game, but I heard that Team B actually played by the rules and were polite and kind throughout. Your team still lost, but at least it was a fair and fun game! And maybe Team B learned something along the way, too - they didn't have to cheat and trash talk to win a game.

All in all, it was a good season. The 1-11 record your team amassed says absolutely nothing about what you all learned, how hard you all played, the level of talent and hustle you displayed, and what you all accomplished this season.

Every game, you all gave it 100%. You improved steadily throughout the season. You learned the rules and strategies of the game. You learned to play good defense. You learned to take shots when you can. But most of all, you enjoyed it. Every game, you said you had fun. You never whined about losing, or about all the practices. You had fun with your friends. You supported each other. You cheered each other from the sidelines. You smiled a lot. You were a joy to watch.

I am so proud of you.

Love, Mom

P.S. Watch out, league. When these girls hit 8th grade, they will be unstoppable!