Up in the Intrepid

Hello, readers! It has been many a moon since Simon & Ivan put up a new post. I wish I could say we had been traveling to distant lands, investigating curious places, and documenting varied and marvelous sights with very expensive photographic equipment in order to report back on our wondrous adventures. Unfortunately I have just been sitting at my desk writing and researching, and Ivan has been sitting in her editing bay pondering important life decisions. Someday I hope to get her to post about her past and future wondrous adventures, but for now you will have to make do with my decidedly localized day trips, sojourns to not-very-distant lands, and moderately decent approximations of time travel.

When we last saw our heroine (this is of course how I refer to myself in my head), she had just been to Vermont in mid-July. At the end of July, she went back some hundred and fifty years to the period of the Civil War to take her first ever balloon ride. This should raise a number of questions, the foremost being, how is it possible that Simon had never been up in a balloon before? Sadly, this is unanswerable. The second question may be: what have balloons to do with the Civil War? I will tell you. Please proceed to the next paragraph, wherein I shall pontificate on this subject from memory and get most of my facts wrong.

Self-made scientist, inventor, and (apparently) inveterate risk-taker Thaddeus Lowe had been playing around with balloons for a few years already when the Civil War broke out. It occurred to him that they would be great for reconnaissance missions, and after pitching the idea to Lincoln (whom he impressed by sending a telegram to him from a balloon over Washington), he was allowed to form the Union Army's Balloon Corps. The balloon they used was called the Intrepid, and it made thousands of flights over the course of the war.

A hundred and fifty years later, someone at the Genesee Country Museum thought it would be pretty cool to make a replica of the Intrepid and let people go up in it. This person deserves a medal. Not only is it pretty cool, it is quite frankly the coolest thing in the entire world. I was very excited to go up in it, and talked about it for nearly a month beforehand. Almost without exception, the conversation went like this:

Me: I'm going up in a Civil War-era balloon!
Other Person: Are you insane?
Me: It's not actually from the Civil War. It's a replica.
Other Person: ::stares::

I maintain that you'd have to be insane not to want to go up in this beauty.





As you can see, this is totally safe, because the balloon is tethered. All but a few of Thaddeus Lowe's missions used tethered balloons because all they wanted to do was go up really high and see what was around them. Flying over enemy territory wasn't very helpful because the balloon was not filled with hot air, but hydrogen. It was very difficult to raise, lower, and steer.

Brief aside: I first encountered Thaddeus Lowe and his balloons in a Miriam Monfredo novel, in which Glynis's historically implausible niece Bronwyn makes a rather magnificent entrance by crashing a balloon in Seneca Falls. When I read that scene in high school, I thought it was completely ridiculous. In fact, it was entirely possible -- especially the crash -- but very unlikely. Thaddeus Lowe did not do much traveling by balloon, and certainly didn't use them as taxis.

You can see in this picture the gas generators that Lowe used to make hydrogen to fill his balloons.



Hydrogen is pretty easy to make. Lowe did it by mixing water, iron filings, and sulfuric acid in large tanks inside those green wooden boxes. A purifier filtered and cooled the gas before it went into the hose that was fixed to the balloon. Voila: the balloon was lighter than air!

You actually would have to be insane to go up in something filled with hydrogen. Wisely, they filled the balloon replica with helium. Because of the worldwide shortage of helium, the Intrepid nearly never got off the ground, but Macy's (the department store with a strange passion for floating things) kindly donated 50,000 cubic feet of it.

Deciding to go up in a balloon is all well and good, until you are actually up in it. I took this picture without looking because I really wanted to know what the ground looked like straight down, but I absolutely could not bring myself to lean over and check.



As my fellow aeronaut, R. M. Jurnack, Historian, Esq., and I admitted to each other afterward, we did not expect to be as unsettled as we were. Balloons move. That's the thing. You shift your weight and the balloon goes oomph garoomph. A breeze comes up and the balloon goes wheeeee! You become aware, deep in your internal organs, that you are in the middle of the air. All that's between your feet and the hard dirt is the floor of the basket and two hundred and fifty feet of nothing. I was surprised at how frightening it was, even while I completely loved it.

Thaddeus Lowe, who was in the balloon with us, was not bothered in the least. While Historian Esquire and I took pictures with one hand and held the side very firmly with the other, he chatted airily (sorry) about ballooning and what it was like during the Civil War. One thing that struck me was that the balloon was not, as I had assumed, out of the range of bullets. The Intrepid could be shot and often was -- but it could take a lot of damage and not deflate in a dangerous way. The danger was for the ground crew; bullets that missed the Intrepid landed among the soldiers below, making the Balloon Corps an unpopular assignment.

It was a very hot and sunny day, and my camera did not handle the bright light very well. My pictures from the sky did not turn out particularly well, but you can at least get an idea how small everything looks and how far you can see. On an ideal day, Lake Ontario is visible. (You can also see how little it had rained! I'll have to go up again when the grass is green and it's overcast.)





The terribleness of the photos does not convey the wonderfulness of the experience. It is the only Civil War-era balloon replica in the world, and it happens to be thirty minutes from my house. I feel very lucky indeed to have the opportunity to go up in it, and to be insane enough to actually do it!

New Posts to Come

Hello, loyal readers! Simon & Ivan will be posting again starting December 31st. Our new, lazier schedule means that new content (quality not guaranteed) will be put up every Monday. Because Mondays are terrible and why not try to salvage them as best we can. In the meantime, happy Christmas! See you again in a few days.

This Post Contains Goats (!)

This is a list of things I enjoyed on my trip to Vermont in July.



Quiet. (Please note I do not enjoy bugs, however, which is why there's a screen between me and this.)



Fresh eggs. (My god, they are beauties.)



Long paths. (On hot days the path can reach up to a mile.)



Quaint houses. (I don't go in for country-style wreaths, usually, but I like this one.)



Tea and cake.

Technically, these last three photos have been from New Hampshire. This one is from Burdick's in Walpole, which is a classy establishment that sells deluxe chocolates and fancy pastries and tea in funny tea bags. The tea comes in cups and saucers with CHOCOLATE and BURDICK on them which I covet because the font is SO BEAUTIFUL. They also let you draw on the tables. Here is the conversation Daniel and I had about my snail (which I drew upside-down for a perfectly sensible reason that I do not care to explain). Reconstructed conversation regarding the snail:

Daniel: Now, wait. Snails don't have legs.
Me: It's evolving.
Daniel: [a snort signifying a desire for table drawings to be scientifically accurate thank you]
Me: [a giggle signifying that there's no talking sense to me when I'm having tea and cake]



GOATS! I'm very excited that Daniel has GOATS! and perhaps will eventually have goat CHEESE! which is second only to the GOATS! themselves. They're friendly like puppies and even enjoy chewing on your fingers and being scratched. If I could figure out how to post video, I would show you how they like to stand on things and how totally awkward and graceless and adorable they are. Please take my word for it that GOATS! are fantastic.

Going North on 96

My good friend The Clergy spent a few weeks in Ithaca this summer, and I went to visit her in June. I didn't take many pictures actually in Ithaca, but I took a number on the way back. It's a nice drive, especially in late June, when long stretches of 96 are lined with tiger lilies. Interestingly, short stretches of 96 are lined with peculiar statues, including two of the same cow, one on top of a restaurant:



This one is painted more creatively, but don't be fooled; these are sister cows. I kind of wonder if the two establishments pooled their money and bought them in bulk. (Two is bulk when you're talking about cows.)



What's nice about traveling on your own is that you can stop in random places to take photos and nobody's there to think you're nuts. I stopped in the middle of the road to take this:



And also this. It was a really beautiful day and yes, I was listening to Oklahoma!, how did you know?



Since I had an entire afternoon to make a two-hour drive, I stopped in Geneva and sat by Seneca Lake for a little while. It could not have been more pleasant.



Just a bit south of Canandaigua there's a steel company that has a magnificently oversized suit of armor in front of it:



After that, I stopped at a farm market and bought some fresh veggies, home-grown strawberries, and Amish jam. As there was a Wegmans on my way home, I bought some crumpets, and had a very satisfactory albeit rather odd dinner. A lovely end to a lovely weekend, during which I accidentally forgot to take any pictures. The only photo I have is from The Clergy, who kindly photographed the old-fashioned soda fountain that we went to.



It was at this counter that a strange elderly man sat next to me, babbled for a while, and then, although I had tried to be as unfriendly as I possibly could, put his hand on my shoulder and said, "Have a happy Fourth of July! Don't rob any banks." I did, and I didn't.

The Promised Alpaca (with Bonus Animals!)

I have a daunting backlog of things to blog about. I will begin with the alpaca that I told you I would post about a hundred years ago in the golden days when I was a reliable blogger. This alpaca is from June, when I went to the annual Alpaca and Frog-Racing Festival in town. I'm pretty sure that's what it's called; anyway, those are the only reasons I go. Summer doesn't start until I've caught up with Meridian and asked him how he is.



Tolerable well, he says. He's getting a bit white around the snout, but he finds that age suits him. He has grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and great-great-grandchildren now, and he's pleased with all of them, except for Zenith, whom he's worried lacks direction. He's pretty sure the upcoming presidential election has been giving him angina, but until his agitation for ungulate enfranchisement succeeds, there's nothing he can do. He hopes the robot doesn't win, because he's pretty sure the robot will overspend on defense, and he's a pacifist.

The first bonus animal is frogs. This year there was a frog-jumping contest. Having never seen a frog-jumping contest in real life before, I was expecting to see a crowd dressed in period clothing (the period in this case being "Tom Sawyer") gathered around a circle of dirt in which about twenty frogs are jumping wildly in all directions, spurred on by the cheering of their captors, and in the background, maybe a little friendly gambling, and not more than two fist fights. But that is not how the modern frog-jumping contest is run. This is how the modern frog-jumping contest is run:



Two local frog experts, carrying nets for the safety of the contestants, let two frogs loose in the center of a circle. Because the circle is in grass, the frogs are nearly invisible. But our experts are keen-eyed professionals, and they are each assigned to one frog. When that frog stops jumping, as it inevitably does, a professional expert sprays it with a water bottle, whereupon it starts again. This repeats until one frog crosses the finish line. As you can imagine, the contest is almost but not entirely lacking in any actual fairness. A peculiar sport to be sure.

The second bonus animal is a three-banded armadillo from the Seneca Park Zoo. He is exceptionally cute. His name is Doug.



I don't know much about Doug personally, and the cold facts about his species are easily found on Wikipedia, so there isn't much to say. He's very adorable, but if I've learned anything from This American Life, it's that armadillos do not make great pets. I will, however, be happy to visit him at the zoo.

Circular

This is a true story.

- It's almost like you live IN the salon!
- Yep. My apartment is a sauna in hot weather.
- It would be great to live in a sauna.
- Everything would smell like cedar. People should have cedar houses.
- Maybe not, though. I feel like cedar forests would get depleted.
- Maybe just one room, then. One special room. It could be called . . . a sauna.
- Someone has had this conversation before.

For your viewing pleasure, or horror, depending

Hello, readers. I'm sorry I have been neglecting you. As you are all probably aware because I talk about it ALL THE TIME in every outlet known to man, I am working on another novel. I'm aiming to finish the first draft by December, which means writing two chapters every month while simultaneously editing previous chapters, and doing research, and then rewriting what I got wrong because I hadn't done enough research yet when I wrote it the first time. The amount of time this takes up is excessive and it's surprising that I still have friends. (Thank you, friends, for not stabbing your voodoo doll of me every time I say, "I can't, I have to write!") It has not left much time for blogging, mainly because editing photos takes too long, and photos are at least fifty perfect of what goes on here. I have a whole list of things that will need a post, but getting around to it has been difficult, and posting will probably be extra-sporadic until the end of the year.

In contrast to the rest of my life, work has been incredibly slow and boring. While this can lead to many dispiriting afternoons of clock-watching (Tuesday afternoon in particular is neverending, just like the song says) it has also given me the chance to learn how to use Adobe Illustrator slightly better. My recent goal has simply been to learn how to draw things, which is surprisingly complicated and requires a lot of practice. For me, anyway. I'm not so good at it to begin with, even on paper, so doing it on a computer is even harder. Which is why the stuff I made while practicing turned out to be really weird, and two out of four are aliens. I've never had much of an interest in aliens, so I can't explain that other than to say that when you're just playing with lines and have nothing in particular in mind, the life forms that come out of it tend not to be recognizably human. Again, this may be a problem that only affects me. I don't think Adobe Illustrator has a built-in bias toward aliens, although that would explain some of its more difficult features.

Figure 1: MOOSE

You may be able to tell that this one started with me just making squiggles.

And then I decided, what the heck, let's make an anatomically incorrect animal out of it!

To be fair, this was my first attempt at actually doing anything with Illustrator.
Also I've never seen a moose.

Figure 2: Purple Alien

I think he/she must be in the same phylum as Jabba the Hutt.

Figure 3: Alien so happy!

I don't know. I really don't know.

Figure 4: You . . . shall not . . . pass!

This one was legitimately work-related. There's construction outside of one of the main exits, and by "construction" I mean there's going to be a giant hole on the other side of the doors. Consequently, the doors have been blocked off, and it seemed like they needed an attention-getting sign. This sign has already been made by like sixty people on the internet, but because I'm a perfectionist, I made my own. (I'm thinking about how to construct a giant flaming Balrog to put in the giant hole once it's been dug. The sign for that will say, "Too deep you delved here, and woke the nameless fear. Please exit to Lothlórien. Thank you.") As I was putting this up a student walked by and said, "Haha, that's kinda funny." And I was like, "WHAT DO YOU MEAN, "KINDA"?" Kids these days are so hard to impress.

Other legitimately work-related things include:

Figure 5: How to use the library

This is for a web page that no one will ever use because they will probably never find it. But if they do, they will discovere this semi-faithful representation of Rush Rhees. Which took like ninety years because it was possibly the second time I used Illustrator.

Figure 6: Little Red Riding Hood

Last March, the semi-annual book sale needed signs to delineate the genres, so I made a bunch of these, but this is the only one I drew myself. It took eight hours and there were fifteen signs or so, and it didn't seem like a worthwhile use of my time to draw them all. However, I'm very proud of this one because of the strong resemblance the deformed wolf-buffalo hybrid bears to an actual wolf! So close! (This was actually made 3/4 in Photoshop, 1/4 in Illustrator, and assembled in InDesign. I like to do things the stupid and inefficient way.)

Hopefully this will tide you all over (because I know that when I don't post regularly you all start to look sad and gray in the face because life without Simon & Ivan is hardly a life at all) until the next post, whenever that will be. There will be alpacas in it, I know that much.

Transit of Venus

Since Simon & Ivan invented quasars and all, it seems only right that we should say something about happenings in the world of astronomy, such as the Transit of Venus last Tuesday. We should like to confirm that Venus did indeed transit successfully, but after such an arduous journey -- the second in eight years, which it feels is a little much to ask -- it took to its bed and refuses to get up again until we promise to make it some calves'-foot jelly and hold its hand for an hour or so every afternoon until it's quite recovered. When assured that it need not perform this feat again until 2117, it said peevishly that it should "bloody well hope not" and pulled the covers over its head.


The photographer wishes to be credited as "R. M. Jurnack, Historian, Esq.," for reasons known only to himself.

Monochromery at Linwood Gardens

Greenery at Linwood Gardens

Linwood Gardens is apparently magic, because every time I go there the weather is perfect, the grass is green, and I have a splendid day.

I've been reading a lot about the Genesee Valley lately, so it was nice to lay eyes on it. Although I guess technically I'm looking at it all the time because I sort of live in it. But it's hard to tell. I feel like you're only in a valley if you can see the other side of the valley. From your house. (If what you see is Russia, that means you're at Sarah Palin's house, and you should get out.)

Matt and Adam and I pondered whether these tennis courts were ever paved. Because if the ball can't bounce, aren't you actually playing badminton? But it turns out Wimbledon is played on grass. Who knew?

Greeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeen.

The green, it's everywhere! It's coming in through the walls! It's going to get into your house! Pave it! Pave it fast! 

I imagine French country estates to look exactly like this. You can tell just from looking at it that the troubadour is about to enter stage left. Unfortunately, he will probably start singing insipid French romances and we'll regret that we invited him.

This shot is poorly framed because I took it by holding my camera over my heading and clicking about blindly. Matt was kind enough to actually take good pictures for me, but I like how this one is all green, no sky, with just the pool for blue. Also, I don't know what that tree is in the top center, but it's perfect and I'd like to picnic under it.

For today, frogs

The top frog may have ribbited suddenly, right after I took his portrait, and I may have shrieked and reeled backwards. Beware: frogs are very surprising!

Pink Way of Delight

I walk through this every day on the way to the library.

Which is probably why my sinuses are trying to kill me.

At least it's a pretty way to go.

Speediator's Eventful Day at Work

I brought my camera to work, initially, to photograph the oldest living resident of the supply cabinet. People think that I go into work early so that I can get things done without being interrupted, which is true 85% of the time. But 15% of the time, I'm doing things like photographing old office supplies. Although my coworkers are used to me doing strange things (see later in this post), I did not want to tell anyone, "Look, I'm photographing these hilariously ancient paper reinforcers," and have them answer with, "I bought those personally in 1967, what are you implying?!"

They are high-quality cloth reinforcements, because the library is not a cheapskate. I know, because it's my job to order office supplies now, and I have learned that if you buy the good stuff it works better. This is particularly relevant to super glue (see later in this post).

I still do not understand what "Spee-d-ADA" means. Are we to understand that Ada is speedy? Or will people call you Speediator when you use these labels because you're so fast? Beware, Ada! Rushing things isn't always a good idea. (See later in this post.)

What really stole my heart is how the little matchbox container is designed to look like a tiny book. So library-appropriate. I cannot wait to read Dennison's new thriller, Gummed Reinforcements, published by the US Patent Office. It sure looks like a hoot! (No need to see later in this post, because we are there already.)

Later In This Post

I recently installed signs at the end of each stack in the reference section, so that people can see which call numbers are in it and what subjects they cover. They are very useful. When they stay up. These signs had to have magnets glued to their backs, and because I ran out in the middle, I ended up using two different kinds of glue: Loctite super glue for all the signs on one end, and Scotch super glue on the other. It turned out I was unwittingly performing an experiment, the results of which told me that sign-holder-plastic is not among the "some plastics" that Scotch says it bonds with. You could pop the magnet off with one finger. Which I discovered when two of the signs fell down and broke. So I took them all down with the intention of regluing them with Loctite.

By this point, the trials and errors of this project were beginning to aggravate me deeply. I had already glued nineteen signs, and when I say "glue," that doesn't indicate how I first have to flatten the magnets for a week under old Office Max catalogs and whatever books are sitting on my table waiting to be transferred. (This is what I mean when I say my co-workers are used to me doing strange things. "Gosh, you have so much work!" "Oh no, I'm just flattening magnets.") Plus, the necessary magnets cannot be ordered through our supplier, so I had to keep going and buying them and getting reimbursed. In short, this whole thing, which was my idea in the first place, was a huge pain. So by the time I got to the last four signs, I was sick of the whole thing and rushing through it. Which is when I did this, but with my skin, and my two middle fingers:

Super glue, it bonds quickly. As soon as I thought, "Uh oh," it was already time for "UH OH." Wouldn't you know, we don't keep nail polish remover in the office, and the kind they sell in the campus store is acetone-free. The health service wanted me to make an appointment and see a nurse, which seemed excessive, so one of my coworkers, obviously in a ploy to get another Tardis card, kindly drove me to CVS. On the way we ran into one of my student workers, a Star Trek fan, who pointed out that I could no longer live long and prosper. (It was suggested that super gluing Spock's middle fingers would be a hilarious joke, until we realized he just wouldn't get it.) Another coworker, hoping my situation would soon be resolved, said, "Cross your fingers! Oh wait! You can't!"  HA  HA  HA.

I was in fact amused that I had glued myself together, an event which I think we all know has been a long time coming. Most of the jokes made at my expense that afternoon were my own. But, you would be correct to infer from the fact that I had my camera with me and did not stop to take a picture that the feeling of having your fingers conjoined is mentally, if not physically, uncomfortable. You can't quite stop thinking about how the glue is stronger than your skin, and that if one of them rips it won't be the glue.

Although it took an hour and a half to get the acetone, it worked in about ten minutes, and I was free to return to my gluing project. However, in spite of having the acetone readily at hand, the trauma was too fresh, so I put on latex gloves. (We have latex gloves, and LBJ-era gummed reinforcements, but we don't have acetone. I'm not sure what emergencies we're preparing for.) A couple of people saw the gloves and laughed and said things like, "Better safe than sorry!" To which I would respond, ". . . Yup!" And then, of course, I accidentally glued the gloves together. I was not anticipating photographing that when I got up in the morning.

What this experience taught me, or rather, what the conversation with my coworker taught me, is that there are much worse things you could glue together than two of your fingers. I could've glued my hands together. I could've glued my hand to my face. I could've glued myself to the magnet. Or the sign. Or the table. The Original Super Glue website even has advice for what to do if you glue your lid to your eyeball. Dear god.

Earlier in the day when I found the gummed reinforcements I was looking at the back of it, and I thought, What on earth is Ada so happy about, she's typing on labels all day for Pete's sake. But now I understand. She was enjoying not being glued to anything. It's a good feeling.

New Love

Macrauchenia. Want.