It wasn’t hailing when I started…

It wasn’t even raining. In fact, for a brief moment the sun shone under the clouds and there was a golden glow to the world. The sky looked blue to the east, and I convinced myself all would be well. But the rain comes from the west. And before long it was raining. At least it wasn’t raining hard.

I was going up Rattlesnake, then taking the connector and proceeding up to Camino Cielo, and then down Gibraltar Rd. I didn’t know how long things would take… I hoped to get to the mercury mine, but that just showed how poorly I knew the back-country. Mike told me 16 miles total, and the 8 mile turn-around was long before the mine.

I know it can be bad for the trail to run on it in the rain (or right after the rain). I’m usually telling everyone else that. And here I was running on a trail in the rain. For a time I tried coming up with an excuse for myself. But I couldn’t. So I continued to run on a trail in the rain even though I knew I shouldn’t.

Stream crossings can be quite exciting when the creeks are in flood. And I didn’t really feel the need for that excitement so I took the route on the right bank rather than the standard trail; this alternate route has only one crossing instead of three the other way.

I’m not sure when I last did a trail run in the rain, and at first it was rather fun. Suddenly there were little streamlets where before there was nothing and every dry gully had a noisy stream running down it. The skies were lowering, the light was dim, and it felt that the trees were hugging me into their little world, just me and the trees.

Then the rain seemed to ease back a bit. I came out into the meadow and saw the clouds covering the mountains, and very soon I was inside the clouds and it was all foggy.

I think there is something glorious about running in the fog. Nothing is really visible, but you know it is there. Safe in a foggy cocoon. I couldn’t see the trail ahead, but I just kept going…

It was so foggy I could not see the dry falls (only they were wet today); they were hidden in the mist as I went by. The trail turns and (for a bit) follows the creek bed that feeds the falls and that was fairly impressive in its own right.

Then on and up to Camino Cielo, where I had my first GU, and down the other side on Gibraltar Rd. It was quite windy, here in the pass, and the rain had picked up again. I started to get cold.

My watch told me I hadn’t been running up very fast. Difficult terrain? More difficult because of the rain? Tired? Anyway I was a bit disappointed and I tried to pick up the pace on this nice downhill fire road.

I really was cold. My gloves were completely soaked and my hands were numb. I gave up on getting to the mercury mine and started fantacizing about hot baths.

When I reached 8 miles I stopped. I took off my gloves, hoping my hands would warm up if they weren’t in little pockets of cold water. I tried to eat a GU. It proved extremely difficult to open, my hands were all weak and could not tear it. Eventually I tore it with my teeth.

Then back up. Hoping I would warm up with the uphill running.

Didn’t seem to work.

I got to the top again, it was raining fairly hard now, and I managed too get lost in the large expanse where the ATVs have destroyed the vegetation. I was also trying to avoid the large puddles which had accumulated in the last couple of hours. I wandered around for a bit, climbing hills I shouldn’t have, before, eventually, I stumbled on the real trail again.

At 11 o’clock it began to hail hard. Hailstones were about 1mm in diameter, but the wind was blowing fiercely. After a bit I noticed that the hail was starting to stick — from a distance it looked as though the hills were covered in a light layer of snow. No wonder I felt cold.

After 15 minutes (or so) of hail it let up again. The trail was covered with ice for a while, but even after it started to melt there I would see little patches of ice, all the way down to the dry falls.

The fog had lifted, and this time when I came beside the falls I got a good view of the falls.

I was still cold, and my hands didn’t work. I had not dressed for hail. I considered eating more GU. I knew I should. It might warm me up a bit. But I could not face the struggle.

I hadn’t drunk much water either, but that didn’t worry me. I was probably breathing in as much rain as I was sweating.

It did stop raining. And as I headed down the connector the sun even poked its nose out for a bit.

When I got to my bike I found my hands were so weak they couldn’t press hard enough to undo the clasp on my backpack (key was in the backpack, had to remove the pack to get the key). It seemed I spent 5 minutes wrestling with the clasp. It’s a simple clasp, you just push on both sides and it pops open. But my fingers would not push.

Finally it opened.

Then I started struggling with the key. It would fall out of my hands before I got it to the lock. Or I’d push it in the lock and it would pop out. I tried warming my hands on my legs, but that wasn’t very effective. Finally I got it in the lock,

and I turned it,

and it stopped. Almost all the way to open, but not quite. I kept struggling and finally, finally the lock opened.

By this point I was worried that I would not be able to operate the breaks and I’d be forced to walk home, pushing the bike. Luckily the breaks needed a different set of muscles and I could use them safely.

But I couldn’t shift. I rode the 6 miles home in my lowest gear.

Lies

The advert on the back of the bus said: “Reduce your carbon footprint by 5924lbs — commute by bus.”

I was on a bike.

It seemed to me, that if I were to commute by bus, I would increase my carbon footprint, not decrease it.

Half a mile later there was another bus with a slightly different ad: “Reduce your carbon footprint by 4690lbs — commute by bus.”

I’m given two extremely precise, but quite different figures for doing the same thing. What credibility does this ad campaign have? Do they expect people to be so idiotic they won’t notice the discrepancy? I could forgive them if both buses read “… by 2~3 tons” — wrong in my case, but perhaps applicable to the average commuter in SB.

Maybe.

I’d like to see the basis for these figures and, of course, some explanation for why they are so different.

Lies.

Remember Kyoto? Well back then the US promised that in 2012 we would have reduced emissions by 7% below 1990 levels. Instead they are currently about 15% higher. Lies.

The Copenhagen “accord” says that the we must keep the global temperatures from rising more than 2°C. Yet the cuts on offer will (probably) let temperatures rise by 3°C. Lies.

At Copenhagen the US promised that in 2020 we would have reduced carbon emissions by 17% below 2005 levels (or, using the old benchmark, to 4% below 1990 levels).

(Note that after 13 years we are promising to do less than before).

Just how we intend to do this is unclear to me. The only thing I have seen recently is that in the state of the Union address Obama promised: Nuclear power, offshore drilling (um, that sounds like a way to increase our carbon footprint), biofuels (I have not heard of any research which shows that these actually do decrease carbon emissions) and clean coal (Sounds like an oxymoron).

Nuclear power has all kinds of problems, but it might help decrease carbon emissions. But even in that best of all possible worlds where there are no worries of using fissionables there remains the question: How long does it take to build a nuclear power plant? Can we build enough quickly to have any significant effect by 2020?

Offshore drilling is not going to decrease carbon emissions and it is reprehensible for Obama to claim that it is.

Even if effective, biofuels have the major disadvantage that they have increased global food prices, which leads to famine and increases global instability. Like nuclear power this is a dangerous tool.

Clean coal. Um. Yeah. If you want to get energy out of coal you must oxidize it, and CO₂ will be the cleanest result. Perhaps they mean a more efficient process. I guess that means fuel cells. People have been making with fuel cells since 1839 and they still aren’t mainstream. Research into them is probably reasonable, but expecting results in time to be useful by 2020 sounds unlikely.

No mention whatsoever of renewable technologies. Things that work now and don’t have huge disadvantages.

I don’t think we will make a 17% reduction in 10 years. I think it’s just another lie.

These things matter. Our children’s lives are at stake, my life might be. Please don’t lie to me.

Walking…

I woke up Wednesday morning with a pain in my right knee.

I don’t know where it came from, I don’t remember anything like that on Tuesday.

I immediately assumed I should stop running, and just do low impact things (like biking and aqua-jogging). Even biking hurt the knee. So did aqua-jogging.

This seemed very bad. I’d just (mostly) gotten over my last problem, had run one reasonable race, had signed up for a marathon, and then boom. I couldn’t do anything.

Biking hurt a lot. I decided to give it up.

To my surprise, using the elliptical was OK.

I tried walking, and found it didn’t hurt.

I ran across the street at stop-lights, and that didn’t hurt either.

Friday I walked 13 miles — my commuting, which I normally do by bike.

Saturday I ran a tempo workout and that didn’t hurt (and walked to pottery class, 6miles round trip).

Hmm.

I have just reread Three Men in a Boat, and recalled that when J., thinking he is dying, goes to visit his medical friend, the friend prescribes:

1lb beefsteak
1pint bitter beer
1 ten-mile walk every morning
1 bed at 11pm sharp every night

And to J. this seems quite reasonable advice.

A 10 mile walk every morning, to keep fit.

Now-a-days that seems such a lot.

But back in 1889 people walked. J. thinks nothing of walking 4 miles into town to visit friends and then 4 back at the end of the evening.

Hunh.

I have, from Copenhagen, a piece of paper.

Or a blank pdf document anyway.

Yesterday the world was supposed to have given substance to that accord, by signing up with (non-binding) agreements on carbon reductions.

I couldn’t find any information yesterday, but today there is some. Supposedly 51 nations (out of 192) have signed up, including the US, China, the 27 countries of the EU, Australia, Indonesia, Canada, Japan and India. So that is something.

I can’t find what these nations have committed to; the presumption being that it will be what they said before Copenhagen.

On the down side, the BASIC countries (Brasil, South Africa, India, China) were only willing to sign up after being reassured by the secretary-general of the UN that the accord did not mean anything.

The accord is non-binding. No one but the EU paid attention to Kyoto, which was binding. Am I to believe that anything significant will come of this paper?

Remember no one has made any significant commitments beyond what they had at Copenhagen. And some commitments have been reduced (the EU went in to Copenhagen saying they would reduce by 30% if other countries joined in. Other countries did not, and their offer has fallen to 20% — better than anyone else though). Estimates at the time said the cuts on offer would lead to at best a 3°C rise. Now a 3°C rise will have some pretty horrific consequences:

After a 3C global temperature rise, global warming may run out of control and efforts to mitigate it may be in vain. Millions of square kilometres of Amazon rainforest could burn down, releasing carbon from the wood, leaves and soil and thus making the warming even worse, perhaps by another 1.5C. In southern Africa, Australia and the western US, deserts take over. Billions of people are forced to move from their traditional agricultural lands, in search of scarcer food and water. Around 30-50% less water is available in Africa and around the Mediterranean. In the UK, summers of droughts are followed by winter floods. Sea levels rise to engulf small islands and low-lying areas such as Florida, New York and London. The Gulf Stream, which warms the UK all year round, will decline and changes in weather patterns will lead to higher sea levels at the Atlantic coasts.

Copenhagen was a media circus. It even reached the eyes of the US press. Yesterday seems to have been very quiet. But yesterday was the day when numbers were committed to. Yesterday mattered. Why the silence? This is probably most worrying of all. We don’t care.

We won’t do anything.

---

2 Feb The count of nations who submitted a response is up to 55 now, supposedly representing 78% of carbon emissions. The UN itself admits that the proposed cuts are not enough to reach 2°C but offers no guess as to what the increase might be.

“That is the bottom line, but you can look at it negatively and positively,” Pasztor (top climate adviser to the UN) said. “The negative part is that it’s not good enough. The positive side is that for the first time, we have a goal, a clear goal that we’re all working toward … Before we would just talk.”

I don’t understand this quote. Before we had the Kyoto treaty. Which actually had a goal and some teeth in it. Now we have non-binding commitments. I don’t see the positive side myself.

I get very angry when people try to spin something which will lead to disaster in a positive light. I think it is  an extremely dangerous thing to do. It reduces the urgency, it gives people a warm fuzzy feeling, they come away thinking everything is alright.

It isn’t.

And Juliet?

It is called “Romeo’s Run & Relay”; which begs the question “What happened to Juliet?” It is a relay for couples, she should be involved. I was muttering about this to Fran after the race, and she thinks Romeo was chosen for its alliterative effect. “Romeo’s Run & Juliet’s Jog” would be even worse than leaving her out entirely. “Juliet’s Jump?” well, OK, there are the puddles down by the lagoon… you could jump them, but I expect most people went around.

Does it have to be Romeo and Juliet? They both come to such a sad end. Couldn’t we choose a more cheerful pair to represent romantic love? Perhaps Valentine and Sylvia from Two Gents? Not as well known, perchance, but a happy couple, and, of course, Valentine ties in nicely with Valentine’s day (when the race used to be run.) Hmm. “Valentine’s Vamoosh and Silvia’s Splash”? Not really an improvement. My mind seems fixated on the puddles. “Valentine’s Vitesse and Silvia’s Streak”? Sigh. No. Streaking has the wrong connotation (or it did when I was in college).

“Juliet’s Jamboree?”

I hadn’t intended to do this race, until Rusty announced it was the workout for this week. Then I thought I’d run it as a tempo run, until Rusty told me he’d use it to see how fit I was. Well, then I had to race. (See, it isn’t my fault that I raced. Honest.)

I hadn’t intended to run this race, so I did a 20 mile run on Tuesday and 15 on Thursday. Then Rusty told me he wanted to test my fitness. Mmp. Would have done a little less had I known.

OK, I might have done a little less if I’d known.

My legs felt very heavy on Friday, and I got a cramp in my left psoas that evening. I’m not good at stretching my psoas. I tried though. Perhaps a night’s sleep? A little better in the morning.

And off to the race to pick up my bib. Rusty told us to do a 4 mile warmup before, and another 4 miles after, so I brought a camera — the UCSB lagoon, around which we run, has such good views of water fowl.

A beautiful sunrise a bit after I set out, but I barely glance at it — I’m headed in the other direction, west to UCSB.

I get there fairly early, not many people around (except for Ricky and his cup of coffee. I wonder… If I drank coffee before a race, could I go that fast?). Pick up my bib, and away I go for a warmup jog. Circumnavigating the lagoon is almost exactly 2 miles (which is handy) so a 4 mile warmup means twice around.

I’m cold. And my legs feel heavy, and, sigh, yes, the psoas is still annoyed with me. Small wading birds, maybe Willets, are spearing the water just before the first hill. Ohhhh I feel so slow going up this hill. Maybe I’m not in as good shape as I hoped. Loop around onto the road, and then back to the lagoon as I pass the marine labs building. To the ocean too, running out onto the dam which separates the lagoon from the sea. It is high tide, and full moon (which means it’s a very high tide) and the waves seem to want to join me on the trail, splashing up and wetting the dam for me.

Just beyond is a very steep, very muddy section. The wide trail splits into several single tracks, and, bless their little hearts they are taking us up the steepest and muddiest of those trails.

The sun seems to be playing hide and seek behind the clouds. The early morning sunlight has been replaced by gloomy overcast. Up the hill, across it, and down to the next cove, which, again, separates the ocean from the lagoon. And up another hill (not so steep or muddy this time), and now I run along the edge of the lagoon, on a bluff, perhaps 30 feet up.

Looking out I can see a fallen tree, half in the water, and completely colonized with cormorants. Oh, and the UCSB bell tower with the race start/finish line beneath it.

Single track again. There are holes in the trail. Gopher holes perhaps? Someone has very kindly marked them with chalk so they’ll be even harder to miss.

Then down a nice steep hill (paved this time), back to the lagoon/ocean boundary for the final time, and then running on a wide sandy path right at the level of the lagoon with lots of puddles to avoid (or jump).

The ducks, who were feeding close to shore, seem disgusted by my presence and turn their backs on me as they head out into the lagoon. Then I come to a sign saying that the last 400m (roughly ¼ mile) will be timed and the winner of this final sprint will get a prize — this will not be I (boy that sounds stilted). I can’t sprint the way the young guys can. Ricky is my guess for the best sprinter.

Oh neat, a blue heron standing by some reeds. Unlike the ducks he doesn’t seem to mind me, and stands right there as I run around him. I take several photos, but I think the last is the best. A little further on I peek through some more reeds, and there is a white egret, head cocked, as it waits for a fish.

And now I’ve circumnavigated the lagoon. Back at the start. But I have to do one more loop to finish the warmup. I realize my legs don’t feel so dead as they used, and the psoas seems to have gone into remission for now (it never fails to surprise me when a warm up works). Anyway, back around I go.

At the start again, I do some strides, and I wait, stretching, beside the lagoon.

Paul (the timer) goes off to activate the sprint mat. We won’t start till he gets back.

Other people come to join me and we all line up. Getting excited.

Some physical trainer person wants to warm us up. Idiot. I’ve spent the last half hour or so warming up. I don’t need her help. Oh, dear. She wants us to do some exercises designed to injure the hamstrings. None of the real runners is doing them, and we mutter to ourselves. This isn’t warming us up, it’s wrong, and standing around waiting is cooling us down.

Finally we are off.

My breath is very loud. No one else is breathing so loudly. Of course no one ever does, but sometimes it worries me: “Am I going too fast? Should I slow?” But as we head up the first hill I pass a number of people who really have started too fast, and I feel better about things.

At the turn before the marine labs, I get to see who is ahead of me. The race is led by some guy with black hair which floats behind him as he runs. Ricky is up there somewhere (I guess he’s over whatever was bothering him last fortnight), Eric’s a bit behind, and Tim further back. Fair number of people I don’t recognize, UCSB types I guess.

Oh. And right in front of me is Jamie.

Maybe I am going too fast. I know Jamie will beat me by a lot more than this.

Oh drat. I forgot to start my watch (I start it now, but it will give me no help on the first lap).

Should I slow down? I don’t think I need to. Anyway I don’t. Out onto the dam and up the muddy slope. And now Jamie begins to pull away. Have I slowed? Hmm. Jamie usually starts slow and speeds up (from the few races I’ve noticed him run, while I usually start fast and slow down).

Footsteps behind me. Don’t dare slow now.

Down into the next cove and up that hill. There’s a woman standing by the trail with a stop watch. She murmurs “6 minutes” as I go past.

Hmm. Is she at the one mile mark? She’s probably meant to be. 6 minutes is a little fast for me on this course with all the hills. On the other hand… I see no indication that this is the 1 mile mark. If she’s off by 40 yards, a 6 minute time would be reasonable. And so I ponder.

The footsteps behind me have not gotten any further away. They are starting to worry me. We’re now on single track and they can’t pass me easily. (Ha!) They get closer. Oh dear. The trail widens a bit, and I pull over a bit to let them pass. And pass they do. Oops. It is Mike Shalhoub. He belongs in front. I apologize for being ahead. He just says “6:05 pace” (so I guess it’s OK.)

Charging down the hill and then around the puddles. No one audible behind me now. Jamie and Mike already too far out in front and not pulling me along. Have I slowed?

Here’s the 400m sprint start. Only 2¼ miles to go.

And there’s the start/finish. Halfway done. The clock reads 12:11 as I come up, so I probably cross the mat at 12:15 or so. I have slowed. 6:00/6:15 is kind of sad. I try to pick up the pace a bit.

Back around. The ocean seems even higher now than before and the spray it makes is really drenching the dam. Hunh. I seem to be gaining on the people ahead. They were 200m off a mile ago, now I’m starting to think I might catch them. (Not Jamie and Mike, they are long gone).

Up the hill, and down, and then up again. And I do catch the guy who is ahead of me as we are going up the hill. I push a little to do this, I know that after the hill there is single track and passing won’t be as easy then. On top of the hill I wonder if that were a good idea. I feel drained now.

The woman with the stop watch tells me 18:35 as I pass her. That’s not agreeable news. 6:00/6:15/6:20. Ug.

At least the people in front have slowed even more.

I guess that’s a consolation.

And then I notice the guy ahead of the guy ahead of me has pulled over to let the guy behind him pass. Then a little later when I come up behind him, he does the same. “Thanks.” No breath for more. And now I’m coming up behind the guy ahead. And I pass him. But his footsteps do not fade away as the others did. This guy is hanging on to me. That’s trouble. He’s younger than I, he’ll be able to sprint fast at the end and I won’t. I’ve got to get far enough ahead in the next ½mile (or whatever) that he can’t catch me when he sprints.

No one ahead but Mike S. again, and he’s so far ahead he’s no help.

I don’t hear the footsteps any more.

I get my feet wet in the puddles.

I’m trying for a shorter route, and it leads through rather than around the puddles.

Here are some walkers. I’ve lapped them. I’m going more than twice as fast as they. I wonder if they feel ashamed? Why don’t they run?! They don’t look old, or infirm, they could run. It’s only 4 miles (excuse me, for them it’s only 2 miles so far). Not sure why this bothers me so. I wish they would try.

And here’s the 400m mark again.

And now I do hear footsteps.

And he passes me.

I try to catch him, foaming at the mouth, drooling at the nose, I cross the finish .3 seconds behind. Grrrrrrrrrrr.

Oh well, he’s 18 and I’m 50.

They announce a time of 24:45 for me. (but I thought I saw 24:35 as I went under the arch where did the time go?)

Someone offers me water but I’m too tired. After a bit I realize I’ve still got my chip on so I turn back and have them take it off. Then I go wash my face.

Neat. It has gotten all sunny.

Somehow that happened during the run, and I didn’t notice.

When I finally get the results I discover that the chips didn’t capture our start times, just the intermediate time and the finish time (disappointing). I officially finished in 24:43.0, just .3 seconds behind the guy ahead of me — close enough that I can hope that a true chip time might have made a difference (I know it took a while for me to get to the start mat). But it also means that my last mile was 6:07, and the sprint results say that my last 400 was 1:29.7. So I did speed up at the end…

I grab my camera and start a cooldown lap. As I come up to the dam there is a huge splosh which drenches it, so I stop and try to take pictures of the waves breaking. But, of course, the waves calm down and are all gentle once I take the camera out.

The little cove, so foggy and bleak earlier in the day, looks quite beautiful now the sun is out.

Above the place where the tree has fallen into the water (and been colonized by cormorants) there is another bare tree which has not (yet) fallen and is also full of cormorants. It and the bell tower and the blue sky and the lagoon all seduce me to stop. And then Jamie comes up behind me and we finish the loop together.

The couples’ relay had started, and we look behind us to make sure we don’t get in anyone’s way. We don’t, but just as we finish our loop the first runner on the first leg finishes too. The impressive thing is that it is 12 year old Peter Bermant. He’s got a huge lead on everyone else. And his mother, Melissa Marsted, is pretty fast too. They’ll probably win.

I head out on my second lap and meet some more of my group, but they are running backwards (against the direction of the relay) so I turn and join them. We pick our way through the puddles will trying to stay out of the way of the relay racers.

We live in a beautiful place.

Tim and Jamie ahead of me.

Remind me… what was agreed at Copenhagen?

By the end of this week (31 Jan 2010) the world was supposed to have signed up to say what their cuts in CO₂ production will be.

As far as I know, 9 nations have “indicated they wish to be associated with” the Copenhagen accord (no one is actually expected to go so far as sign or ratify the accord, that would be asking too much). Nine out of 192 is not a good ratio. The US is not one of them yet, nor is China, nor is most of Europe. One nation has said it does not want to be associated.

Does anyone care?

De Boer, the UN chief of climate negotiations, says he does not view the 31 January deadline as a hard deadline. This is worrisome. We have an accord which didn’t say anything to start with, but which did set a deadline for something to be said — and now we are told that deadline isn’t meaningful.

Certainly the 9 nations (Australia, Canada, France, Ghana, the Maldives, Papua New Guinea, Serbia, Singapore and Turkey) who have said they “wish to be associated with” the accord cannot make enough reductions by themselves to impact climate change.

Brazil, South Africa, India and China (the four nations who, with the US, drafted the accord) met yesterday and said that they supported the accord — after getting the UN Secretary General to say that the accord had no legal force.

So… they, the authors, only support it because it doesn’t mean anything?

Climate change has mostly dropped out of the news in the US. I’ve only seen two news items on the US position:

• The US appears not to want to work with the UN for future treaties, but only with other big polluting nations who have not reduced their greenhouse output (ie. ignore Europe, work with China).
• A senator from Alaska wants to block the EPA’s ability to regulate greenhouse gases.

I find the first disturbing because by only getting input from the big polluters, it seems unlikely that significant change will happen (it would be like excluding environmentalists from a forum on reducing logging in forests). And by ignoring most of the world we come across as arrogant and uncaring.

It will lead to fragmentation of efforts. If the US is only willing to talk to China, then Bolivia will only talk to Cuba. The UN, with all its faults, is the only global form of governance we have. It may not be very effective, but that is one of the drawbacks of democracy.

The second speaks for itself. Will the US do anything? Or will it be just like Kyoto where we remove considerable substance from the treaty to make it palatable to our congress and then refuse to sign it. The worst of both worlds — a treaty which doesn’t do enough and a country which does nothing at all.

Mammals in Madagascar

One of the little mysteries of biogeography is how did mammals get to Madagascar?

Madagascar is an island. It is ~300 miles from Africa.

160 million years ago Madagascar was part of Gondwanaland, but it and India broke away from the supercontinent and went traveling north. Then 80 million years ago Madagascar and India broke apart, with India continuing north (eventually to bash into Asia) while Madagascar dawdled around Africa.

It has had no land contact with the rest of the world for ~160 million years.

The trouble is that placental mammals didn’t evolve until 125 million years ago. Long after Madagascar and India were adrift. But Madagascar is covered with modern mammals, and while these mammals tend to differ at the family level they clearly belong to modern orders  (Primates, Carnivores, Insectivores, Rodents, Chiroptera, …).

Parallel evolution would not have done that.

The ancestors of the Malgache mammals were not on board when Madagascar broke away form Gondwanaland. How did they get there?

OK, bats could be blown across the Mozambique channel fairly easily, but most mammals on the island are not bats.

I’ve heard three explanations:

• A cyclone hit Africa and knocked a tree into a river where it got blown across to Madagascar. And there happened to be ancestral lemurs (or rats, weasels, geckos, or what have you) in the tree.
• During an ice age the water level was very low and the Mozambique channel dried up and animals could walk across.
• Maybe it was easier to make the crossing 90 million years ago, and some animal did, evolved into the original primate, and then was carried by India to Asia whence they populated the rest of the world.

All these have problems.

• A tree from Africa would never reach Madagascar. Ocean currents would carry it to South Africa and not toward Madagascar.
• The Mozambique channel is too deep to be dried up by an ice age.
• India rammed into Asia somewhere around 45 million years ago, but the earliest primate fossil is from 55 million years ago (and was not found in Madagascar or India)

But a recent study by a climatologist points out that ocean currents would be different 50 million years ago, because the continents were in different places, and that his research indicates that at that time the currents might indeed carry an animal from Africa to Madagascar.

Now most mammals in Madagascar are little guys. Or could have evolved from small arborial ancestors, and might well have been up a tree when a storm struck.

But not all. How on earth did the hippopotamus get there?

Astonished

I like to get out on Christmas morning. It’s a very soothing time to be out, because no one else is. You have the streets to yourself. Last year I went for a ~30 mile run. Injuries suggested I try something else this year, so I biked out to Refugio.

I got off to a later start than I would have liked — it was cold this morning and I wanted to wait for the frost to disappear.

It was still cold (well, cold to be riding a bike) when I set out, but by the time I reached the far end of Goleta I had removed all my extra layers.

I was a little surprised at how much traffic there was on the 101. After the empty roads in town, the freeway seemed to have a normal traffic load. I guess no one goes for short trips on Christmas morning but a fair number of people probably drive a 100 miles to go see Grandmother. Or something.

Rather to my surprise I passed some lupine blooming. It’s the wrong time of year for lupine. But then there were more blooms. So I stopped and took a picture. A bit later I saw the median was just covered with blooms. Odd.

When I got onto Refugio Rd, everything was very calm and still. Almost no one was on the road, and it was very quiet. Peaceful.

I’ve never really taken time on Refugio Rd. It’s rather pleasant, but I’m usually trying to see how fast I can get out and back. Today I was taking it easy. So I even got off the bike and climbed down into the creek when I saw the holes etched into the rock face above it.

Then I turned round and popped in at the beach where I watched the waves for a bit (and ate something). Not many people were here either. But there were lots of seagulls☺

I turned back home then. No more pictures because I was heading vaguely into the sun now.

Until I got to Goleta Beach. From the bridge I could see the slough and along beside it, were night herons, spaced regularly ~10ft apart or so (click on the pictures to make them bigger — sometimes you need to click twice to see the full size).

So I stopped on the bridge to look at them (and photograph them), and then biked a little further down the bike path, and stopped to look at them again. As I was watching from this vantage, a tern came flying up the slough, straight toward me.

It looked all white and beautiful as it came on. Then suddenly there was a whoosh, the tern was gone, the night herons were all alarmed and a few flew up. My eyes moved to look and only then I could see the hawk carrying the tern in its talons.

White feathers falling.

I’ve never seen a raptor catch another bird before. Impressive.

Legacy

I sometimes wonder what kind of legacy I will leave behind me.

My father is a Shakespearian scholar, he will probably live on in footnotes for centuries.

I write computer programs. They are used briefly and then technology moves on. I suppose the thing I’ve written which was in widest use (more than 100,000 users at one point) was the web editor which AOL distributed. But it only lasted 2 years before AOL got bored with it. No one remembers it now.

My font editor has lasted 10 years now. And it has tens of thousands of users. But I doubt it will last another twenty.

Considering the attention we are paying to peak oil, I wonder if anyone will even be using computers in 50 years? Will we have the energy to make or power them?

Many people view their children as a legacy… I look at our efforts to stymie climate change and I see mass starvation, war and huge population declines. Children do not look like a long-term investment either.

A friend pointed out to me that my pottery will last.

Ah.

SB International Marathon

Several people have asked me why I haven’t written about the Santa Barbara International Marathon.

I could not run it. Something went wrong in my lower right leg ¿during? ¿after? the half marathon and every run since has been a slow limp.

I didn’t really want to talk about it. It’s difficult to work for something so hard and then have it become impossible just as the training starts to taper. Difficult to watch everyone else do well and have to smile and be happy for them.

My natural reaction is to hide. But I had a friend visiting from Boston who was racing and I had to be there for him. So I couldn’t even hide.

So I didn’t have anything to write about.