Jackrabbits win again

The women's basketball team won again tonight. I think I bought the very last reserved-seat tickets. I'm not kidding. Thomas, Ava, and I were in the very last seats of the very last row way up in the corner. The view wasn't all that bad, though. Alas, Johanna was not feeling well, and stayed home with Tami (thanks, Tami!).

It was an exciting game, and wasn't really decided until the final minute or so. Free throws won it; the Jacks did not shoot well from the field.

The team travels to Laramie to play the University of Wyoming on Sunday.

Rabbits advance to 3rd round in WNIT

The South Dakota State University Jackrabbits women's basketball team advanced to the 3rd round of the Women's National Invitational Tournament with a convincing 61-48 win over Illinois State. They'll host the winner of the Indiana-Iona game.

George VI

What's more annoying than getting Canadian coins in change? I always think "Well, there's another coin I can't use in the vending machine to buy Cheetos!"

Canadian pennies are OK, though, since U.S. pennies are just as useless, Cheetos-wise.

The other day I glanced at my change, and saw the familiar maple leaves -- wait, this is a Canadian coin. Make that "leafs." It looked a little old, but I didn't bother to look at the date. I flipped it over, and saw not Queen Elizabeth II, but King George VI. I flipped it back over again, and saw it was from 1942.



I took these photos with our brand-new used Nikon D50, my old Nikkor 35-70 2.8D lens in macro mode, and an improvised light tent made of a table lamp and a piece of white paper. Aperture-priority auto exposure at f/11, +1.0 exposure compensation (the backgound, our kitchen table, was much lighter than the coin, and so threw off the exposure a bit). 3 seconds for the obverse; 2.5 seconds for the reverse. ISO 200.

UPDATE: The "KG" on the reverse refers to the designer, George Kruger-Gray. "GEORGIVS VI D:G: REX ET IND:IMP:" on the obverse is for "Georgius VI, Dei Gratia, Rex et Indiae Imperator," or "George VI, by the grace of God, King and Emperor of India."

Division of Labor; or Why I Love Google

Here's an actual Google Groups search I did today, and it solved a problem for me in about 5 seconds:

aix fcs wwn

It would be hard to explain to anyone from 100 years ago how that seemingly random bit of typing produced, however indirectly, some economic utility.

Check Engine Soon

Twice on our drive to California, we bought gas of a certain brand. I don't want to name names, but it rhymes with "Schmillips 66." Both times, the check engine light came on.

The owner's manual for our van was reassuring, and suggested that we burn through one tank of gas before flying into a panic. We did just that, and the warning light went out in each case. We resolved never to fill up on Schmillips gas again.

Alas, while on the Kansas Turnpike between Wichita and Topeka, the tank was getting low. We had two choices: get off of the turnpike, drive who-knows-how-far, and pay a double toll, or buy more Schmillips gas. We chose the latter. Sure enough, the warning light lit up again, and stayed on all the way to South Dakota, where at the Vermillion exit on I-29 I filled up at a Conoco station.

Drive

We just returned from California. To misquote The Pretenders, 4,000 miles is very far through the snow. Actually, only a tiny portion of that was through the snow. We hit a pretty good snowstorm in Utah on our way west. We had the good luck to drive through Colorado between the two big storms they've had. Not wanting to risk more snow, we took a southern route through Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and Oklahoma on our way back home. Here we are at the Grand Canyon:

We had a terrific time staying with Joel, Patricia, Andrew, Eric, and Paul, and also spent a day at the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach with both them and Jim, Rebecca, Ben, Michael, Ingrid, Allison, and Emma. We also visited the Los Angeles Zoo, the Kidspace Children's Museum, and the Huntington Library and Gardens.

Election day

We had an unusually long ballot this year, with several initiated and referred laws and proposed constitutional amendments. It took me 24 minutes from the time I walked in the door to when I walked out. Most of that was just standing in line.

While I was waiting, a woman appeared outside with a sign urging voters to vote no on Amendment C. Good for her. That's how I voted, and I hope it's defeated. But what she was doing was, of course, illegal electioneering: no signs within 100 feet of the poll. One of the election officials, Hazel, marched right on out there and shooed her across the street.

It turns out that each polling place is provided with a 100-foot rope for just such occasions. I was a little disappointed that they didn't have to use it.