Trophy From 2007 Dec 29

This came from the second deer I killed. My boyfriend had given it to a neighbor of his who specialized in preserving various animal parts and turning them into works of art and other useful items. If I can get myself a buck, I think I may have his whole head taxidermied, but more likely than not, I'll just keep the antlers as a trophy.


Here's various random pictures some groups I've been getting with Sparrowhawk of late:

I Didn't Do These

A friend of mine did these shots with his Howard Hill-style longbow. I think the bow infused him with the spirit of Howard Hill every now and then. Sometimes though, it also infused him with the spirit of his obscure cousin, Down Hill. I tried to emulate the neuter shot on the hyena, but apparently it was a tad closer than I thought it was!

Not Shabby for 30 Yards Exhausted...

If I can do this or better at 40 yards consistently, I'd be ecstatic but heck, this is pretty darned good for 30 yards! I did get some new shafts recently -- Gold Tip Traditional 3555 with 145 grain points and 5" shield-cut fletching. They do spine a tad weak for Sparrowhawk, but for shooting IKAC and Royal Rounds, I prefer to spine my arrows a bit weaker than I would for 3D/Hunting because it's a whole lot easier to adjust for a weak spine early when I'm still feeling energetic than adjusting for a strong spine when I'm tired. These would spine ever so slightly weak for Tehanu when I'm fresh but they'd become a bit stiff pretty early in the IKAC / Royal Rounds.

Tractor Fun and Dunheasa Series FAQ 4/n

Click on the title for some amusing pictures for fun :)

Who knows how many more installments of FAQs I'm going to be doing... Might as well be doing this while my stomach is rebelling against me yet again and my brain has also decided to go on strike.

Q: What's with the fascination with para-ketones?
A: Well... there was a bit of an inside joke between me and a friend about parakeets and organic synthesis. It kinda started because my neighbor/landlord in S. Pasadena had this really neurotic little conure (the parrot equivalent of a Pomeranian with the small stature and disproportionately loud and shrill calls) who seemed to be a lot nicer to females than males. Around the same time, my friend and I were also taking organic chemistry and we were going through tons and tons of nomenclature stuff. This included phenolic groups and how to refer to the various configurations a pair of constituents can be named -- ortho-, meta-, and para-. Long story short, it just sounded really, really funny to think about para-ketones.

Q: Will there ever be anymore Geekster concerts now that the three of them have embraced their Tuatha roots?
A: No clue. Maybe, maybe not.

Q: Are there going to be more potty jokes in future installments?
A: Most likely. Especially if Killer Parakeet returns and/or if I decide to focus on Dr. Castro and Dr. Pichardo.

Q: Will we ever find out more about Captain Greywolf?
A: Maybe, maybe not. After all, her adventures are still continuing as I type.

Fixture

I seem to have become the FGSO (Forestry Grad Student Organization) fixture. I really need to get out of the habit of being Frodo Baggins because there's just too many One Rings that need to be dumped into Mount Doom. I should be more like Ged/Sparrowhawk, well, at least pre-The Farthest Shore. Ok, so being treasurer of FGSO probably doesn't hurt as much as losing all of my powers to keep Cob of Havnor from destroying the balance with his use of Pelnish Lore to open the door between life and death and stay in a quasi-immortal state.

Here's the old crew that's left me of all people to continue the mischief started by the president who somehow pulled me into FGSO in the first place...

Viaje al Sur

A few of my pictures from Kissimmee and Orlando survived -- our main destination was Medieval Times in Kissimmee, FL but we made a handful of stops, including Bass Pro, the Ripley's Believe it or Not Museum in Orlando, and generally wandering around.

Cleaning Out the Camera Again

Now if I could shoot that well with my compound at 20 yards and if I hit about 2 inches lower with Sorondil-Telcontar!

That's one lucky deer!

Haven't Done This in a While

It's been ages since I last did a full 300 round. I finally got my draw weight checked and apparently I took off a lot more weight than I thought. I thought I took out about 4-5 lbs but turned out I took out 8 lbs. Apparently 2.5 turns = 10 lbs so go figure, although I have to admit, 60+ shots with a back-tension release does get pretty tiring! For me, 50 lbs with a caliper release feels a whole lot better than 42 lbs with a back-tension release, but I do like my wrist and I am looking into a release that fits my hand a lot better. I'm trying experiments on myself again, hence my quasi-return to the back-tension release. Let's see what comes of it. For someone rusty though, 285/300 with 25/60 in the X and 1 that completely missed the target (I blame the cell phone for that one) isn't too shabby when my best score was something like 290/300 with 33/60 in the X and no misses.

Ricochet and FAQ 3/n

Somebody's arrow ricocheted. Can you find it?

Interesting place for a carbon arrow to break...

And on to the FAQ 3/n
Q: What will be the next class that'll inspire more stories in this series?
A: No clue. Maybe Ecosystems of Florida or forest mensuration or one of the various simulations or statistics classes I've taken.

Q: What's up with that "Mierda Santa" chapter?
A: Possible foreshadowing of things that may yet be or another "scenery" chapter. I haven't fully decided yet. I just thought showing some of Captain Greywolf's eating preferences was amusing.

Q: What are some of the inside jokes in the story?
A: Far too many of them to list. Ivan himself is a bit of an inside joke among my friends because he was based on a combination of the now defunct Moldovan boy-band, O-Zone, and the various critters I've run into over the years in the Caltech Ballroom Dance Club. I do poke a bit of fun at myself with my eating habits (mostly ones my friends call out) and the kind of characters I have a tendency to hang out with. There's also a few professors I do make fun of throughout the series, including my research adviser over the years and the various denizens of the biology and chemistry departments at Caltech.

Q: Why did the Crossroads get so muddy in the end?
A: Tarathorn cast a water spell in self-defense to get an enraged Vincent (in tiger form) away from her and she conjured a lot more water than she realized.

Q: What powers does someone have over another if they knew their target's True Name?
A: Depends on the situation. A Tuatha or other highly powerful being with either serious magical training (like Galka or Ivan) or innate skill (like Tarathorn) or both (like Iliiryana) with that knowledge can do quite a bit of stuff, mostly nasty things. Most creatures just see the True Name as another name and unlike in Ursula LeGuin's Earthsea series, most people aren't too secretive about their True Names. The probability of something awful happening by revealing one's True Name is generally next to nil. Of course, things may change with someone like Iliiryana on the loose...

Q: Is Vincent's transformation and the subsequent stuff that occurs afterwards any indication of potential situations?
A: I take the Fifth there.

Crunch!!

A bit of compound fun from today... Suffice to say, I might have to start stocking back up on arrows again!

Finally!

I am now officially done (well, as of about 2 hours ago) with my second year at UF. I finally turned in that darned land tenure paper so ow I'm free as a bird... for the next few days.

And now it's time for me to do some photosynthesis. I need to also work off the term paper-induced muscular atrophy.

Xi Sigma Pi 2008

I somehow became the backup photographer for the 2008 Xi Sigma Pi initiation ceremony, which pulled in a large crowd. Pictures 66, 68, and 69 are of my undergrads for the forest mensuration class I just finished TA'ing. Picture 63 is of one of my fellow forestry graduate student organization (FGSO) who is fixin' to graduate and thus stepped down.

I'm still plugging away at my land tenure final but it's at the "I need to step away for a few hours before I can do anything useful to it" stage. Once I get through this last final, I think I'll put up some of the "out-takes" and/or alternate endings.

FAQ 2/n and Hopefully Stable Version

I really hate having the kind of indigestion where I don't want to go to sleep for fear of having an embarrassing accident. So I'm going to take advantage of my stomach troubles. I swear, I'm going to be a lot more careful with my hot sauce portions and heed warnings of "this is extra hot!" I keep thinking back to a friend who once said "Hot food is hot twice, once going in and once coming out."

In other words, I've posted what is hopefully a relatively stable version of Imladrien until I finish up this series and can start streamlining and debugging everything. Most of the work on this one has been clean-up and adding an epilogue after deciding which one I liked best. I also added a little "musical" number from Imladrien after recalling that she also has some musical talent and there was some material from a past incarnation that I really liked but hadn't been able to implement very well, along with a bit more introspection/thinking from the two titular characters.

As for the FAQ, here goes...

Q: How far into the future is this?
A: Well, on the order of 20-25 years. I actually did put in a small hint on far into the future this was. I'll let you see if you can find it. There are some temporal inaccuracies that I'll be working out eventually.

This is more of a general FAQ for the entire series although still more pointed towards Imladrien

Q: Will Joanne/Soronthrel return to have a more active role in later stories?
A: I honestly don't know.

Q: Who (or what) was Oleg based on?
A: Pretty much an amalgam of various grad student stereotypes along with someone I once knew who had some issues with personal hygiene and a colleague who's really obsessed with fungus.

Q: Do we get to find out more about Iliiryana's early past as we did about Cylithera?
A: Most likely.

Q: In Secrets it was implied that Iliiryana is related to Killer Parakeet. How the hell is that possible when they're completely different species?
A: That will be explained in a future story. There's things about Killer Parakeet that don't quite meet the eye.

Q: You showed us some of the words of power the Sarkany used and one from the Sidhe. What about the Alfar?
A: Eventually. My Gaelic dictionary doesn't quite have the range as my Hungarian dictionary does.

Q: So what's up with the Vladivostok giants? Who or what are they and why do they have such a beef with Cylithera?
A: You'll see eventually. I haven't thought that far ahead.

Q: Will any of the professors besides Captain Greywolf and Joanne have any serious adventures like the Geeksters?
A: Not very likely, but who knows.

Q: Compound bow and academics aside, how closely do some of the events parallel real life?
A: Varies across the story and characters. Things will have to unfold to really say, but I suspect that some of it might be a warning of what might happen if I'm not careful and roll enough critical fumbles.

A Hard Night's Work

Unfortunately this is the only picture came through. We (at the invitation of two of our friends) went out to Lake George to do some bow-fishing. I'd happily bow-fishing again and hopefully I can catch more than three fish in about five hours!

Next time I go fishing, here's what I'd change:
1) Take a bow I can actually draw quickly. My other half had me shooting a compound that was nearly as old as I am. On one hand, if it were still targets, I wouldn't have had any problems with this bow because it was a pretty light draw weight. On the other hand, I'm shooting moving targets from a moving air-boat and the slowest part of the shot for me is getting past that initial wall. If I had enough warning, I could get to about a 26" draw, where I enter the let-off valley and can hold my shot. The bows that my other half and I were using were actually for a 29" draw but then again, we snap-shoot at fish, so it wasn't much of an issue. I really need to build up more strength so I can draw much faster -- I draw pretty slowly on compounds no matter how low the weight is even if I can draw a 55 lb longbow with no trouble!
2) Take a bow-fishing rig that I can actually operate. I spent most of my time either untangling myself or trying to reel the arrow back in.
3) Take a light-weight Gore-Tex jacket. Unlike my companions, I'm a 145 lb weakling with microscopic bones and do feel the cold a lot sooner!
4) Take my own head-light that actually fits on my head. I tried their equipment but even after adjusting the straps to as small as possible, their stuff keeps falling down and covers my eyes. Apparently I've got a tiny thimble-head too! Darn genetics and that extra X chromosome that programmed me to have less muscle mass/strength!
5) Keep a bucket on board the boat. Unlike my fishing companions, I have that extra X chromosome that also forces me to squat down to take care of certain functions. I avoided this situation by running a bit dry and eating much less than I normally would, but whew, that caused other problems

I need to go bow-fishing again at some point so I can replenish my protein supply until it's deer season again!

Imladrien & Tinuvion FAQ 1/n

My brain's revolting really hard against land tenure right now so I thought I'd just start answering some more commonly asked questions from readers about my draft of The Lay of Imladrien and Tinuvion

Q: Why did Ivan decide his path so quickly?
A: Well... things should be a lot clearer later on, either in a future draft or in a sequel. There's a lot of stuff I want to fix/clean/add in retrospect. All I can say at this point is, sit tight and I'll let you make your own guesses before I post my answer in an updated version of the story.

Q: What is an SN-2 reaction? And what's so funny about it?
A: In a nutshell, SN-2 is a bimolecular reaction where one molecule collides with another and knocks off a leaving group in the one that gets collided into. The collider then "sticks" a piece of itself onto the collidee. This happens all at the same time -- collision and leaving group coming off the one being collided into and getting a new piece in its "rear". The conformation of the molecule also changes, similar to an umbrella going inside out in a strong wind. You may want to look it up for more technical detail though, my o-chem is a bit rusty. I'll let you figure out why it's so funny, but I did have a professor who referred to it as a "back-side attack". Feel free to insert (in)appropriate joke.

Q: Are we going to see Tindariel / Clawstaff / Tanilthara again?
A: Most likely in a later story.

Q: What D&D classes were you thinking of with Imladrien, Tinuvion, and Oroszlan?
A: Imladrien is most definitely a sorceress in my mind. Tinuvion is mostly bard but he's got some levels of barbarian with that temper of his. As far as Oroszlan goes, I see him as a cleric (spheres: fire and healing) / wizard. Of course, I'm not too worried about how they fit into a D&D class. But if anyone ever gets the idea of introducing them as NPCs, well, there we go. I might also post some templates for the various Tuatha if I ever get around to fully thinking things through and get bored enough :)

Q: What happened to Iliiryana? Did she survive?
A: You'll find out soon enough, either in a revision or in a sequel!

Q: Who or what inspired Iliiryana?
A: She started off as a really foul-tempered D&D NPC I had in a campaign long ago who struck terror in just about all of the male PCs. Suffice to say most of the PCs in the parties that faced her either ran for their lives or ditched their missions to try and eliminate her while she was relatively weak.

Q: How much of the research is actually done? Which pieces of scientific equipment are real and which are fictional?
A: Well... a lot of the chemical/biogeochemical stuff is fictional although some of the modelling techniques are real, even if the actual models are mostly fictitious. As far as the equipment goes, it's all actual gadgets that I've worked with -- ICP-MS, NMR, eddy flux towers, soil corers and so on.

Q: Which character do you identify most with?
A: Hard to say, although mostly Imladrien because a lot of her experiences do parallel mine.

Q: Was learning how to shoot compound as agonizing as what Imladrien experienced?
A: About the same order of magnitude. Only difference is that I only had to get the draw weight dropped down to about 35-36 lbs at the start, not 26 lbs. I guess Imladrien is a faster learner than I am though.

Q: Do you have D&D character stats on the three heroes?
A: Not really but considering they were "guest" NPCs in a campaign I had some time ago, I do have unofficial stats that a friend and I rolled (I swear, her dice were loaded!) I treated them as human so this is before their Tuatha roots start manifesting.
Imldarien: STR 8, DEX 17, CON 13, INT 18, WIS 11, CHA 16 (seems reasonable enough, strength a tad high for her, but there is a difference between the "guest" NPC and the actual characters)
Tinuvion: STR 13, DEX 14, CON 14, INT 16, WIS 9, CHA 18 (hmm... no wonder he's the Geekster front man... and maybe that's why he gets into so much trouble!)
Oroszlan: STR 10, DEX 10, CON 15, INT 18, WIS 16, CHA 7 (which explains why he's not so intimidating even in dragon form)

Q: So do Imladrien and Tinuvion choose to follow their mortal or Tuatha roots in the end?
A: I honestly don't know yet.

Q: We kinda know why Cylithera is the way she is, but what's up with Iliiryana?
A: For part of Iliiryana's background, go here. There's a whole lot more to her back-story but that should give you a better feel for what's up with her.

Q: Any "out-takes"?
A: I'll post them eventually...

Two Tidbits

Two bits of news... 1: Revision of The Lay of Imladrien and Tinuvion posted on my website here: and 2: Survived a traditional shoot at North FL Archers in Jacksonville. Got my butt handed to me on a rusty bed of nails, but was a fun shoot nonetheless. Some highlights below, the rest just click here:

Imladrien and Tinuvion Bits

So I'm one of these people who's generally antisocial by nature but I do enjoy the occasional concert. Only problem is that a lot of my favorite bands tend to bypass Florida or if they come anywhere near, it's always either during midterms or the early part of finals. Anyway, I've been getting my concert fix via YouTube and just watching a few videos here and there when my brain has been reduced to sushi and my muscles are jello. Of late, I've been watching a lot of footage of Moenia concerts, not having been able to see them live during their Solar tour and I thought I saw some clips that looked dead-on like what I visualized Vincent/Tinuvion to look like during a Geeksters concert but this last one really hit the nail on the head. Click on the title to see what I'm visualizing.

I'll also have a cleaned up version posted later today now that I've cleaned out what I see as some pretty big bugs. The story/manuscript will continue to evolve for a bit but this one that I'll be posting soon is a lot closer to what I'm thinking. Eventually I'll also have a FAQ about The Lay of Imladrien and Tinuvion when more questions roll in.

In the meanwhile, I'm going to go and poke at the laundry machine to see if it's done so I can stuff my laundry in my closet and haul my tail to campus. I like early weekday mornings where I don't have to compete with expletive-worthy creatures that hog the machines and are awful about punctuality with respect to getting stuff out. There's going to be another talk by Peter Vitousek of Stanford, a noteworthy researcher on nutrient (P, N) cycling. I usually try to avoid un-necessary sitting down time, but a researcher with papers that inspired me years ago talking about inherently cool things like remote sensing and biogeochemical cycling does trump that need to be on the move. Why can't there be more seminars on inherently cool things like biogeochemistry, toilets, bug-eating plants, chemical reaction dynamics, boogers, pesticides, combat mechanics and remote sensing? Why do so many seminars have to revolve around inherently uncool things too numerous to name but are usually overemphasized in most college/university curricula?

Blowin' Off Steam

In theory I should be working on that darn land tenure term paper, but in practice, I needed my time to conduct photosynthesis and get some exercise on top of my standardized workouts on the bike, treadmill and weights! I don't think I'm really built for long periods of inactivity. So I thought I'd do something a bit different today, after realizing that I do get a much better upper back workout with the compound than anything else, at least given the equipment I have around. So yeah, 248/280 and not having shot field in ages, I can't really complain when I peaked out at around 255/280 at my best in half-field. I think a friend of mine is right -- whichever bow I ultimately dedicate myself to, I can easily become really deadly. Of course, being someone who tends to rotate among bows and is about as impulsive as a kender from the Dragonlance world, that's going to be tough :P

This was at 20 yards using the Wildcat caliper release. I guess my other half was right about that for me... and he's only seen me shoot compound on a handful of occasions! As much as I enjoy shooting the Sweet Spot 4 back-tension release, I think I prefer my Wildcat caliper. I also had a pretty good scare with the Sweet Spot today. Suffice to say at least one person in the family would throw the world's biggest hissy fit if I didn't make my Reflex saving throw.

This was at 35 yards. True, the targets are a bit bigger than the standard NFAA, but heck, it feels great when all 4 arrows are in there, even if one's a line-cutter!

Talk about a bimodal distribution from 55 yards! I wasn't sure if I interpolated correctly given I knew roughly where the 50 yard marking on my sight tape was but didn't have a correction for the 60 yard marking. Apparently 2 shots I did the same thing and the other 2 I did the same but different thing!

Not bad for a first cut to calibrate 60 yards to see! I was probably about 3-4 yards high on my guess but given it was towards the end of practice, there may be a lot of other confounding factors. I noticed that as I got more and more tired, I tended to shoot with a high right bias... So I'll have to try this again.

Crunch!!! This was at 40 yards. I heard several crunching noises that suggested arrows smacking each other when I was working on my 40 yard calibration. It really helps when I can actually see the target and apparently I'm doing something right! So now I have 3 arrows that need nocks and nock collars replaced -- the shafts seemed to be ok, but I think I'm going to have someone check to make sure.

I wonder how much muscle growth I'll get to enjoy if I can keep up with consistent weight training given my questionable genetics that also has me stuck with a 24-25" draw length and tiny bones that at high risk for osteoporosis along with an extra X chromosome. Right now I measured about 9.25 inches circumference at the biggest point when I flex. Ok, so my bathroom is a bit messy, but I'll take care of it after finals I swear! My biceps look ok but the rest of my muscles certainly need a lot more work!

Beat This at 20 Yards!

Even if I've been spending most of my shooting time with either Tehanu or Sparrowhawk, I still shoot the River's Edge (Arroyo 1 piece recurve w/static limb tips, 54" AMO, 50 lbs @ 28" draw) really darn well. Today though, I shot a freakishly good group from 20 yards and got all 4 arrows in the center, didn't count the number of X's because the compound shooters destroyed the center. I don't think I've ever shot a group this good with any other traditional bow at 20 yards. Heck, this is even better than what I get with the Equalizer at the same distance, at least when I'm shooting with the Evolution butt, er, back-tension release. It's comparable to what I get with the Sweet Spot 4 on a "bleh" day, think the only setups that can consistently trump this one are the Sweet Spot 4 on a really good day or the Wildcat caliper on most days.

Ok time for me to return to atrophying my muscles, er, working on my land tenure paper. But maybe I'll sneak in a grocery run first, I'm running a bit low on vegetables again!

Oh, What the Heck

I thought I'd just post what I have now so I can get back to my term project for land tenure.