There are several stray cats around our house. All cute.
We feed them all.
So now when a stray cat is hungry, it sits under a sage with the mountains in the background. Eyes open. Alert. Waiting Confident.
And just like that, he conjures us up, food in hand.
Makes me happy
I feel like this video much of the time. Bouncy, not going anywhere much. Other days I feel like I'm going nowhere like this.
So here are some examples of the second operating mode:
After buying our new Camry, we found we had to do some mouse control. We had the car for like only two weeks and already there was a dead mouse in the cabin air fan. Stinky. Icky.
The autoparts store was confused when I asked for a 2025 Camry cabin filter because 2025 hadn't happened to them yet. But I don't think Toyota has changed the cabin filter spec for twenty years, so I talked them into giving me a 2024 for a replacement.
We had the same problem with the truck and we found a bit of screen over the air intake port kept the mice out of the sensitive parts. But Toyota maybe already thought of this and the external port appears to be covered by a cowl that gives only about a quarter inch clearance, which is plenty big for mice. We have tried to block that gap with some copper wool but that might freeze up in the winter and make us roll down our windows. Damn mice.
The RV is also plagued.
For the RV we embraced the landing field lights solution. Light up the underside of the RV with lights so bright they scare blind men. It kept the mice away quite well, but attracted helicopters looking for the near-by hospital's landing pad. And it was obnoxious. But it did remind me of a night scene of a landed UFO.
We have tried repellents and traps. There are more mice than there are traps and the repellents only work for about a week and cost about $20 each time, so they effectively don't work.
We are now in the make-noise attempt. The theory is that if the mice hear noise in the vehicle, they will think it's occupied and stay away. So far it's worked but are mice really that stupid?
The problem with this is that our noise makers are FM radios and their tuners require constant tuning as they seem to drift with temperature and don't lock on to the weak signals for shit.
So I'm building a prototype Mouse Boom Box. A tiny nano-computer, a couple tranducers for speakers and the most shrieky boomy noise I can find. Ornette Coleman and Lady Gaga. On repeat.
If you have any good noise mp3's let me know. Cannon fire. Sirens. Cats eating mice.
I've been forbidden to use ultrasonics, but if the cat doesn't tell, Cyndi will never know.
And I understand rats (and presumably mice) make ultrasonic sounds, which mean "lets cuddle" to another rat.
I had a tooth pulled. It was more fun than it sounds.
I've been killing locust and chamisa all summer long. Killing chamisa is a task of duty (Cyndi's allergic) and killing locust is a task of glee. Both are never-ending tasks.
And now next we head to Indiana where there will be a slew of birthday parties and Halloween parties and graduation parties for completing the first six weeks of kindergarten, each with probably a few hundred relatives or friends and I never remember what I'm not supposed to say to whom.
I'll also find my soldering iron in Indiana and finish the Mouse Boom Box, so I won't be able to test it until we return. By Valentine's Day we'll know if it works. If it does work, there will be more boxes for the RV and the shed. If not, more traps. Or lights.
What have I been doing for fun? Glad you asked.
I got into solving differential equations for fun and that led to the two fascinating vids above and the tediouos pdf below. I really enjoy doing the physics, making pretty pictures, writing arcane equations and, in the end, having the computer do all the number work and have something cool pop out. Physics does work!
This is kind of nostalgic for me. I used to do this in 1970 using Fortran on a Burroughs. They didn't have fancy libraries in those days. Had to do the forward integration the old fashion way, one data point at a time. No animation, no graphics. Plotting charts on a line printer, one X at a time.
Men were men in those days.
I know you're not really interested but here is some example ODE solution work. It's fun (and fiddly) to put this together and I really like the way the documents look.
Down in this doc are some other pretty pictures.