The Sierra Nevada, the range of “snow-capped mountains,” rises along the western edge of the Great Basin. The dividing line that was drawn between Nevada and California begins near the Cascade Range in the north and then follows the Sierra south, taking a bend at Lake Tahoe. The Sierra juts up into the humid atmosphere moving east from the ocean and drags the moisture out of it. Snowfall in the Sierra can be massive, and avalanches and slides come without warning.
Gambling is legal in Stateline, and it’s a lot less hardcore than in Reno—at least it was at that time. One casino had a roulette table that took ten-cent chips. I was in roulette heaven.
The old VW Rabbit, which was also called the Golf, was a reliable small car with 74 horsepower—about half that of a 2016 Ford Focus. With the engine in the front and front-wheel drive, plus a 5-speed manual stick shift, it was useful for mountain roads—you could drop it into a lower gear and stay there to climb summits. Ours was beige, similar to the one in the photo shown here. We set off on I-80 to Sacramento, but soon began receiving warnings that it was snowing in the Sierra. By Sacramento, reports were saying that US Route 50 was closed over Echo Summit. We had to make a choice. We decided to continue on US 50 just in case we could get through. Radio reports said the road was closed. Those Variable Message Signs spanning the highway warned that the road was closed and vehicles needed to turn back. But we saw no barricades. My thinking was, if the road was truly closed, eventually we would get to a barricade and be forced to turn back. Yes, we’d probably have to go all the way back, at least to Placerville, and then go north to pick up I-80.
I was reminded of the film “On the Beach,” a classic post-apocalyptic film from 1959 centering on the crew of a nuclear submarine, USS Sawfish. In this film, nuclear war had broken out, and everyone who hadn’t been incinerated was dying from radioactive fallout as it spread throughout the Earth. In one scene, Sawfish makes its way to San Francisco and surfaces. The camera shows streets completely and eerily empty. That’s how it felt on US 50; a world devoid of people.
I asked the officer if it was possible to go over the summit to South Lake Tahoe. He said that the highway plow, a big front loader with a snowplow attachment, was soon to start up and over the pass, and that’s what the cars were waiting for—to follow the plow. He asked if we had chains. Of course we had chains! In California, it’s a good idea to carry chains in the trunk on general principles, and they are required in cases like this. Ours were the cable-chain variety—not the big heavy ones like you might see on “Ice Road Truckers.” But they were chains. The patrolman said to put them on, because the convoy would be leaving soon. We then experienced the thrill of putting the chains on the front tires in semi-darkness in snow. When we bought the chains, I had taken the time to do a dry run, so I knew how to do this, in theory. It’s best to know how, because the highway patrol will not do this for you. Naturally, a dry run isn’t the same as being wet out in the snow, having freezing fingers, and not being able to get that inside clip to attach. Perseverance furthers. We got in line and made our way over the pass, at a crawl, in blizzard conditions. The yellow lights flashing on the plow ahead in the blowing snow were a comfort, although it was a false comfort; the danger was above us, not ahead of us. But we managed to slip by. On the other side, off came the chains, and we proceeded to our destination. We had made it in one piece and were feeling pleased with ourselves, as though our decision to keep going had been confirmed as the correct one, and not just a lucky break.
I think we decided to take I-80 to get back home. That was probably a good thing. Two weeks later an avalanche and landslide closed US 50. This time there were barricades, and the road didn’t open for weeks.
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Everyone living in the middle latitudes experiences the Earth’s seasons—and people have observed these changes for thousands of years. The sun is highest in the sky during the summer months and lowest in winter. Early people weren’t dumb—they could see that as the seasons changed, so did the time of sunrise and sunset. Constructing a sundial to track the daylight hours is an easy matter: put a stick upright in the ground and mark the points that the shadow of the stick’s tip casts in the course of a day. Many cultures developed elaborate ways of tracking the annual cycle of the seasons and keeping time, including Sumerians, Egyptians, and Mayans, to name only a few—and these cycles were often based on observations of the Sun, Moon, and sky. The term “analemma” was used in Alexandria and Rome for a diagram or “sketch” attributed to the Roman architect Vitruvius. This complex geometrical diagram allowed one to construct a sundial at any latitude without having to make measurements of shadow length. These days, analemma refers to the curve the Sun appears to draw in the sky if its position is captured at the same time of day over the course of an entire year. This curve was difficult to obtain by observation until we developed photographic techniques for multiple exposures. The Sun’s position doesn’t trace a straight up-and-down line as it moves through the seasons. Instead, the analemma turns out to be a lopsided figure 8 or infinity symbol. Below is an analemma photographed by Frank Zullo. He took multiple exposures of the Sun at 8:00 a.m. on 37 days spaced throughout a single year. He then superimposed the analemma on a photo of the giant sundial at Carefree, Arizona, to produce this photo. (You can learn more about how he made this photo here.) The analemma below is a calculated curve that was then superimposed on a photo taken at Croton-on-Hudson, New York. This one is by Daniel Cummings; he used the Stellarium program to plot the curve. (Read more, including how to use Stellarium to make a plot, here.) The analemma is a result of two characteristics: The tilt of the Earth’s axis (which causes the seasons), and the Earth’s elliptical orbit—it is not a perfect circle. The result is that at some times, the Sun slides ahead of schedule, as measured by a steady, mechanical clock, and at other times, it lags behind. These changes cause the figure 8 pattern. If you want to get more technical, see the Equation of Time graph below. “Equation” doesn’t mean a formula in this case, but an “equating” or reconciliation of different characteristics. In this case, apparent solar time (sundial time) is plotted against days of the year. The curve shows the time values ahead of or behind mean solar time (that steady mechanical clock). Above the horizontal line, the sun is ahead, and below, it's behind. The peaks and valleys correspond to the top loop (smaller peak and valley) and bottom loop (larger peak and valley) of the analemma. I’m thrilled by the analemma because it’s a reminder that the universe contains mystery. Nature doesn’t follow perfectly straight lines, nor does it produce perfect circles or operate only by nice, neat rational numbers—although many cultures have wanted to think so.
For further exploration The first photographic analemma was created by Dennis Di Cicco in Watertown, Mass., in 1978 and 1979. You can read about it here. The straight lines in the photo are exposures of the Sun until it reached the time point, to show how it was moving across the sky. If you're interested in a technical stroll through Vitruvius's diagrams of the traditional analemma, here's a link to an article (you can download a pdf). This article is rather odd, possibly due in part to translation. How many times have you opened a video or article on personal finance and seen this? “STEP 1: Set Your Budget Goals” Oh, gag me with a spreadsheet! If setting nice, simple, left-brain goals could solve our problems, we wouldn’t have many. Here are some of my own strategies to improve personal finance without reliance on a set budget. Strategy 1: Carry cash. Say, $300 to $600 a month—you can figure out your own amount. Use this cash to pay for your smaller purchases, like lunch out, drugstore shopping, coffee, haircuts, and so on. One reason to pay cash is that you see and experience the exchange of your money for goods; the money in your wallet dwindles. With card purchases, it’s like magic! They hand you back your card! Nothing really happened! Strategy 2: Use only debit cards as much as possible. Leave the credit cards shut in a secure drawer. The advantage is pretty obvious: you don’t increase your debt. To use this strategy successfully, you’ll need to keep an eye on your account balances. Which you do anyway, right? Right?? Strategy 3: If you must use a credit card, be prepared to pay the balance off before the interest-free “grace period” is up. Strategy 4: If you have a large purchase that you must put on a credit card, and it’s too much to pay off in one lump, pay the largest amount you can and don’t use that card again until it’s down to a zero balance. A sub-strategy to this is to try to keep at least one card at zero balance at all times. Strategy 5: Always pay more than the minimum balance on any debt. If you have a mortgage, try to pay more toward principal each month (find out from your lender how to do this). The less debt you carry, the better. Strategy 6: Use expense tracking. Budgeting and expense tracking may seem like the same thing, but they are not. With a budget, you set monthly goals for what you’ll spend in different categories, like food, gasoline, electricity, and so on. Then you get to play the game of going over your budget or staying under, and this may lead you to throw up your hands! Expense tracking lets you see what you are currently spending in different categories, compared to income. Your bank may have online tools or apps that track income and expenses for you with a few clicks. By looking back over three to six months, you can see how your average expenses run. This practice helps you by revealing what’s going on in your financial life. Remember how I said that with card purchases, it’s like nothing really happened? This is one way to find out what’s happening. Which you want to know. Seriously. Strategy 7: Avoid categories like “Miscellaneous” or “Uncategorized.” Always assign expenses to a descriptive category. For example, items you buy at a drugstore, whether with cash or via debit or credit, could go under “Health care,” “Personal care,” or “General merchandise”—it doesn’t really matter as long as it’s not vague.
Strategy 8: Along the same line, avoid categories like “Credit card payments” or “Finances.” As with number 7, you want to use a descriptive category. Was that card purchase a car repair? It should go under “Automotive.” Most online tools don’t help you track how much interest you’re paying on outstanding debts. That’s kind of a different issue from expenses. In a later post, I’ll talk about assets and liabilities. What financial strategies do you employ? Are there any you would add? Which ones do you disagree with? Imagine that you’re struggling in the “death zone” on Everest, above 23,000 feet—taking one more step, gasping for breath. It’s called the death zone because once you’re up that high, you start dying; you can stay for only a limited length of time. Before this was well understood, many climbers died in the death zone.
Mammalian lungs never empty completely—a residual volume of gas always remains, and so the lungs never contain totally fresh air. This is called a “reciprocating” system. By contrast, bird lungs are “flow-through.” They don’t expand and contract; instead, birds have air sacs that expand and contract, moving fresh air through their rigid lungs in one direction.
The birds’ respiratory system makes it possible both to fly high and to fly long distances without stopping during migration. This efficient respiration also helps birds, which are warm blooded, to keep their metabolism high. They get plenty of oxygen. Birds evolved from the theropods, a dinosaur group that included such lovely beasts as Velociraptor and Tyrannosaurus. Mammals evolved from the cynodonts, a rather undistinguished, non-dinosaur reptile group. These groups had different breathing systems, which later resulted in the mammal–bird differences. What about bats, though? They are mammals, but they fly quite successfully, although not as high as some birds, nor for as long a period of time. As you’d expect, bats have several adaptations to support flight: very large hearts and lungs (compared to body size), a larger number of red blood cells than in other mammals, and more hemoglobin in those red blood cells. They, too, get plenty of oxygen. The Sherpa people of the Himalayas appear to have gene adaptations for better oxygen utilization, allowing them to perform much better at altitude than lowlanders do. As a group, they have lived at high altitudes (an average of 14,700 feet) for at least 6,000 years. For further reading:
Chase D. Mendenhall, “How Birds Breathe with Their Butts.” Carnegie Museum of Natural History. Click here “How Air Sacs Power Lungs in Birds’ Respiratory System.” July 2020. Click here J. N. Maina, “What it takes to fly: the structural and functional respiratory refinements in birds and bats.” J Exp Biol (2000) 203 (20): 3045–3064. [Note: This is a highly technical article.] Click here Emily Sohn, “The Science Behind The Super Abilities Of Sherpas.” May 28, 2017. NPR.org, Goats and Soda. Click here Jennifer Jordan, The Last Man on the Mountain: The Death of an American Adventurer on K2. W.W. Norton & Co., August 1, 2011. [The story of Dudley Wolfe, a climber who died at high altitude before the dangers were fully understood. Available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Thriftbooks, and probably your local library.] Gautama Buddha was eighty, and he was feeling his age—he compared his body to an old cart that will move only if held together with straps. But through entering into “the concentration of mind that has no outward characteristics,” he could remain comfortable. He had decided some months earlier, at Vulture Peak, to travel back to his home in Kapilavastu, where he spent the first twenty-nine years of his life. This was a journey of some 200 miles, on foot. Now he was in the city of Vaiśālī (Vesālī), a place he had stayed often during his travels.
The next morning, Gautama rose early to beg for alms. After he had eaten, he “turned his body to the right and [while turning,] looked around in every direction with his elephant’s gaze.” He said to Ānanda, “Ānanda, this is the last time I will look upon Vaiśālī.” Gautama is saying goodbye to places he has appreciated during his life. He feels a nostalgia that many people feel as the end of life approaches. Some scholars are critical of this passage, stating that these are not the sentiments of an enlightened being. (One wonders how they would know.) Their objection makes sense only if being free of emotion, that is, feeling nothing, is a Buddhist value. I think this is an error. Buddhists are not striving to become robots; emotions are a fundamental part of who we are. Gautama was a human being with human feelings—but he was not bound by habitual patterns of reaction.†
*Quotations and descriptions are taken from Gotama Buddha: A Biography Based on the Most Reliable Texts, vols. 1 & 2, by Hajime Nakamura (Gaynor Sekimori, transl.) (Kosei Publishing Co., 2005). This is a scholarly work that uses a variety of sources and Buddhist texts. It’s currently out of print.
†For one discussion of emotions in Buddhism, see “Buddhist Insights for Accepting and Respecting Our Emotions,” by Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche, Huffpost, 06/04/2010. Click here.) |
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