Some Blog Site

Now it is time for another PSALM.

Gamma made this one, like last time. This one was titled “Cool Guy” by him.

Now only 144 more to go.

I took the younger two kids raspberry picking, as is a somewhat tradition around here.

They actually did a good job picking berries and filling up their baskets. They each got a basket, as did I. So we ended up with 3 baskets full of raspberries.

Bonus points for noticing the golden raspberry in the basket.

The boys preferred picking the golden raspberries, so their baskets were about half golden half red. Mine was the one pictured above – only one golden berry.

The kids are old enough now so that they pick well and don’t make messes. The 3 baskets were just under $40 – that’s at $5/lb, up from $3.50 about 10 years ago. With that many berries, the boys ate a bunch for lunch and dinner that day, we made jam and canned 8 small jars of it, and froze over a quart of whole berries. Eventually our own berry patch will become larger and more productive and we’ll get our berries for free.

One fun distraction the boys had while picking was a “baby mouse”.

It said it was either a full-size mouse or baby something-else, because it was too big for a baby mouse. Gamma and I thought it was too small for a baby groundhog. I think we settled on something like a mole. He just sat there kind of shaking and not doing much else.

Now on to the pro tip promised in the headline.

A lot of times when people declare something to be a pro tip, that’s just a catchy way of saying they have a method that works well. But as a former professional raspberry picker, I can say this is an actual pro tip.

Pro Tip: Look under the branches

Here’s an example from this trip. Gamma asked me how I was able to pick so many more berries than they did. So I showed him how to find berries. Most people just walk along and look for berries and stop and pick when they see some.

Here’s a shot of what the plants look like as you walk along and look at them.

How many raspberries do you see there? One, maybe two.

What do I see there? Lots of potential. I reached down and grabbed a plant at random and lifted it up and showed Gamma.

The berries like to hide out under the leaves. It’s a pretty good camouflage.

Why don’t more people do this?

1. The plants lean over due to the weight of the berries, so you must bend down in order to reach them. A lot of adults don’t like to bother their backs, so they skip this part.
2. The raspberry plants have small thorns, so they are pokey when you grab them to lift them. A lot of people don’t like to handle minor pain, so they skip this part. My advice: don’t grab the plants roughly – a gentle lift will make it so the thorns don’t puncture your skin. Also, get a leaf in between your hand and the stalk.
3. There are lots of bees about, as most fruit-growing operations have beehives to keep the plants pollinated. Many people are afraid of bees, so they skip this part. Yes, the bees are there, but you can bump into them and they don’t mind.

On that last point: I’ve taught my kids that honeybees and bumblebees are friendly – just don’t hurt them and don’t threaten the hive and you’ll be fine. I showed them how you can pet a bumblebee when it’s on a flower – we’ve each successfully done so. Not that I want them actively seeking out bees to pet, but just trying to teach them appropriate responses. No reason to freak out if a bee flies near you. Now a hornet or yellowjacket on the other hand – look down, look up, make sure there aren’t others.

In case you were wondering about my former career picking raspberries, your wait is over. In high school, a summer job I had was at a raspberry farm that offered both you-pick and pre-picked raspberries for sale. The pre-picked berries cost a little more per pint, and that was because I (and some other local students) were paid to pick them. And our pay was by the pint, not hourly, so the incentive was there to be productive.

Maybe a better term than “pre-picked” is “already-picked”, or just “picked”. I’m not a fan of the pre- prefix being attached to things that aren’t actually before. What are the berries before they’re picked? They’re still on the plant. They weren’t selling berries on the plant – they were selling picked berries. Or maybe we-picked, because it pairs better with you-pick (or U-pick if you are frugal with the letters on your sign).

A few months ago, we had the announcement of the 2020 NFL schedule, but I forgot because I was distracted by world events. Now that we know who will play whom and when, we can start predicting wins and losses, just before the season starts.

I keep my predictions over at Some Fun Site. View results of previous football seasons.

2019 Summary

Last year, I predicted that

• Atlanta Falcons = 5-11
• Cleveland Browns = 8-8
• Denver Broncos = 3-13
• Jacksonville Jaguars = 16-0
• Philadelphia Eagles = 11-5

How they actually did was

• Atlanta Falcons = 7-9
• Cleveland Browns = 6-10
• Denver Broncos = 7-9
• Jacksonville Jaguars = 6-10
• Philadelphia Eagles = 9-7

Well, I got all the digits correct for the Jaguars, just not in the right order. For the other teams, I at least got winning season or not winning season right, for what that’s worth.

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Here are some thoughts I jotted down that aren’t quite sufficient for their own individual blog posts. If you’re the type of person who likes Twitter, pretend each of these is a tweet.

• I think you could take the debate from when any particular state decided to start or stop making motorcycle helmet use mandatory (for those riding motorcycles), replace “helmet” with “mask” and “motorcycle rider” with “person in a public space” and you’d get a pretty close approximation to today’s Covid-19 transcripts.
• I see the NFL players can get paid for sitting out the season due to reasons of coronavirus. Good for them, but what about us NFL fans? Can I get something if I sit out the season?
• Why does no one ever have to do something goodly? It’s always along the lines of “I need a chocolate bar real bad” or “I have to go potty really badly”. If “badly” indicates a substantial desire, what would “goodly” indicate? Side note: there are small children who do a bad job of going potty, but that’s not what they meant.
• One thing that annoys me is that any paperwork that asks for my health insurance information never uses the same wording that’s on my insurance card. The paperwork will ask for policy number and account number, but I have group number and subscriber ID. Or vice versa. There are so many terms that they rarely line up. I would like a standardized format. On the other hand, I’ve learned it doesn’t really matter which number I put down, as long as it’s on my card.
• The best Blizzard at Dairy Queen is the French Silk Pie. They took it off the menu a while ago, but the good locations will still make it if you ask.

Now it is time for another PSALM.

This time, however, I did not make it. Gamma did. This one was titled “Taking Out the Trash” by him. And it was done on an iPhone 5c, I think. It is slightly wobbly, but pretty good considering he made the iPhone holder also out of Legos.

Now only 145 more to go.

Here is a series of book titles and cover art that I’ve put together for what would happen if a famous boy wizard were an old-school pen plotter instead.

Book 1: Harry Plotter and the Sources of Toner

This is the most technically-incorrect title of the series, as a pen plotter does not use toner. And astute readers might notice that Harry Plotter is trying to catch containers of ink, not toner. But you get the idea.

And this is the book for American readers. British readers get “Harry Plotter and the Philosopher’s Toner”, which is not an engaging a plot as his search for the sources of toner. Spoiler alert: there are rivers of toner under the school, hidden under a trapdoor and guarded by Fluffy.

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In science class, you should have learned about the conservation of energy. Or the conservation of matter. Or both – they’re connected anyway.

Matter can be neither created nor destroyed. Same for energy – it can change forms but that’s it.

For some reason, I got to thinking “why?” Science can answer the “how” question quite well, describe it with equations, but the “why” is iffy at best. Most of the answers are along the lines of “that’s a fundamental/basic law of physics”. Science describes how things are, and can answer “why” questions that are really more a form of “how” questions.

I did come up with a reason why energy and matter have to be conserved – because only God can create. That might be more of a theological answer than you were expecting, but when scientists say “that’s just how things are” then theology is all that’s left. Of course, theology applies before that point too – it’s not mutually exclusive with the rest of science.

But if it were possible to create matter or create energy, then people could consider themselves creators and that would reduce the honor and glory due God as The Creator.

And of course, a number of theological discussion of why some things are they way they are also end up the same way as the scientists’ questions of why – because that’s how God set it up. The non-Christians might use a term such as “fundamental law of the universe”, but doesn’t that really mean the same thing as “because God said so”?

An interesting rabbit trail related to this is one’s soul. If a person does not have a soul until he physically exists, then at some point (i.e. conception) his soul must be created. But since the soul is neither matter nor energy, no laws of conservation were broken.