Gerard Vanderleun writes about the decline of Florida, both the Keys and the mainland. It’s funny, as someone who is currently living here, and has never particularly liked the place, he makes it sound much worse than the reality seems to me. But then, he’s writing as someone who apparently did love it once upon a time, which I never have. I haven’t been diving down in the Keys yet (though we still plan to), but he certainly makes it sound uninviting, and I hadn’t realized that the deer were in such deep trouble.

Gerard Vanderleun writes about the decline of Florida, both the Keys and the mainland. It’s funny, as someone who is currently living here, and has never particularly liked the place, he makes it sound much worse than the reality seems to me. But then, he’s writing as someone who apparently did love it once upon a time, which I never have. I haven’t been diving down in the Keys yet (though we still plan to), but he certainly makes it sound uninviting, and I hadn’t realized that the deer were in such deep trouble.

Gerard Vanderleun writes about the decline of Florida, both the Keys and the mainland. It’s funny, as someone who is currently living here, and has never particularly liked the place, he makes it sound much worse than the reality seems to me. But then, he’s writing as someone who apparently did love it once upon a time, which I never have. I haven’t been diving down in the Keys yet (though we still plan to), but he certainly makes it sound uninviting, and I hadn’t realized that the deer were in such deep trouble.

So we decided to upgrade to the HD version of DirecTV, which involves (of course!) replacing, or at least supplementing our current satellite dish. It has a triple horn on it, and looks at three birds simultaneously, instead of just the one, as the standard dish does. This means that not only are azimuth and elevation important, but there’s a third axis adjustment, that they call “tilt,” to make sure that you’re seeing all three of them.

I put up a new mast, got it plumb, set the settings on the tilt and elevation to what they’re supposed to be for southeast Florida (45 degrees for both), hooked up the cable, pointed it in the general azimuthal direction (about thirty degrees south of west), and got nada, bupkis, no signal.

Is the cable good? Yup, and here’s the weird thing. When I drop the elevation to thirty degrees or so (fifteen below where it’s supposed to be), I get a reasonably strong signal on the upper transponders of Satellite A, starting with number 22. No signal on transponders 1 and up (which are the ones you’re supposed to use to align the dish). Also no signal on either of the other two birds.

So something’s happening, but not what should be happening. What are the chances that this is an LNB problem? The first dish I ever installed, years ago, had a bad LNB right out of the box (which drove me crazy trying to figure out what was wrong–fortunately, part of the deal was a free upgrade to a dual LNB, and when I put in the new unit, I got the signal right away).

Is there anyone out there familiar with the situation who could diagnose this, so I can just take the LNB back to Circuit City and exchange it? Or are these symptoms of something else that I’m doing wrong (though I’m wracking my brains at this point trying to figure out what else it could be).

Just a quick postcard or two, since I’m not posting anything consequential (as though that’s something new…) but go check out some of the space blogrolls to the left, and this week’s issue of The Space Review should be up.

About fifteen years ago, for some reason, a group of elephant seals decided to colonize a stretch of beach by Point Piedras Blancas, just north of San Simeon. It was a surprising location, because it’s hardly a remote area–Highway One goes right by it, and I remember that when they first started mating and birthing here, there were a lot of cars just pulling over to the side to look. State wildlife people put up barriers to prevent this, and set up special parking lots from which to view the beach. Several years ago, one could walk among them, but this is now strongly discouraged with fences and docents.

With all the protection, and despite the tourist interest, the population has exploded, and right now is breeding season. There were hundreds of pups on the beach, still in their black pre-weaning coats (they’ll molt and go gray after about six weeks, when they start swimming and eating in the ocean). Many are almost newborn, and staying close to mom.

We drove a little farther north, and had lunch at Ragged Point. It was somewhat cloudy and foggy, but the view to the north of the Big Sur coastline was still gorgeous.

Alan Boyle has an interesting story of the restoration of a lost Algonquin dialect. I don’t know whether or not the movie is any good in general, but I’m always impressed when a director works hard to get it right, even if few people would know the difference.

The global test is no longer number one on Google! It’s been demoted to numero dos.

C’mon, blogosphere. Are you going to let some cheesy marketing firm get away with that? Open up your hearts, and links.

The global test is no longer number one on Google! It’s been demoted to numero dos.

C’mon, blogosphere. Are you going to let some cheesy marketing firm get away with that? Open up your hearts, and links.

The global test is no longer number one on Google! It’s been demoted to numero dos.

C’mon, blogosphere. Are you going to let some cheesy marketing firm get away with that? Open up your hearts, and links.

The Donner family didn’t resort to cannibalism:

No cooked human bones were found among the thousands of fragments of animal bones at that Alder Creek site, suggesting Donner family members did not resort to cannibalism, the archaeologists said at a conference of the Society for Historical Archaeology in Sacramento, Calif.

“The Donner family ended up getting the stigma basically because of the name,” said Julie Schablitsky, one of the lead authors. “But of all the people, they were probably the least deserving of it.”