Sweet silence
by Anton Zuiker on October 16, 2019
I work in a hospital, and the HVAC systems are in a constant whirl. My desk sits underneath an air duct that constantly blows out air to cool or heat my office. There’s a thermostat to control the temperature, but there’s no way for me to stop the flow above.
Except, on rare occasions and for unknown reasons, the air stops, and my office becomes silent, and I become calm. It’s always an unexpected moment of relief, lasting but a few minutes.
I appreciate the quiet, the stillness. I crave it.
Finally, a rainy day
by Anton Zuiker on October 13, 2019
My brother, Joel, and I are going to camping soon. All the North Carolina state parks were booked up, so we reserved a campsite at a park in Virginia. Earlier this week I got an email alert from the park about a burn ban, reflecting how dry this part of the country has been. So no campfire conversations.
Here at home, our cars have been perpetually coated in dust from the gravel road, and I’ve worried about all the fallen leaves and dry branches in the woods around our house.
Today, though, it’s finally raining in Chapel Hill, a nice steady light rain. I’d just sat down on the deck with the NYTimes travel section—a 52 Places essay about Marseilles mentions nearby Calanques National Park and Cassis, where Erin and I celebrated our twentieth anniversary a few years ago—and a cup of Yunnan tea when the first drops fell. The white ginger lily at the base of the deck seemed to perk up immediately, the fragrant white flowers spreading for the moisture.
I retreated to the kitchen to prepare habanero hot sauce. Our garden has been abundant these last weeks, and each evening I’ve come home from work to pick cayenne and roselle and heirloom tomatoes, and the orange habanero. I donned gloves to take out the seeds, then layered chopped onion and yellow pepper and fresh pineapple and torn habanero inside the fermentation crock. I purchased this crock two years ago from the Duke Arts Health Network holiday sale that features pottery and jewelry and other items from local artisans. The crock has been up on a shelf, and I was embarrassed to have not used it yet. It’s full now, the lid on and water in the moat, sitting on the counter next to the cocktail cherries and cherry pit-infused vinegars from this summer.
Scripting News at 25
by Anton Zuiker on October 8, 2019
Dave Winer celebrated 25 years of Scripting News yesterday, marking an anniversary that perhaps no other person can match: two and a half decades of daily writing on his blog.
I’ve been reading Dave for about 20 of those years, almost every day going to his site to see what observations and insights, and links and images, he’s putting up. And I’ve documented here on my own blog—on the About page and in many posts—how influential and useful his many software tools have been been to me. Just the other day, I was telling my colleagues about our epic bicycle ride through Times Square, and how it’s because of Dave that we have the Duke River of News to see in one place what’s happening across Duke University.
I am grateful to Dave, thankful for his friendship and example. I salute you, Dave.
I hope you’ll read Scripting News, too. Dave’s made it super easy to get his daily writings sent directly to your inbox. Subscribe on this page.
It's her climate
by Anton Zuiker on September 20, 2019
Malia Zuiker on Global Climate Strike day
Malia joined the Global Climate Strike today. I’m proud of you, Malia!
Looking upon rings and craters
by Anton Zuiker on September 8, 2019
Nearly every day for the last 20 years, I have visited kottke.org to see what interesting video or article or book or inquiry Jason Kottke has encountered on the web. Jason is interested in astronomy, among many other topics, and he regularly encounters awe-inspiring photos of space, such as the Entire Plane of the Milky Way Captured in a Single Photo.
During my time as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Vanuatu, I was awed by the brilliance of the Milky Way; Paama Island had zero light pollution, so every night was spectacular, whether a flood of moonlight or the effervescent Milky Way a bright blanket overhead or the red glow of Ambrym’s volcano mesmerizing us as we sat on the black-sand beach.
Friday night, after dinner, we walked down the gravel road to a neighbor’s house. Kumar, the father of Oliver’s friend, is an astronomy enthusiast and telescope collector. He’d texted earlier in the week to thank me for the jar of homemade hot sauce I’d left on his porch, and to invite us to look at the night sky. He was excited to be able to see Saturn, but the planet wasn’t yet clear of the tall trees, so he had a telescope focused on the half moon. Wow, each of us exclaimed as we peered into the eyepiece—the craters along the line of shadow were especially eye-catching.
While we waited for Saturn to move higher in the sky, Kumar pivoted us around to locate Polaris, the North star, and to identify the handle of the Big Dipper. Eventually, Kumar found Saturn in the scope, and I looked in, found the right way to hold my head and focus on my eye, and there was a small circle of light surrounded by a bright ring of light. Amazing.
I once visited the most powerful (at the time) telescope, but didn’t get to see anything because of the weather conditions atop Mauna Kea. That was a memorable experience nonetheless, just as looking up at the moon, the stars, the planets whenever and wherever possible should be. I’m in my place among a vast and beautiful universe.