Just what you've been waiting for

Oh boy! Just what we've all been waiting for. Clyde's put up a webcam. Now we can watch him do absolutely nothing. Click on WebCam at the top of the page (below the banner photo.) You'll be impressed -- NOT. I hope to put the webcam outside someday but I need to get a weather proof one that can also handle bright & low light.

Maxwell Van Nuys

Maxwell Van Nuys
December 18, 1915 - October 31, 2013
Maxwell Van Nuys, 97, a long-time resident of Denver, Colorado, died Thursday, October 31, 2013 at his home. Max was born December 18, 1915, in Rapid City, South Dakota, to Claude C. and Laura (Bower) Van Nuys. The family later moved to Cranford, New Jersey, where Maxwell spent most of his boyhood.

Max earned a degree in civil engineering from Bucknell College in Pennsylvania. He served in an Engineering battalion during WWII, crossing the English Channel a few weeks after the 1944 D-Day invasion. After the war he worked for the Tennessee Valley Authority, the State of South Dakota, and as a hospital inspector for the State of Colorado from 1960 until he retired.

Max had a passion for the history of the American West, especially concerning his beloved home of South Dakota. He spent many years researching the life of the Santee Sioux leader Inkpaduta, the presumed instigator of the Spirit Lake Massacre in northwestern Iowa in 1857. In 1998, he self-published Inkpaduto-The Scarlet Point: Terror of the Dakota Frontier and Secret Hero of the Sioux, later republished as Inkpaduta - Sitting Bull's Predecessor. He also compiled The Daring Venture for Custer's Gold, published by Johnson Printing in Boulder, Colorado. In addition, he preserved and provided the diary of his aunt, Alice Bower, and letters between her and newspaper publisher Joseph Gossage, and wrote a chapter on the history of the Rapid City Journal for the book Sunshine Always: The Courtship Letters of Alice Bower and Joseph Gossage of Dakota Territory, published by the South Dakota State Historical Society in 2006.

Max also convinced his mother, Laura Bower Van Nuys, to write what became The Family Band: From the Missouri to the Black Hills, 1881-1900. published by the University of Nebraska Press in 1961. This volume recounted the Bower family's migration to western South Dakota and the local fame enjoyed by Laura and six of her seven siblings in organizing a touring brass band. In 1968, Walt Disney bought the movie rights and released the musical "The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band." In 2009, Max was awarded recognition by the South Dakota State Historical Society for his life-long devotion to the history of South Dakota.

He is survived by his long-time friend, David Wang, of Denver, Colorado; his niece Laura Tonkyn and nephews James Van Nuys and Frank Van Nuys, and their families, all of Rapid City, South Dakota.

A memorial service was held at the First Unitarian Church of Denver on Thursday November 21, 2013. Inurnment will be at Mountain View Cemetery in Rapid City, South Dakota.

Max had requested that a recording of "The Pilgrims Song of Hope" (Batiste) be played at his memorial. The recording had been played at his mothers funeral and at his aunts funeral. They had the original 78rpm phonograph at the service. I found a YouTube recording of the music; I'm sure it's the same recording as the 78.


J Arthur Meale plays the organ of the Queens Hall, London. This is a track from Beulah 1PD5 Historic London Organs.

Note that the sign "Whole Soul" is attached to the lectern behind Max's photo, but Max was a non-theist and didn't believe in life after death.

Also see the related blog post: "Max and the missing railroad."

 

I Will Never Forget

Matthew Shepard died 15 years ago today from injuries he suffered five days earlier during a brutal hate crime in Laramie Wyoming. I will NEVER forget !



 

Biblical flood of 2013

Yesterday the National Weather Service referred to the flooding in Colorado as "Biblical". I'm a little skeptical of that claim but I'm not affected by flooding. There are a couple of street closers in Arvada to the west of me near 80th and Kipling but Arvada hasn't had much flooding.

Boulder received 12 inches of rain in 24 hours yesterday! The worst of the flooding is in Boulder (Boulder creek), Lyons (St Vrain river), Estas Park (Big Thomson river), Longmont (St Vrain river), and Fort Collins (Poudre river). There has also been some flooding along Coal Creek and Bear Creek.

Denver, Aurora and Commerce City have had street flooding and flood retention ponds/lakes over flow. Commerce City evacuated some neighborhoods yesterday when the Fairfax Park retention pond overflowed. This was made worse when the dam at the Havana Ponds flood retention pond, on the Rocky Mountain Arsenal Wildlife Refuge, was breached yesterday. They had enlarged and reenforced that dam last summer.

There are also flood warnings out all down the South Platte river into Nebraska. And, Manitou Springs has had repeated flash flooding all summer because of the big fire there last year.

I've been staying home keeping my feet dry and watching the disaster unfold on TV.

I am here

Boulder received 12 inches of rain in 24 hours

Chris Tomer of Fox TV 31 KDVR
image links to his twitter

image links to The Denver Post

Walking in circles

I completed the Cardiac Rehab program. It was mostly walking on a treadmill while they monitored my heart, pulse, and blood pressure. They also evaluated my eating habits and mental state at the beginning of the program and the end of the program. There was also instruction on nutrition and relaxation.

They recommend I get 30 minutes of continuous aerobic exercise 5 or 6 days a week. Walking works best for me. I may have to get a treadmill to get 30 minutes every day in the winter.

Today I got more than 30 minutes of walking. I walked to and around Arbor Lake, Arvada, Colorado. It is 0.7 miles to the lake and 1.2 miles around the lake. I walked 2.6 miles in 55 minutes; that's 2.8 miles/hour.

My route




Arbor Lake sunset
August 16, 2013.

My first and only time

The Sturgis Bike Rally was a big disappointment. I paid way too much money. There were a lot of bikes but the rally really doesn't have anything to do with motorcycles. The rally is all about drinking and looking at boobs.

I drank a lot when I was in high school and college. I don't do that now that I'm grown up. It's hard enough not to make an ass of myself without adding the affects of alcohol and drugs. Drinking responsibly is one thing but drinking yourself stupid is something else.

Though Sturgis was a disappointment the ride was not. The ride from Denver to Sturgis was great ! The Black Hills were magnificent ! Everything was green and lush - the prairies were even beautiful. We saw a lot of other motorcycles on the highway. We stopped at Orin junction (south of Douglas Wy.) for a picnic lunch, and took another break in Newcastle Wy.

We found a nice place to setup camp in the Buffalo Chip campground then got dinner at the amphitheater. I doubt the Buffalo Chip was 1/3 full when we arrived on Thursday but they were squeezing them in by Sunday. They don't admit RV's or trailers in after 7:30pm, but there continued to be a steady unbroken stream of motorcycles coming in for several more hours.

The concerts at the Buffalo Chip were a mixed bag; some sucked and some were good. Though loud, I liked Halestorm but ZZ Top bombed. You couldn't see the stage at all unless you elbowed your way to the front and even then they looked like match sticks. I don't understand why go to a live performance only to watch them on a big screen TV?

Saturday we made the obligatory trip down the main street of Sturgis. There were some cool bikes but most were stock or modified stock - only a few were out of the ordinary. Junk shops lined both sides of the street for four blocks each one selling exactly the same thing as all the others. I didn't encounter any vendors selling a new, unusual, or hard to find product. The leather goods on sale were very poor quality. I shopped for a new pair of gloves, but everywhere I went the gloves for sale wouldn't have lasted a month and I would have been out another $35.

Sunday I rode to Mount Rushmore, got my picture taken, then rode on to the Crazy Horse monument. They haven't made much progress on Crazy Horse in the last 20 years. The front of his face has been completed but you can only see it in profile. No progress on his arm or the horse. The art gallery and museum at the visitors center is free and worth the trip. I had a good lunch at the restaurant.

We broke camp on Monday morning. Those that had to work headed back to Denver while my riding buddy and I decided to tour the country side for a few days. We made a loop through Badlands National Park then took I-90 east as far as Mitchell SD. The colors and erosion features in the Badlands were pretty and interesting. I would like to see it during a sunrise and sunset.

The weather forecast and reports of flooding convinced us to cut our trip short. We stopped into the Corn Palace in Mitchell before heading south to Nebraska. We ate lunch along the Missouri river in Niobrara State Park, Nebraska.

We ate dinner in Mullen NB. before continuing west on highway 2. We got into a blinding rain after sunset only 15 miles east of Alliance NE. It rained buckets and a little bit of pea sized hail. We had to pull off and wait it out. Fortunately it didn't last very long, but we sure got wet.

All of the motels in Alliance were full so we had to ride another 58 miles to Scottsbluff NE. to get a room for the night. It was after 11pm when we got a room.

We pulled out of Scottsbluff about 10:30am and rode south to Fort Morgan CO. We had a very good lunch at Chef's DA Chinese Restaurant, 209 Main Street in Fort Morgan. It was about 2:30pm when I got back to the house. It was 1,652 miles round trip.

Sturgis was an obscene waste of time and money, but the landscape scenery and the time riding was fair compensation.

Turkeys at the lake [updated]

I've seen a large bird circling at Standley lake during the past week. I thought it might be a hawk. I got my big telephoto lens out this weekend, went to the lake and waited for the bird to appear. I didn't have to wait very long before the large black bird made its appearance and made slow lazy circles over head. I snapped several pictures with my 500mm lens. They all turned out reasonably well but are a little high contrast do to the bright sky.

What I assumed was a hawk turned out to be a Turkey Vulture!

I was also able to get a good picture of an American Goldfinch.

Prairie dogs are always ready to have their picture taken.

These are at Black Tail prairie dogs at Standley Lake Arvada. There is something unusual with their coloring. Some of them are grey/white/black and some of them have light grey head & front paws but the rest of the rodent is the normal reddish brown. I was curious about this so asked a biologist about it; here is his reply.

This appears to be an expression of albinism. Sometimes within small or isolated populations there are limited numbers of available mates except for close kin, promoting inbreeding which reduces genetic diversity; along with genetic drift, inbred offspring can also be more susceptible to diseases, parasites, and environmental changes. These factors expose rare deleterious alleles (variations of the same gene) and increases the possibility of genetic anomalies such as birth defects and albinism (Hoogland 2006, Tate 1947). I've seen this in other urban areas and I suspect this can be instigated by industrial an or urban development (sprawl) which fractures natural habitats and isolates coteries, although I have not seen specific data regarding this yet.

--Brian
Biological Science Technician
US Fish and Wildlife

My new townhouse

I'm all moved into my new townhouse in Arvada Colorado and have met some of my neighbors.

Front door.


Two car garage!


Living room.


There's just one problem.