Crummy bike thieves

So today my bike was stolen.
In addition to stealing my bike, they dropped my helmet on the road and drove over it. Honestly.

I was (still am) upset. This was my bike for fourteen years, I'd added a rack and fenders to it so I could ride in the rain to the clinic all through vet school. I'd locked my bike up on the rack outside my apartment, pretty typical, considering that I usually bike every day. However, the rear tire went flat overnight, and I was planning on taking it to the bike shop as soon as I was through the first half of finals. So I didn't take it down to the basement, where I normally move it if I'm not riding for a couple of days. Besides, while I love my bike very much, it's not shiny or even new; I think Schwinn stopped making it in 1990. The paint has been scraped off in multiple places. The gears are a bit gap-toothed. Nonetheless, when I came home today, the cable was cut, my bike was gone and my helmet was shattered in the middle of the parking lot. It's an unpleasant wake up call, not just that people steal, but that people steal with bolt-cutters. (yes, I'm sheltered)

I feel like I let the bike down. This is anthropomorphizing a utilitarian mode of transportation, of course, not to mention the fact that it was some thief who chose to cut the cable and make off with my bike. There is a question on the police report asking, "Did you give permission for the theft of your property?" No no nope no no.

In retrospect, I should have done things. I will do them with my next bike. I make a list of them here:

1. Locking inside overnight. Kryptonite locks can be picked, not as easily as cables cut, but breaking into an apartment complex is another level of theft.
1. High visibility, multiple locks, make the bike unattractive, yada yada yada. My bike was non-descript, but it only had a cable and it was tucked away at the end of a quiet cul-de-sac.
2. Evidently barely being able to squeeze the lock through both bike and anchor is good, as it makes it harder to use leverage to break the lock.
2. Documentation
1. I hear the VIN (BIN?) is under the pedal base. This would explain why I had so much trouble finding it the last time I looked (the internet has come a long way since I was in high school).
2. Photographs. Astoundingly, I don't think I have any pictures of my bike, despite bike riding and photography both having been fairly major parts of my life. 
3. Receipts: I should, theoretically, have the receipt from its last tune-up, but I hadn't planned on my bike being stolen, especially not when it was sporting a flat tire. And it's been a trouble-free 14 years, so receipts are few and far between.
3.  Insurance
1. This is complicated. Basically, you can get renter's insurance to cover your bike. But if you use it, your premiums go up. If your bike is stolen, you file a claim and get paid, and the bicycle is then recovered, you have to pay the insurance company to get it back.
1. Given the dismal recovery rates for stolen bikes, it's probably worth it.
4. Registration: Minimally helpful, apparently, as this usually means pieces of paper floating in one small region, and bikes are so very transportable, but it tends to be cheap and it may help a little. And what else are you going to do?
1. http://www.nationalbikeregistry.com/ According to forum boards, the closest thing to a useful registration system.

Brand:
Model:
Year:
Color:
Serial Number:
Special Features/ Components:
Comments:
  
In short, my bike wasn't a target for theft until someone stole it and drove off, at which time it was too late to get paperwork in order or to move it inside. I am kicking myself for not moving it inside.

The best vet school application essay

Courtesy of some smart folks at the student doctor forums.
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/archive/index.php/t-529897.html

"When I was five, I treated a wild squirrel's broken leg with creative use of grape popsicle sticks and barbie clothes; I also cured his rabies. Then when I was ten I raised a litter of bear cubs; they still live in my backyard and their names are Larry, Moe, and Curly. Of course, I realised that strictly animal experience was not enough and, at the age of 15, I started volunteering at an emergency clinic, while working full time at a mixed animal practice and doing relief work with zoo vets on weekends. As each animal was cured, I sobbed profusely with an abundance of soaring joy."


And so on. 

complaints about grad school

Extra frustration today, as all the projects come due. These are realistic problems, by the way. Defining the problem can show the path to the solution...or so they say...at any rate, things that trip me up, and "working harder" is an ambiguous, unhelpful solution.


1. When I sit down to read (articles and schoolwork, that is) I get so bogged down in details and trying to think carefully about each bit that I don't even finish the one article.
Or, I get scroll through the endless pages and start panicking and can't concentrate at all.

2. There is always an assignment due, which means I'm always working on an assignment at last minute, which means it's always too late to ask for help.

3. There's that one class that I don't learn anything useful in and that has waaay too much homework. It is responsible for 50% of #2.

4. Most of what I'm learning is either too in-depth and I'm lost. Or it's too superficial and it's not gonna sink into my head at all.

5. Talking takes too long. And requires that I actually remember something, instead of reading from my notes.

6. Taking notes is hard. There's too much detail to capture and you just know you aren't going to be looking at them again. Like, ever.

7. They don't let you ask for refunds on classes like #3.

Noisy Coyotes, hungry opossums

My dogs insist on barking at the coyotes, which makes sense as the coyotes insist on wandering across the lawn in the middle of the night. It makes for a difficult conundrum, though, in which I get to lie in bed wondering at which point I should go outside to make sure everything is okay and it's just a vocal debate between two cousins of the canine world. Fortunately there has been no yelping, which would imply escalation and the possible involvement of teeth.

The cats deal very differently with their interloper, who is a fat opossum that has discovered the open buffet that is the cat food dishes. The cats sit in their warm little beds on the countertop--this is out in a shed with a spare room we call the pussycat lounge--and glare at the opossum. As far as I can tell no actual agitation occurs. The cats would be glaring at each other if there wasn't an opossum, so the total effect seems to be nil. The only problem is that unlike the cats, the opossum is not litter trained, so on the whole we prefer he doesn't visit and close the door most of the time.

Open buffet cat food dishes deserve a little explanation. House cats generally overeat when they have 24/7 access to food, if only because they are bored. But it's the same as having, say, an open box of honey nut cheerios open on the counter in the kitchen. You might not be bored, exactly, but your stomach forgets that you ate a cup of cheerios only an hour before, and they are so tasty that it's hard not to gravitate toward them. And they crunch!

Overeating cats leads to fat cats, of course, and fat cats are prone to diabetes and kidney failure. All cats are prone to kidney failure as they get older, but extra fat doesn't help.

But my cats have 24/7 access to food. What gives? This could be bad, for goodness sakes. However, these are outdoor cats. They like the taste of freshly killed mice--and cardinals--and dry food is something you eat every couple of days when you have temporarily exhausted the supply of mice that run into your paws (we have somewhat lazy cats. In their defense, we also have a ton of mice with mediocre survival instincts).  They also are outside in the cold all the time, except for when they finagle a seat in the kitchen, which is every day when it's cold out.

Also, in an effort to get them into shape for winter, they get a can of cat food to share every day. They like this even better than cardinals, and so they hardly eat any of their dry food at all. The opossum is quite happy, though I'm sure he wishes he was in on the canned food too.

Winterim + Minor Pursuits

My productivity appears to go through the floor when I do not have classes or other time-absorbing events scheduled for the day. Depending on how we define productivity, of course. Today I got all the pants that needed to be shorter hemmed up, learned to stitch a hand-rolled handkerchief, and now may be going to go get a needed haircut and if I am really on top of things, will go for a walk. I am simply drowning in excitement.

On the other hand, yesterday I was struck with a relapse of whatever nasty cold has been making the rounds. I thought I had outmaneuvered it last night by going to bed last night at eight, after a thoroughly nutritious dinner (there were vegetables! And seafood!), but then I woke up at midnight. Therein followed four hours of more or less abject misery, until my deranged sleep schedule felt satisfied with the havoc it had wreaked on my plans for the next morning. I did get my ranking for the match finalized. Unfortunately, that just meant I spent the remaining 3 hours in insomniac brooding. And congestion.

During the sewing today, I listened to "The Checklist Manifesto", Atul Gawande's book on how to manage complicated (i.e. made up of many simple tasks) processes in fields as divergent as construction, high-end restaurants, and, of course, surgery. It is excellent, as Gawande generally is, although for me it builds up contradictory inspiration to work in public health or to work hard in medicine...

I begin to think there's not a good way to work in public health until you have managed to excel in something else.

Taking a year from veterinary medicine to "do public health" sounds great, but in reality I am mostly sitting in classes and finding out about whole new fields I can simply not learn enough about in a year to be useful to myself or others (biostats...). On the other hand, I have spent a lot of time among people who, morose or excited, are still in school, which does color one's perception of life in such a way as to feel time is running out to become anything other than a perpetual student. But that sounds too much like insomniac brooding. Time for a walk!

Le Birdies at Le Feeder

The birds are enjoying their feeder this morning. The snow has a scattering of seed (the birds are messy eaters and toss away the scraps) that gets more condensed every day. It's a grey day out, with the woods off in the distance a misty shading of blue but everything else is black or grey or white.

So far I have seen a cardinal, a tufted titmouse, lots of sparrows, lots of juncos, and at least one woodpecker. I think I may have seen a second one that was not nearly as showy, but I got distracted by the titmouse before I identified it. There's also a little sparrow looking bird--merp, it just flew off--that I think must be something else, because it has a tawny gold hue and only a couple of bars on the wings.

And now they are all gone. The chickadees start returning first, and...hah! I knew there was another woodpecker. This one is grey with a red cap, the other was a flashy black and white*.

I've heard a rumor that we are palpating cows later today, which is as far from watching birds as you can get, but for now it is nice to sit with tea and look out the window.

*Methinks I need a bird book.

Birding Christmas Blog Alert

My favorite blogger who is both artist, writer, and avid gardener (it's a good combination) is also responsible for my interest in birding.

Bufflehead up close: I hardly knew ya

To be fair, part of the blame should also go to the professor at vet school who routinely shepherds a covey of students out to the lake and back to introduce us to the joys of spotting a bufflehead a quarter mile away. I am not sure I could recognize a bufflehead up close, but that characteristic speck of white that is almost as big as the speck of black is unmistakeable!


Anyway, the blogger is doing the twelve days of Christmas with illustration and commentary.

Coot: Not A Moorhen

The link to Day 3 is here: Three Moorhens (at Ursula's blog)

Moorhen: Not A Coot

Hawaiian Moorhen: Yes Endangered

"...Our American form of this species is not endangered, not threatened, and not apparently in decline. There is a Hawaiian subspecies that’s probably in trouble, by virtue of being a native bird in Hawaii..." 


It's as good a crash course as any in Elementary Birding for the North American Continent.

And on that note, if you are a birder, consider participating in the Christmas Bird Count. It is the longest-standing science project for citizen scientists (113 years and counting), and one of the cooler ways to "do science" without being an official scientist. Literally cooler, at this latitude. It helps track bird populations and habitat trends. Bonus point: As a poster-child for citizen science, it has helped persuade academics and researchers--to some degree--that normal people can contribute meaningful information to science, without having a PhD.*

*An actual scientist told me this.