Things I've Been Doing Instead of Blogging: Researching Pressing Questions

Over on Sassy Red Head, Tiana took some time away from tending her adorable newborn to ponder a question that piqued my curiosity:

If you have mosquitos in your house, how likely is it that they would lay eggs in the glass of water on your bedside table as you sleep and then you drink gross mosquito eggs?

Culex quinquefasciatus Ovipositing, photo by smccann

When I came across her question, I went to her comments to see if the question had been answered and no, it hadn't been. So I had to find out for myself. I started typing in my answer and reached my fourth bullet point when I realized it would be easier to do all the HTML in a blog editor, so I'm going to post my literature findings here.

1. It seems that if eggs are laid, they won't hatch: "To rear your larvae you will have to de-chlorinate tap water by leaving it stand in your glass jar for at least 24 hours. Aedes eggs also hatch better in deoxygenated water."
2. "A freshly laid egg is light in color and darkens within a few hours. Mosquito eggs are oval and about 1/40th of an inch (0.635mm) long. Eggs are either deposited singly or as an egg raft depending on the type of mosquito. A standard egg raft is about 1/4 inch (6.35mm) long and contains 100-200 eggs." [source]
3. Depending on the type of mosquito, it might lay eggs on the water surface, or on the side of the glass above the water line. [source]
4. Aedes vexans appears to be the Ontario mosquito type that most goes after people. [source]
5. It appears that these mosquitos are almost all laid above the water line and hatch in spring flooding. [source]
6. So maybe the mosquito in Tiana's house in late August is another kind, possibly culex, which prefer birds (and therefore can catch West Nile virus) and lay egg rafts on open water. [source]

   

   Culex egg raft, Keremeos BC, photo by smccann

7. Most mosquitos have to have a blood meal before they can develop eggs. I'm having a hard time finding a source that says how long after their blood meal the eggs come out. [That is to say, I've checked four websites in five minutes, haven't found the answer, so I'm giving up.]
8. But that's okay, because the Culex pipiens (which may be more common in suburban Ottawa) will lay its eggs in "discarded tires, unwashed bird baths, clogged rain gutters and plastic wading pools allowed to stagnate," but "will not lay its eggs in any of these habitats if the water is too clear". [source]

Conclusion:

Tiana's water glass is safe from mosquito eggs, but if mosquito eggs make her queasy, probably best to stay away from tea that was brewed the day before.

Things I've Been Doing Instead of Blogging: Reading Books and the Internet

For Roy, or anyone else who is into sci-fi, computers, math, demons from other dimensions, and James Bond movies:

The Jennifer Morgue by Charles Stross (2006, ISBN 1-930846-45-2)

So fun it made me wish I'd worked hard enough in differential equations and algebraic systems that I could be a secret agent.

---

Speaking of Sci-Fi: Hi-Fi Sci-Fi Libarian

For librarians and people like me who love librarians, I found this on Connie Crosby's blog, more details on the creator's blog:

Things I've Been Doing Instead of Blogging: Organizing the Art Supplies

[After uploading this picture of the fantastic toolbox from Megan, I realized that I'd placed something in one of the compartments that she would not want to see. If you don't have arachnophobia, you can see the censored bit by clicking on the picture.]

Avocado Shakes and Northern Style at Ju Xian Yuan

The first part of this posting is for everybody. Because Asian restaurants in Ottawa have actual Asian customers, they have begun serving beverages that are popular in Asia. One of these beverages is the avocado shake. If you are familiar with avocado as the main ingredient in guacamole this will seem absurd to you.

Listen up: My trust rating on Technorati may only be 14, but I do not give bad advice about food and restaurants. Avocado with ice cream is delicious. Avocado shakes are delicious. Order one when you have the chance unless you are lactose intolerant or have some problem with sugar.

[The rest of this post is about one of the restaurants in Ottawa where you can get an avocado shake. Out-of-towners may simply read the post below about dancing at Blue Skies, or move on. I suggest you try one of the links in "Dave's recommendations on other sites" over on the sidebar.]

We love that Northern Style!

Manon and I had our first date at Man's Restaurant. It had big portions of delicious food at low prices. Our kind of place. So we were disappointed when it closed and reopened as Ju Xian Yuan. But not so disappointed that we couldn't try the new place.

And tonight was the night.

Wow, it was good!

The first few pages of the menu offered "Northern Style Cuisine" I've never had anything described as Northern style before, so I ordered us three things from those pages.

First was the Northern Charcoal Style BBQ Skewered Lamb (5 skewers: $6). I have not had kebabs this good since I was in Ghana. Tender and spicy. Manon said something about cardamom. I'm not good at distinguishing spices so I don't know, but these were awesome.

The next dish out was the Northern Style Egg Plant with Chef Sauce. Also fantastic. ($8.95). [If you've got an anti-eggplant thing, you really should try to get over it. Think of it as one of those things you do to build neural pathways and stave of Alzheimer's. Don't tell me you can't do this. There was a time you didn't like the taste of beer.]

Then the Spicy Chicken ($9.95). Absolutely perfect.

We finished everything except a few mouthfuls of steamed rice and the chili peppers in the Spicy Chicken.

I'm looking forward to next time. There are a lot of dishes I have to try.

Ju Xiang Yuan Asian Cuisine 641 Somerset Street West Ottawa , ON , K1R 5K3 613-321-3669 [Hours]

Guide to the Blue Skies Music Festival: Dancing

Of course there is dancing at the Blue Skies Music Festival. Lots of it. Special dance features unique to Blue Skies:

• At 4pm on Saturday and Sunday there is a square dance. It is an absolute hoot. You don't need to bring a partner and you don't need to know how to square dance. (But really, deep inside, everyone knows how to square dance.) Added bonus - huge live square dance band and a live caller. This isn't your grade three teacher playing scratchy recordings.
• You can dance off to the side of the mainstage during any of the performances.
• If the music is kind of boring, this is a perfect place for you to dance spacey. Some people will think you are a groovy type who is experiencing the magic of Blue Skies. Others will think you are playfully making fun of the groovy types. In any case, you're getting to do something instead of begging in your head for the next act to come on stage.
• If the band is raucous and really danceable, you can dance in front of the stage. If you are sitting near the stage, you should be prepared for this to happen. If you are one of the first dancers, be careful you don't step on any sleeping children.
• If the band invites you to dance on the stage, don't do it. Polite volunteers will escort you right back off. Even if you are super hot and wearing a bikini and people in the crowd boo at the volunteers.

[P.S. This advice can be easily adapted for the Ottawa Folk Festival. Except that this year, they've got a special dance tent set up for dancing all day and I can't tell you where you're allowed to dance at the mainstage, but for heaven's sake, don't do it in front of the lawn chairs.]

My excuse: Top Mumu score ever - 3789

I really meant to blog tonight (more Blue Skies tips, this time, dancing) but I got side tracked with Mumu. I believe I have just set a new world record for the highest Mumu score ever: 3789.

I probably would have gone higher, but I think I started playing stupidly because I want to go to bed.

I hope this post is enough to keep Zoom from asking me to write about my mountain ash trees or something else I'm not in the mood for.

Guide to the Blue Skies Music Festival: Jamming

While there are wonderful performances at Blue Skies' workshops and mainstage shows, some of the most memorable musical moments take place at the informal jam sessions. They happen at the fire pits, under campers' canopies, or anywhere someone settles down to play music.

It is easy to find yourself listening and participating in such terrific music that you decide there is no point in going to the organized festival performances.

How to Join a Jam

1. Wander around the camping area with or without a musical instrument until you come across people playing music you like.
2. If it is obviously a public firepit and there are places to sit, sit down. If it seems more private, like someone's campsite, stand close by, listen and smile. If you're able to quietly join in, do so. [Hang out even if someone you think is a huge star is at this jam. If they're playing Blue Skies, they don't think they're a big star.]
3. When the first or second song ends, someone will almost certainly invite you to join the circle. Don't be shy. Let them make room for you. Sit down.
4. Ask if you need to know what key is being played and nobody is saying it before the song starts. If they don't know, they are probably playing in G or D.
5. You may have joined a circle where one person is playing song after song. This could be because it is someone really good that everyone wants to hear, or it could be that you've sat yourself down where some narcissist can't let someone else lead a song. Nobody will mind if you move on after a few songs if you are not into the scene.
6. If songs are being rotated around, before long people will look at you and ask for a song. If you're not a singer, you should pick a song that at least one person will know all the words to. If you're a singer and not an instrumentalist, you probably won't get asked to lead a song, but if you do, pick a familiar one that you sing in the standard key that guitar players use for the song. With any luck, one of them can tell the others the chords to play. If you sing and play, you can do anything you want, but you'll get the best reception if the song doesn't have lots of weird chords, key changes, or time signature changes.
7. If they ask you to do another and you've got one, go ahead; if they ask for a third song and you've got one, go ahead. But if they ask for a fourth song, suggest that you'd like to accompany someone else. Because guaranteed there is someone not suggesting you do another song who would like to lead one.

How to Host a Jam

I never thought I'd host a jam, but a few years ago, Dave T and I had a bunch of chairs under the gazebo at our camping site. I brought out my horn and started to play some songs I have music for. Dave brought out his accordion and joined in. Then these guys with guitars stopped by and started playing with us. Then along came Bob Stark who was in Ontario for the weekend. Before long we had a bunch of our favourite folk musicians playing music with us. We kept looking at each other with disbelieving looks.

1. Either by yourself, or with a friend or two, start playing music somewhere that others can join. If you're at your campsite, it doesn't hurt to have a few empty chairs.
2. Play whatever you like.
3. When someone stops and listen, invite them to sit down with you. You can do this when a song ends, or one of you who isn't singing can take a few bars rest to do the inviting.
4. If your new guest or guests seem comfortable, ask if they have something they'd like to play.
5. If a guest keeps playing songs and you're not into it, do a polite redirect when you've had enough. Example: "Fred, that last song reminds me of that song you do about pirates. How does that go?"
6. Do what you can so people know the keys being played and the chord progressions of the songs.

How to Jam with a Wind Instrument

There are challenges to jamming at a folk festival with a wind instrument, but they are worth overcoming. Worth it for you, because you'll add new dimensions to your musical ability and pleasure, and for others because they rarely get to hear folk songs with wind instruments other than tin flutes. You will be especially welcomed by song-writers and professional singers because they are always happy to explore new ways of accompanying their songs.

Sheet music: You probably learned to read sheet music and can barely play by ear at all. Also, you can't sing while you play your instrument. So bring some sheet music of songs people likely know so that you can play melody sometimes. Book of solos with chord notations for piano or guitar are not hard to find.

The Key: Traditional folk instruments, like the guitar, fiddle, accordion, stand-up bass, mandolin and ukulele are concert key instruments. When someone says the song is in G, that's the song it is in for them. But if you're playing a B-flat clarinet or trumpet, you're in D; if you're playing an E-flat horn or saxophone, you're in A. Learn the trick for transposing the concert key into the key you play. There will invariably be someone there with a concert instrument who will want to get into a discussion about which way the transposition works. Do not get sucked into this. It is only a road to confusion. Just repeat, "tell me your key and I'll figure out mine," until they leave you alone and tell you what you need to know.

Playing by Ear: Once you know the key, figure out what the 1-, 4- and 5-chords will be. Or at least, figure out what the 1st, 4th and 5th of the key is. Most folk songs, like most rock songs, and most church hymns, use only those three chords. (If this doesn't mean anything to you: in C-major, C is the 1st, F is the 4th and G is the 5th. It's like counting floors in a building where the name of the key is the first floor.) When you don't know what note to play, try the 5th because it is in both the 1-chord and the 5-chord. If it sounds wrong, slur up or down a note in the key you're playing in. This will bring you to a note in the 4-chord and if you did it quickly enough, and everybody else really is in the 4-chord, it will sound like you did a fancy grace note. Before long, you will get a feel for what notes work best at different parts of the song and will be able to start doing things like rhythm riffs, and cute little runs. Maybe you'll even find you can play the tune without sheet music.

Related Posts

• Guide to the Blue Skies Music Festival: Getting There
• The Unofficial Blue Skies Music Festival Page

Guide to the Blue Skies Music Festival: Things to Acquire and Bring

I realized yesterday that I should expand on "Step 2: Pack for Blue Skies" from the previous chapter of this Guide to the Blue Skies Music Festival.

Blue Skies is not wilderness camping. You drive your vehicle to the unloading zone, you load your stuff into a huge cart, you push the cart to your site, unload, and set up. At the end of the weekend, you reverse the process. This means that you are limited only by your budget and how much you can fit in your car.

Here are things I bring:

4 festival chairs - for watching performances, 1 chair for me, 3 for people who want to sit with me. You can usually buy these at the Ottawa Folk Festival.

A Gazebo - It is much easier to put up a gazebo than a tarp. And the gazebo is more likely to withstand a heavy wind. If you still want extra tarpage, the gazebo is a good thing to anchor to.

A cardtable - To go under the gazebo. Used for dining, playing cards, and holding musical instruments.

4 folding chairs that came with the cardtable - Not only good for sitting at the table, guitar players and accordion players don't have to fuss with the arms that come on lawn chairs.

A 6-person tent - The number of people that can actually fit comfortably in a tent is the number of people the tent is rated for divided by 3. A 3-person tent is comfortable for 1 person. Mine is comfortable for 2.

An air bed with legs - the legs allow you to level the bed and to store things underneath the mattress.

An electric pump with a rechargeable battery - to inflate the air mattress.

Solar-charged garden lamps - for illuminating tent cords that people would otherwise trip over in the dark.

Things that others bring that I endorse:

A hammock - You can almost always find a place to string up your hammock and they're just plain fun.

A prominent flag, banner, or other distinctive marker that can identify your site to friends who want to visit - I keep meaning to make a combined flag and fiber-optic lamp pole.

A set of shelves - Some use milk crates and boards. Others have nice folding shelves. Sweet.

A tent with a screened-in porch: These give me tent envy.

Guide to the Blue Skies Music Festival: Getting There

I spent the civic holiday weekend at the Blue Skies Music Festival. It was the 35th occurence of the festival and I think my tenth. I missed last year because of my Newfoundland trip, I missed 2001 because of an Amnesty meeting in Senegal, and there was that one crazy year that I decided I was burned out on Blue Skies and went to the Maxville Highland Games instead.
If you can stand hours and hours of listening to pipe bands play Scotland the Brave, I would encourage you to go to the Highland Games instead of Blue Skies because going to Blue Skies is a lot of work.
I am writing this guide because there is no official Blue Skies website and even if there was, it probably would not be this frank.
Step 1: Get a ticket
It is easy to get day passes for Saturday and Sunday. But really, to get the true Blue Skies experience you have to get a camping pass. This allows you to enter the site on Friday, erect your home away from home, attend the first choir practice, see the Friday night show, and if you want, stay up all night, yacking or hanging out at a jam.
Here are 3 ways to purchase a camping pass:

1. Win the lottery: Seriously. Because more people want to go to Blue Skies than can go to Blue Skies, there is a lottery in the spring. To enter the lottery, you must be on the Blue Skies mailing list. To put your name and address on the mailing list, someone must go to the info booth during the festival weekend and pay $3 for every year that you would like to have an entry form mailed to you. You could do this by buying a day pass, or someone you trust who is going to the festival could do it for you. In the spring, an entry form will be mailed to you. On this form you are allowed to indicate how many tickets you would like to purchase. Although it is not stated on any of the Blue Skies material, everyone seems to know that 4 is the maximum. (However, I know of one first-time lottery entrant who asked for 6 and got them after a phone call about how they don't do more than 4 but if she really needed 6 they could do it this one time.) Almost everyone I know asks for the 4 whether they need that many or not. This is because they have arranged with others for the contingency that they do not win the lottery. While this seems like the logical thing to do, one friend reports that he always asks for 2 tickets and wins the lottery every year. [2009 Update: He got 2 tickets again this year. None of the four people who each applied for 4 tickets from this address got any.]
2. Receive a ticket from a friend: Someone you know may offer you the opportunity to buy one of their spare tickets from the lottery. This means that this person thinks highly of you. They think you will be fun even if you have spent two nights sleeping on a rocky slope and your clothes have been soaked by a torrential downpour. They also think that other people that matter to them will like you. Receiving a ticket from a friend may happen by accident, but it is more likely to happen if you let everyone know that you are trying to find a camping pass.
3. Buy a camping pass on the road outside the gate on Friday morning: Cars will start arriving at 7 am and they won't be allowed in until 10am. The long lineup will be there until sometime at night. Some of those cars will have one less person than they expected to have and therefore a camping pass to sell. What you do is walk along the lineup with a little sign that says something like "looking for a camping pass" and there is a good chance you will be able to buy one. Everyone I know who has tried this method has succeeded with it. But then, it's not likely that I would meet someone who tried to get in this way and failed. [2009 Update: This year, a Girl in a Yellow Dress took it upon herself to act as an intermediary. When I talked to her at about 11am on Friday morning, she had connected ten people up with camping passes.]

Step 2: Pack for Blue Skies
You will need all your usual camping stuff, all your usual music festival stuff, and all your music jamming stuff. You will not need a book to read. You will not need shaving cream. You do not have to bring coffee or coffee making equipment unless you actually care what coffee tastes like. You will need to bring any beverages you want to drink over the weekend except water. Even if it is warm during the day, some years it gets so cold at night that tuques are called for.
By all means, bring some tarps, but if they are plastic, make sure they are blue. While you can often buy orange tarps at prices lower than the blue tarps, you will feel like an outcast if you use them at Blue Skies.
Step 3: Arrive as Early as You Can
This year, I arrived at about 11:30. I believe I found the only remaining level spot at the site. This is an important thing to remember: Although Blue Skies is an amazing cooperative event completely created by volunteers and dedicated to the creative arts, the environment and peaceful coexistence, the race for good camping spots is a savage competition that requires speed, strength and guile.
Step 4: Setup Your Home for the Weekend
If it looks like it might rain, set up your tent first. If it looks like it will be sunny, set up your gazebo. After years of cursing over putting up tarps, I am all for the store-bought, easy-assembly gazebos. On the other hand, if you have the skills to create an architectural wonder out of a tarpaulin, poles and rope, you will be the envy of all your neighbours.
Once your home away from home is set up. Relax. If you're joining the choir, until 6. If not, for the rest of the day, or until it starts raining and you have to race around zipping things up, moving things to dry places, and rebuilding your architectural wonder that has blown away.
Links:

• 2014 Update: There is now an official Blue Skies website with a performers lineup and map and directions!
• Google Map with the Location
• Photo of the tiny sign on the Highway 7 that tells you to turn off at Road 509
• Larger sign on Highway 7 for people coming from the East
• Scotland the Brave at the Highland Games (Are there only six songs that can be played on the bagpipes, or is that the maximum that pipers are capable of memorizing?)

Related Posts

• Guide to the Blue Skies Music Festival: Jamming
• The Unofficial Blue Skies Music Festival Page