Does anyone know where Mike Lane is?

  

My friend Mike Lane, who was supposed to leave Viet Nam at the same time as I did, and was supposed to be best man at my wedding, got held up in-transit and missed our ceremony.  John Duncan another returning veteran stood in for him.

 

We did connect with Mike eventually at Fort Campbell, but he got out of the Army shortly after his return and disappeared into the mist.  (We drove him out the gate on his last day.  He started taking off his Army clothes in the back seat of our '59 Plymouth station wagon while we were still on Post, but the MP stopped us at the gate because Mike was out of uniform.  We waited for Mike to put his clothes back on so the MP would release us.)  When he next turned up in our lives was a few years later in the Pacific Northwest.  He came to dinner at our house in Issaquah, but by then he was head-over-heels for Guru Maharaj Ji, and the Divine Light Mission.  We couldn't have a conversation with him about anything else; he was so excited about his new-found devotion.  That's all he could talk about the for the entire excruciating evening.

 

That was it.  We never heard from him again.  We called his parents in Oak Harbor on Whidbey Island, but they had lost touch with him too.  We've googled him a few times since and searched Facebook in recent years, but to no avail.  What happens to a person after they've fallen in love with a fifteen-year-old perfect master?  How does a person's entire being suddenly get that devoted to a person or cause, and what happens when it's over?  What happens when the fifteen-year-old perfect master turns sixteen?  Does that change anything?  What happens to the devotion when the perfect master moves on?  The Divine Light Mission is long gone now, so surely Mike's devotion has had to move on as well.

 

I'd love to have dinner with him again and hear about his life since last we met; hoping he had a life after Guru Maharaj Ji.

 

 

 

See this?

  

 

It kind of looks like an underwater sponge.

 

But in reality, it's a petrel chick in a burrow in Bermuda.  You can make out a little seabird face in the lower right-hand corner with his bill pointed down; a webcam shot of a baby Bermuda Petrel.

 

He should grow up to be this good looking.

 

 

 

 

  

We’re bending the curve!

 

This is what our effort to bend the curve looks like.

 

We bent the curve to a straight line, but that straight line hasn’t wavered in weeks.  Our total cases are increasing by the same amount every day.  So far, any progress in the hard-hit areas that are getting the most attention is offset by hotspots popping up in other places all over the country. 

 

Do we ever get to bend the straight line?  Could it be that this is the new normal; the same number of new cases every day indefinitely?

 

 

Just for the record, in one or two more days, as many people will have died in the U.S. from the coronavirus over a period of nine weeks; as U.S. soldiers were killed in Viet Nam in twelve years.

 

 

 

Travel can be exhausting

  

Or not.

 

My world birding alter ego has recently been to:

 

Spain for the Eurasian Spoonbill

Czech Republic, Hawfinch

Germany, Eurasian Blackbird

Canada, Pine Siskin

Montana, Great Gray Owl

Panama, Crimson-backed Tanager

Japan, Eurasian Nuthatch

Caribbean Netherlands, Venezuelan Troupial

United Kingdom, Eurasian Magpie

Finland, Eurasian Blue Tit

Netherlands, Great Tit

Australia, Rainbow Lorikeet

Israel, House Sparrow

Latvia, White-tailed Eagle

Brazil, Saffron Finch

..and South Africa for the Hadada Ibis

 

Altogether 57 species in 16 countries.

 

The world map of countries for our digital birding looks like this:

 

I get around.

 

And I've changed technique for capturing images.  I started out taking photographs of the screen when I saw a bird I wanted a picture of.  They looked like I was photographing through a window screen, so they weren't very clear:

 

 

Now I capture moments digitally with screen grabs:

 

Eurasian Nuthatch, Japan.

 

Oriental Tit, Varied Tit, Japan.

 

European Robin and Green Finches, Czech Republic.

 

Green Finch, Czech Republic.

 

Hawfinch, Austria.

 

They come out a little clearer.

 

 

 

A second wave in the fall?

  

Can there be a second wave if the first wave never crests?

 

 

 

 

Saving the succulents

  

Remember the cactus and succulent garden Judy planted a few years ago; succulents trailing all over it?

 

Well, Jesse left the cactus alone but thought the succulents were salad.  She managed to munch them down to just a few remaining plants for Judy to save.  Here they are, repurposed into a different pot, outside the fence, where the mad muncher can't get to them.

 

 

 

Innovation

  

Much as this pandemic and lockdown suck, one part of our professional life may come out the better for it.

 

I've been at odds with the accounting profession since 2010, about working directly with clients digitally.  We could do digital audits of organizations in remote places, using video conference apps for our face to face conversations and any observations we need to make.  In the last couple years there has been some progress in this direction at the national level, but our state, Colorado, has been terrible.  We're stymied by the Peer Review process which refuses to consider a video call as a face-to-face meeting.  We're threatened with failure to meet professional standards, if we dare to disobey, which could be a death-blow to our practice.

 

In 2010, brain surgeons were doing telemedicine consultations with remote patients to determine if they had brain injuries that warranted being evacuated to a major hospital in Denver.  What?  A videoconference is good enough technology for brain surgeons, but not yet ready for accounting!?!?  Okay.  I've been hot about this for ten years.

 

Well, in the last two months, things have changed.  We, as a firm, are no longer alone.  Now every CPA firm in Colorado, and the country, has to choose between not working at all, or working remotely (digitally).  We have not gotten any direct acknowledgement from the state that now it's really okay to use videoconferencing, but we are all being encouraged to keep our businesses open, while keeping everyone safe, by practicing social distancing and avoiding direct client contact.  We have embraced the concept, and I think the genie is out of the bottle now.  We are all working digitally.  Whenever this darn pandemic actually ends (I think it will take years), I don't foresee the state telling every firm to now stop the new way of doing business, which apparently is now in compliance with professional standards, and go back to the old way of doing things.

 

So maybe, finally, we can take advantage of the technology that has been here all along.

 

 

 

Yellow-headed Blackbird

  

There is a Yellow-headed Blackbird in our park.  It hangs out by a feeder about five houses away from ours, and as far as I know, it has never been to our feeders.

 

 

 

These are low-light evening photographs, but this bird looks good in any light!

 

 

 

Judy graduated!

  

There are still more physical therapist visits left on the prescription from the surgeon, and our medical coverage allows for more, but this last visit, the PT did some measurements and testing, and declared that Judy had satisfied all the requirements for recovery.  She's done.  The PT said if she came back any more it would be malpractice.  There isn't any more she needs to do.

 

As slow and painful as the recovery process seemed to us sometimes, she, the PT, said she had never seen a knee replacement go as well as this. A lot of credit to Judy for being so determined and persistent, but we'll share some of the credit with the surgeon for doing such a fine job.  An outcome this good starts with the work of the surgeon.

 

So at seven weeks post-surgery, Judy graduated.  With honors.

 

 

 

 

 

Big Day photos from the north end of the day

  

Jon has a third-floor view of a yard, a canal, and migrants in the sky.  He sent me his photos.

 

I'll name all of these birds and Jon will tell me if I got any of them (or how many) wrong.  This one, Common Tern, is tricky.  Common and Forster's look a lot alike, but Forster's doesn't have black on the wingtips, so I'm calling Common.  (That's a really good bird.)

 

Tri-colored Heron.

 

Black and White Warbler.

 

Mottled Duck.

 

Ruby-throated Hummingbird.

 

Lincoln's Sparrow.

 

Gray Catbird.

 

Slightly fuzzy Baltimore Oriole and Rose-breasted Grosbeak.

 

 

An awesome Painted Bunting shot.

 

Broad-winged Hawk.

 

White-tailed Hawk.

 

I can't tell size from photos like this but the pushed-forward looking wings on this one make me guess a little Sharp-shinned Hawk.

 

Sandwich Tern.

 

And why does this Great Egret have a black tip on its beak?  Because it's a white morph of a Reddish Egret!  Cool.

 

Franklin's Gull.  Notice how the wing-edges light up from the backlighting of the sun.

 

Jon's all-day-companion Green Heron.

 

Common Yellowthroat.

 

Common Nighthawk.  If it were a Lesser Nighthawk, the white wing-bar would be farther out toward his wrists.

 

Finishing with evening light.

 

I had evening light too, but my shot came out even fuzzier!

 

Fourteen hours straight for me, and even more for Jon.  We birded together all day, even though we were 150 miles apart, with texts back and forth to keep each other apprised of how we were doing, what remained, and what to watch for.  When we realized we had a combined count of 99 distinct species, we pushed hard to make it to 100.  During the day I missed Loggerhead Shrike, Black Vulture, Black-crested Titmouse, and Lesser Goldfinch; all birds I have seen from my yard recently, but never got on the big day.  There are Inca Doves here in our park, about ten houses away, but I never see or hear them from our deck, so I didn't get to count them.  In the dusk I watched out front for a late Lesser Nighthawk.  Jon went outside in the dark and listed for a distant Barn Owl scream.  I stood out later and listened hopefully for a Great Horned Owl.  All to no avail.  We pushed as hard as we could but came up one short of a hundred (The Monk in me always wants even numbers.)

 

We'll call one more bird, a hundred birds, a milestone and motivation for next year.

 

 

 

Big Day photos from the south end of the day

  

The venue.

 

Couch's Kingbird.

 

Ladder-backed Woodpecker.

 

Ruby-throated Hummingbird.

 

 

A Red-winged Blackbird

 

Stealing a drop of water.

 

And a pool party.

 

Eurasian Collared-dove.

 

Great Kiskadee.

 

 

 

Painted Bunting.

 

A Golden-fronted Woodpecker.

 

Absconding with the Green Jay's peanut!

 

A bathing Red-winged Blackbird.

 

 

White-winged Dove.

 

A bathing Grackle.  (It was a hot day.  The birdbath was popular.)

 

 

 

Curve-billed Thrasher.

 

A crazed Red-winged Blackbird.

 

 

 

And dinner delivered on the deck.

 

I never had to look away.