Current mood: amused

      Caffeine              Guaranine
    

Quote from a guarana energy product, as per Johns observation yesterday:

“Guaranine and the other alkaloids have muscle-relaxant and diuretic properties (2,3,4,7). Guaranine is an alkaloid similar to the theine of tea and caffeine of coffee (2,4).

Case studies have indicated that guarana acts in a different way from caffeine and produces none of the undesirable side-effects (1).

Results of a trial comparing guarana and caffeine found that guarana had a strong and consistent positive effect on reported disposition and performance.”

Now, look very carefully at the caffeine and guaranine molecules above. Caffeine and guaranine seem to have the same chemical structure, but we know better thanks to the helpful marketing team at herbal energy co. Not only is guaranine a different substance, it even has a different mode of action (caffeine competively binds with adenosine, so maybe guaranine binds competitively instead).

This is quite mysterious.. what could explain the different mechanism of action if not the chemical structure? I fancy myself a bit of a scientist, so I would like to propose a theory. First, note that carbon is porous and very absorbtive. Caffeine is synthesized in nasty factories, where the carbon atoms soak up Bad Mojo*. Bad Mojo is medically proven to cause vasodilation**, hence the caffeine headache. Guarana, on the other hand, grows in the jungle, where it is surrounded by cool things like Tigers and the Spirits of Dead Shaman. It only absorbs Good Mojo and therefore has no side effects.

* See Feltz A. et al. Effects of Etheric Vibrations on the Intra-Neural Messaging Cascade for a technical definition of Bad Mojo.

**A famous series of experiments in the 60’s established a causal link between Mojo and arterial tonicity. See A. Hoffman et al. Aural Manipulation of Smooth Muscle

Current mood: contemplative

With x = pi, it has the special form:

Here we have five fundamental mathematical constants, seemingly disparate and unrelated, brought together in a single equation. The union of e and pi is particularly astounding. e, the base of the natural log, is at the root of exponentiation. There is not even a hint of exponentiation in Trigonometry, the domain of pi. These polar opposites are linked through that ultimate structure and causality which echoes through all of math and science and undergirds the universe. All is ordered according to the will of I Am.

Current mood: listless

Once upon a time there was a porcupine named Oliver. Oliver was special because he didn’t know he was a porcupine. His mother abandoned him when he was very young and he was taken in by beavers, so he grew up thinking he was also a beaver.

As Oliver grew older, he began to feel like something was wrong with him. He looked different from the other beavers. Where his friends had soft, smooth fur, Oliver had hard, pokey things. He would try to make friends, but he was bad at playing beaver games and the children just laughed at him. There was an especially popular game called riverball, where the players passed an inflated rubber ball across the river with their tails.  Whenever Oliver touched the ball it popped with a great whoosh, and soon no one would pass to him.  All of this made Oliver feel sad. Sometimes he would walk up the river, away from the sounds and smells of the city, away from the other beavers, and just sit by himself.

When Oliver was sitting alone by the river, he liked to think back to when he was a very young beaver. He remembered how his adoptive mother would wrap him up in a blanket (to protect herself from the quills) and rock him. Oliver had a favorite story when he was young, and his mother read it to him every night. It was called The Ugly Duckling. The story talked about a little duck that didn’t look like all the other ducks. When the duckling grew older it found out it was really a swan and became big and beautiful. Oliver always felt he wasn’t quite what he seemed, and he secretly hoped he would grow up to be a swan too. Oliver knew he wasn’t really a swan. As he grew, he just got weirder looking. He still liked to pretend though, and it helped him get through the day.

Oliver was sitting in his usual spot one Tuesday morning, nestled between two warm rocks along the riverbank. There was grass and moss between the rocks, and Oliver found it a comfortable place to daydream. This wasn’t an ordinary morning though. All of a sudden, a big, blue-black crow came crashing through the trees and startled Oliver out of his reverie. The crow flapped noisily down on one of the rocks, and, after catching it’s breath, it began to speak.

The crow had been flying his morning rounds, crossing back and forth over the river, looking for jays and robins to terrorize. He soon became upset because his usual victims were missing - the valley was oddly quiet. He perched on a branch to survey the land and to think, when he heard a distant rumble. The crow knew deep down what that rumble was. His mother told him a story when he was little, too; a story about a flash flood that came rumbling through the valley many years ago, destroying everything in it’s path. He soon realized what he had to do. He had to go warn the other animals in the valley, otherwise they would all be killed and he would have no one to caw at in the morning.

When Oliver heard the crow’s story he was shocked and terrified. In ‘82 the beavers had moved out of their dams and onto the surrounding land. The local chamber of commerce had commissioned a new cineplex, and the surveyor found the riverbed wasn’t stable enough to support concrete footings. Years had passed since the big move and by now most of the beavers could no longer swim.

The beavers owned several life rafts to guard against floods, but the rafts had been decommissioned and put in storage that past May. It was an election year and the mayor had promised to lower log taxes. Spending was reduced to cover the tax cuts, and there was nothing left in the budget for raft maintenance. Oliver thought there was still a chance the rafts would work if they could be brought out and inflated, but only if the beavers worked quickly. He asked the crow for help, and the crow promised to fly downriver and warn everyone.

The crow took off with a low croak and a flap of his great wings, and Oliver started waddling back into town. He told himself if he hurried he might be able to help with the rafts, but he was really just scared and didn’t want to be alone when the flood came.

Oliver had short legs, and by the time he got home the rafts were already inflated, with beavers piling into them. There were three rafts, and Oliver jumped into the first one he saw. As soon as he landed there was a loud pop, a hiss, and the raft deflated. Oliver’s fellow beavers looked at him with terror and rage - everyone scrambled for the second raft, the pounding of their feet echoing the distant rumble of the flood.

Oliver was undaunted and headed for the second raft himself. A thick-chested, graying beaver, perhaps 50 years old, was in charge of this raft. He had a bad leg from the Great Badger Wars, and he walked with a stick. He was a prudent sort, and when he saw Oliver coming he picked up his stick and beat Oliver back. The flood could already be seen through the trees, breaking against the valley walls in a tumult of rocks and spray. Oliver frantically circled the raft, but wherever he went he was met with the whistling cane.

Water crashed about the beavers with a terrible fury and flung them high above the valley floor. The third raft was immediately capsized; two of it’s crew were lost before it could be righted. The beavers in the second raft paddled frantically and kept it stable, narrowly missing jagged rocks that stuck like teeth out of the angry current. Meanwhile, Oliver tipped his head back and looked up. Some lines of verse he read in high-school came into his mind:

Suddenly I saw the cold and rook-delighting heaven…
So wild that every casual thought of that and this
Vanished, and left but memories…

but he didn’t know why. The flood was melted snow, bitterly cold, and it felt like knives against his skin. As the water crested, time slowed to a bare crawl, and Oliver had a peculiar sensation, as if his vision had been cloudy his whole life and was now clear. The past, the future, everything was spread out before him, crisp and transparent as fine glass, and knowledge came, keener than the icy water: He was a porcupine.

Current mood: quixotic

I’m just back from another ride up Glendora Mountain Road, this time with my brother. We stopped at the horse ring, left the bikes, and went hiking. There are two flood control channels behind the ring. The first one runs to the base of Big Dalton Dam and passes through a sluice gate, while the second continues up and becomes the spillway. A trail behind the public restroom crosses the washes via footbridge, then hugs a rather rusty chain link fence up to where the mountain meets the scree covered shoulder of the dam. This fence cuts off the trail just before the shoulder and turns against a rock bluff.

Now, the city of Glendora, in it’s wisdom, decided to save money by not attaching the fence to the rock and instead continuing it back about ten feet, where it just stops. This is not immediately apparent, as the end of the fence is obscured by overgrown brush. It is entirely possible to walk through the brush and around the fence, which of course we did. Aside from the loose dirt, there is no real difficulty in climbing to the road along the top of the dam. John did this in flip-flops and hasn’t had any exercise for 6 months, which should give you some idea.

Upon reaching the road, we proceeded down the backside of the dam to traverse the spillway. It is something like a concrete ampitheater; a vast expanse of blank white pavement, with absolutely monstrous walls, that gradually slopes into a ramp down the side of the dam, maybe 50′ across and 500′ long. I briefly considered going to get my bike, but John pointed out the algea at the bottom of the ramp and suggested that something low to the ground would be better (a wagon?)

Past the spillway the loose rocks are covered with concrete down to the marshy land upriver from the sluice. A tower comes up out of the water and rises to the top of the dam, which it connects to via catwalk. Water flows through the base of the tower, and the flow is controlled by giant valves at the top. There is a ladder up the tower, the first part on the inside and the second hanging off the outer wall, but it is much easier to climb the dam and walk out, as the span has guardrails.

From the road the view is spectacular - the reeds and water open like a mottled green and blue cloth, and as you walk single file along the catwalk and into space the groud falls away leaving you suspended a hundred feet up, out in nothing. The walkway is made of sheetmetal, and footsteps set the whole thing vibrating and echoing, but at the top of the tower it is silent except for the wind. There is a hint of the numinous to it - a kind of expansive terror.

I am going up there tommorow with trimmers to clear out the brush around the end of the fence.

Current mood: exanimate

It is peculiar how time really does seem to slow down at significant moments, particularly unhappy or frightening ones. I get the impression of something being caught up out of the self and momentarily suspended, then things start to move slowly, with a hollow sharpness.

My wife told me she is leaving me, which occasioned this observation. It is a sad that my primary emotion is not grief, but a mixture of terror and relief. I am having the sensation not of something dying, but of something already dead (which I killed) being put in the coffin; abhorence as opposed to sorrow. I feel like the past 3 years of my life were nothing but a Bad Idea, and it would be better if they were wiped out.

It is not a very Christian attitude, but I just feel sick at heart and glad that it is over and I don’t have to keep waiting for the other shoe. I can’t see any good at all in the situation, and He has admonished us against despair. Even looking back over what I just wrote, I sound calous and hopeless. I would appreciate your prayers, if you feel so inclined…

Current mood: predatory

I just got back from biking on Glendora Mountain Road. I now want to stay in shape just to be able to bike up the road and come down Colby trail. A local Boy Scout troop put up a fence about halfway down so if you miss your turn you don’t fly off into the river, which makes the whole thing much safer. There don’t seem to be any stories on the internet of people flying into the river and meeting their Maker that would occasion the fence; old papers might be a better place to look. Google’s satalite maps show another trail or maybe fire road that drops off of GMR higher up and rejoins it later. Also, it appears that one could cross the wash at the back of the horse ring and come at the dam from above, or else climb down to the river bed and along the river to avoid jumping fences. Has anyone in Glendora gotten onto the dam this way or found another trail off of GMR? If you have, let me know. I think I’m going to try to get to the dam via the riverbed tommorow.