Author: James Amos

I'm a retired consult-liaison psychiatrist. I navigated the path in a phased retirement program through the hospital where I was employed. I was fully retired as of June 30, 2020. This blog chronicles my journey.

House Finches at Home in Fake Christmas Tree

We managed to get some critter cam footage of the male and female house finch pair nesting in the fake Christmas tree in our front entry way yesterday. Crank up the volume on your audio to hear them singing.

The male sports a red face and chest. The female is plain brown except for brown streaks on a white belly. While she incubates the eggs, he feeds her periodically.

It’s definitely a tough job sitting there most of the time with temperatures getting well into the 80’s Fahrenheit on our porch even before noon. On the other hand it’s still getting pretty cold at night.

We don’t know when the eggs were laid, but they take about two weeks to hatch. After that the chicks will take a couple of weeks to fledge.

I’m a little nervous about going out there periodically to pick up the critter cam and peek at the eggs. It always startles the female. It can also alert large predatory birds to the prospect of a meal. This actually happened about 4 years ago when I heard what sounded like large bedsheets flapping in the wind. It turned out to be the biggest crow I ever saw taking off with its beak full of house finch nestlings from the real evergreen tree in our front yard (different house).

There should be a bird nest relocation program.

House Finch Nesting in Our Artificial Christmas Tree!

A couple days ago, Sena found a bird’s nest in our front porch artificial Christmas tree. The small nest is made from the clippings of Sena’s ornamental grasses. It has 4 small eggs, which are white with dark specks.

We could hear a bird singing while we were sitting in the house and it always sounded close by. We could see it flitting around but we couldn’t identify it. We thought it might be nesting in our magnolia tree at first but Sena couldn’t find one.

I’ve scared a bird a couple of times lately and it always seemed to be flying off our front porch from somewhere. I never thought to peek in the little fake Christmas tree sitting in a big pot.

So, I got the critter cam out. It hasn’t been getting any use since we solved the problem of our yard drain grate lids popping off by having them screwed down last year. We never did find out what flipped the lids.

Anyway, Sena suggested moving the pot with the tree around to face the front of the porch and set up the critter cam facing the tree. Both the tree and the camera on a tripod are somewhat sheltered from the wind behind one of the columns.

Moving the tree confused the bird a little because it had a little trouble finding it at first. We got a good enough video to identify it as a female house finch. We don’t know when she laid the eggs, but they take a couple of weeks to incubate.

We had been trying to keep birds off our porch by setting out a couple of fake snakes. The birds ignored them. And I guess they don’t mind nesting in fake trees, either.

The nest is probably in a fairly safe spot on the porch. Crows and other predatory birds fly around, but might be less likely to see it from the air. Maybe we should get a fake dog.

We’ll try to keep our intrusions to a minimum, because it tends to tip off big, hungry birds. On the other hand, we would like to get enough footage to make short videos of the progress of the nestlings.

Jim Does the Walmart Self-Checkout

Yesterday I did the Walmart self-checkout thing after grocery shopping. Sena told me a few weeks ago that she saw some people abandon their full shopping carts and just walk out of the store after learning they might have to use self-checkout.

I had mentioned to Sena that I probably would try the self-checkout on a day when I had a short grocery list. It turns out that I made a slightly longer list than I intended (more than 10 items which makes you ineligible for the 10 items or less aisle). And I couldn’t think of a way to wiggle out of going to the Coralville Walmart which is promoting the self-checkout. The Iowa City Walmart is not.

When I got there, I noticed the check-out aisles had undergone a major rearrangement. The aisles were a lot wider and the self-checkout stations were designed so that you don’t have to wait directly behind somebody who might be a slowpoke—like me. There was at least a half-dozen self-checkout stations and a few regular check-out stations with long lines. There was usually no waiting for a self-checkout slot.

Prior to going to the store, I had taken a quick look at the web page “Wiki-How for How to Use the Walmart Self-Checkout.” It works almost exactly like that in a real store. I had a little trouble accidentally double-scanning an item and for some reason I couldn’t get the scale to weigh a small bag of tomatoes. But there is always somebody around to help you out.

Actually, I wasn’t aware of my double-scan until after I got home. Sena found it after checking the receipt (oops). I went back to fix that, which made it necessary to pick up a few more items—including ice cream. So, I actually did the self-checkout twice that day.

I really didn’t think the using the scanner was as much of a challenge as sacking all the items so that things like tomatoes didn’t get crushed, etc. But you can use crushed tomatoes in chili and goulash, can’t you? Don’t answer that.

I was gone most of the day doing the grocery shopping and self-checkout. The most time-consuming part of the trip was finding the items in the store. Does it make any sense to put the liquid hand soap in the pickled pig’s feet aisle?

Anyway, when you’re done at the self-checkout, you get a screen asking you to rate how good your experience was on a 5-star scale. The first time I was there, I didn’t notice it for a couple of seconds and that was a few seconds too late. The rating evaluation doesn’t stay on screen for very long. I guess they figure if it takes longer than a few seconds for you to figure out what you think of the process, the rating is bound to be on the low side.

The second time I was there, I was quicker. I gave it 4 stars, one off for having to dig through the pickled pig’s feet to find the liquid hand soap.

Cat-astrophizing About the Association Between Cats and Schizophrenia Risk

It seems like every few years there is a spate of news stories about the supposed risk of developing schizophrenia from having a pet cat. The bottom line is that there is no direct link, but you can’t tell a reporter that. I mentioned the issue in a blog post about a feral cat in our neighborhood last year.

The research about this often has limitations, some of which are pointed out in this web article. A Psychiatric News article published in 2017 presented a reasonable position which apparently no reporters have read.

I’m allergic to cat dander. On the other hand, some cats are important enough to be entrusted with carrying an entire galaxy around their belts, reported in the Men in Black documentary which is in large part about a cat named Orion.

Still Working on That Shower Juggle!

I’ve been working on that shower juggle pattern for a year now. Progress is slow but a couple of days ago, I noticed it got better when I held my arms pretty rigidly within the pane of glass. You can still tell I tend to morph between a half shower and a full shower.

It’s also called a circle juggle because that’s sort of what it looks like.

I can do on average about 5-7 throws before I start dropping balls on my head. I notice also that as long as I stay in the pane and focus on the arc throw at the top of the arc, I can juggle the shower with pretty much any set of juggling balls.

I think the Svengoolie T-shirt gives me good luck.

Reminder: FDA Advisory Committee to Meet in May 2024 to Discuss Updating Covid-19 Vaccine:

Just a reminder: the FDA Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) will meet on May 16, 2024 to make recommendations on Covid-19 strain selections for the fall vaccine of 2024-2025.

Svengoolie Movie: Island of Terror!

The Saturday night Svengoolie movie was Island of Terror. This one was released in 1966 and starred Peter Cushing as one of the scientists who battle monsters who are snacking on the skeletons of humans. The monsters are also silicon-based.

These two elements reminded me of a couple of other things. One was the short horror story “Skeleton,” (often miswritten as Skeletons or The Skeletons). It was published by Ray Bradbury in 1945. It involves a weird doctor, Dr. M. Munigant, who treats Mr. Harris’s hypochondriacal preoccupation with his painful bones—by slurping all the bones out of his body, leaving him alive but like a jellyfish.

OK, so Bradbury’s story is really not closely related to the film—except they both involve feeding on skeletons.

The other thing Island of Terror reminds me of is the X-Files episode “Firewalker.” That’s because both conveyed the idea that life could be based on the element silicon. The fungus that took over the characters in “Firewalker” were silicon-based. The skeleton-munching monsters on the Island of Terror were silicon-based lifeforms and are called silicates in the movie.

And that leads to speculations about how the Island of Terror silicon-based, skeleton-eating monsters were defeated by the scientists. Nothing kills them but Strontium-90. But they don’t attack them directly with the isotope. Instead, they feed it to cattle, which the monsters then scarf down. Eating the Strontium-90 kills them.

Strontium-90 is an isotope that comes from nuclear bomb radiation fallout and nuclear accidents. The radioactive waste in nuclear reactors contains a lot of Strontium-90 and exposure to it can cause leukemia and—bone cancer. Bullets, bombs, and dynamite don’t harm the silicates.

Why does Strontium-90 destroy the silicates? As near as I can tell, because they get ultra-rapid progressive bone cancer from eating too many skeletons with bone-seeking Strontium-90. Or maybe they get radiation sickness.

Anyway, the movie itself was entertaining. The location of the action was on an island off the coast of Ireland. That might explain why most of the landscape looked Kelly green. The creature effects were pretty odd. The silicates moved very slowly, yet were able to catch humans easily, sometimes by climbing trees and dropping on their victims from above. I’m not sure how they were able to climb trees.

They also reproduced by fission, which revealed a chicken noodle soup-like substance between the two new silicates. This apparently violates the universal law that chicken noodle soup cures everything. It also promotes the typical Svengoolie Dad jokes, such as:

How do the silicates promote STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math)? They divide and multiply.

Leave a comment if you have a bone to pick with me about this post or a good Dad joke (is that a contradiction in terms?).

KCCK Big Mo News and More

Well, ever since last fall, the Iowa jazz and blues radio station KCCK has been available only on channel 88.3 FM on our radio dial. Channel 106.9 has been out for months. We just found out that 106.9 is now working again and has been for over 3 weeks. It has been a translator channel that broadcasts in addition to 88.3 FM out of Cedar Rapids so that people in Iowa City can have better reception.

The story about why KCCK 106.9 has been out is complicated and traces back to when the Daily Iowan reported in early October of 2023 that because the Iowa City campus of Kirkwood Community College closed, the antenna for KCCK in the area was shut down and other arrangements had to be made for KCCK radio reception in Iowa City.

We never really lost KCCK reception, except on 106.9. It always came through just fine on 88.3. But just a couple nights ago, I heard John Heim aka Big Mo who broadcasts the Big Mo Blues Show on Friday nights starting at 6:00 PM say, as usual, that KCCK is on 88.3 in Cedar Rapids and in Iowa City by translator channel 106.9. He has been saying that for months but nothing came through but static mostly.

And now KCCK 106.9 is back, just like that.

The other news from KCCK is that Big Mo has a Pod cast show now. It just started in recent weeks also. One of them reminds me of what turns out to be a comedy bit he does about May Ree’s hand-battered catfish. He always says she is one of the sponsors for his show. I’ve had my doubts about it but enjoy it anyway. I was evidently one of the many who contacted him asking whether or not the hand-battered catfish story is real. He just advised me to “keep listening.”

It’s not real, but it’s funny. It’s one of a few “Sponsors de faux” comedy bits he has done for a long time. I remember wondering about May Ree and her hand-battered catfish at least a couple of years ago. He has a couple of others which I’ve never heard about: Shorty’s Adult Diapers and Big Furry Shaving Products. I’ve blogged about May Ree a few times. Just search “hand battered catfish.”

Anyway, I thought I’d just pass this along. You can have a lot of fun listening to KCCK radio out of Cedar Rapids and Iowa City, Iowa. I guess now only newcomers will ask whether the May Ree’s Hand-Battered Catfish story is real or not. KCCK of Iowa welcomes new listeners, so…keep listening.