Rewild it all 🌲 @samfirke@a2mi.social

Submitted v 2.0.0 of my #rstats janitor 📦 to CRAN! Now hoping it passes all checks and is accepted.

Big milestone. I'd said I didn't have time for this project, that it was done, that I wanted to focus on other things. And yet there is a lot of good, thoughtful functionality added in this major revision!

Yesterday I watched this spider eating a yellowjacket inside a tunnel web made on a basil leaf in my garden. Today the spider is still there, all the remains of the yellowjacket are a wing and legs.

pro tip for remote school: take digital photos of your kid's QR code login badges. When they lose them, you can still log them in by waving a smartphone.

University of Michigan graduate student union GEO 3550 remains on strike. Strong show at a 5am picket line today:

https://twitter.com/thewrightkat/status/1305799498900307968

April 1997 Agenda article about large trees in Ann Arbor: "Giants Among Us"

https://aadl.org/node/251127

I keep thinking of this Aldo Leopold quote:

"One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds. Much of the damage inflicted on land is quite invisible to laymen. An ecologist must either harden his shell and make believe that the consequences of science are none of his business, or he must be the doctor who sees the marks of death in a community that believes itself well and does not want to be told otherwise"

It was so foolish to cut down all the old growth trees. How do you clear cut a whole country?

I enjoy local woods like Bird Hills and Eberwhite but they're pathetic compared to what stood here for millennia.

TIL about the Hartwick Pines State Park in Michigan's lower peninsula, which has a relatively small grove of old-growth pines.

"The Old Growth Forest is an even-aged stand of pines estimated to be between 350 and 375 years old. The tallest trees are between 150–160 feet tall, and have a girth of more than four feet DBH (Diameter at breast height). These eastern white pine are some of the largest trees in the eastern United States."

Will visit next year I think.

I got up with the puppy at 6:15am, when she dozed off the kids were still asleep long enough for me to write up a #Hamilton joke I thought of the day before

http://samfirke.com/2020/08/22/hamilton-walks-in-the-woods/

The hinge on my Andersen storm door is failing. Any opinions on how easy this will be to fix myself? There seem to be a lot of repair parts on the web which is a good sign.

Intrigued by in-ground pet waste digesters -- basically a low-tech septic tank for dog poop.

https://thebark.com/content/build-your-own-pet-waste-digester

Anyone tried this?

That link gives the example of using a SAD to pay for a roadside berm that would reduce highway noise for some residents. This is a very similar situation.

And I think splitting the $7M cost over the affected area, then over 10 years, would be manageable for the benefit it produces.

I spent a while reading about special assessment districts in MI: http://www.michiganpropertytax.com/articles/2013%20Final%20Maa%20Article%20Rules%20For%20Spec%20Assmnt.html

I don't think the city should pay $7M for our benefit, but would be game to pay my share. Seems like a SAD should be an option here, legally and practically.

This February, Ann Arbor finished a study and found it would be $7M to fit all of the train crossings of the Ann Arbor Railroad such that it would be a quiet zone and no horns would blow.

https://www.michiganradio.org/post/mornings-michigan-ann-arbor-considers-quiet-zone-train-horns

This doesn't affect most people in the city - but it's pretty bad for some folks. I am not that close to the tracks (near Davis and 7th) and I get woken up not infrequently. That was worse when I had a baby.

With 103 of 150 precincts fully reporting, Eli Savit holds an 8% lead for prosecutor.

Ward 2 is fully counted. Linh Song wins 60%-40% over Jane Lumm. #a2council

#a2council Ward 4 is fully counted. Jen Eyer is the winner. Jack Eaton receives 29% of the vote.

AVs coming in now for Wards 2 and 5, Song is up 20 points and Briggs up 48 points (!!!)

maybe ~all in person votes tallied at this point in the county, now waiting on AVs? Prosecutor in-person vote tallies seem stable.

AVs usually skew older voters, but probably less so this time.

Interesting to look at the absentee votes cast column. It's 0 for all Ann Arbor races, and I'm guessing the big majority of votes will be AVs. Looks like only Dexter has its AVs counted right now.

Do all AVs in a ward get tallied and posted at once or is that precinct by precinct?

https://electionresults.ewashtenaw.org/electionreporting/aug2020/index.jsp

Wrote up my plan for bike camping from Ann Arbor to Crooked Lake at Pinckney Rec area: http://samfirke.com/2020/08/02/bike-camping-from-ann-arbor-to-pinckney-rec-area/

Thanks @Erich and @dzombak for helping with route advice!