calculations and adventures
Oct. 26th, 2008 10:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kareinaI woke up this morning feeling inspired, and got up at 05:45 so I could start on some of the calculations I need to do again slightly differently than when last I did them. Since this particular set of calculations are easy enough for the program to run through them in about the time it takes to get the spreadsheet template set up and ready for the next set, I ran a number of different variations with no awareness of time passing. Suddenly I realized that it was 09:00 and I hadn't yet gotten ready for the adventure which we'd planned. So I, reluctantly, put aside the uni work and quickly packed some food and prepared to head out. Joined by ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
baronsnorri and our friend, M, we drove part way up the mountain to the chalet and then hiked up to the peak and back down by a different track--total hiking time 3 hours, 10 minutes (including rest breaks).
The first noteworthy critter of the day was the eagle being followed by a noisy crow. At first I assumed the one was harrying the other, but the eagle then landed on an old, dead tree and sat there for ever so long as we progressed along our track, much closer to his perch than I would have thought he'd let us approach, and the crow sat on another limb for part of the time, then flew off and returned again.baronsnorri remembers reading an article not too long back about a wedge-tailed eagle which had been injured, rehabilitated, and released on the mountain, so we wonder if this is the one, to be so tolerant of nearby hikers.
On our way down from the peak I stopped when I saw a tiny snake, no bigger than all of the lizards we'd been seeing all day (it was the first hot day of spring). I had to do a double-take when I saw it, because while it looked like the lizards at first glance, that lack of legs thing was a give-away. It was so cute. It didn't yield the path, which was quite a bit wider than its length, so I figured that I could easily go past it without any danger to either of us (and without stepping on the alpine plants--they have it hard enough without being trodden upon). Much to my surprise, the tiny snake did leap at me in a very aggressive manner, but it was so small, it didn't get anywhere near close enough to touch me. It did repeat the performance with each of the other two as they passed, again missing them by more than its body-length. Feisty critter!
Much lower down the mountain I saw another snake, of more typical size, and behaviour pattern. This one saw us, and promptly slithered off the track out of our way. Sensible of it, I thought.
(for maps and links to details about some of the critters and other things we saw along the way, check outbaronsnorri's post from a bit earlier today).
Once home I fell back into the computer repeating more calculations. More than six hours of uni work have happened today, and I'm seeing some nice patterns based on changing this or that, but, alas, I've not yet written up results of what I've done. But I'm now sleepy, so I guess that will have to wait till tomorrow.
baronsnorri and our friend, M, we drove part way up the mountain to the chalet and then hiked up to the peak and back down by a different track--total hiking time 3 hours, 10 minutes (including rest breaks).The first noteworthy critter of the day was the eagle being followed by a noisy crow. At first I assumed the one was harrying the other, but the eagle then landed on an old, dead tree and sat there for ever so long as we progressed along our track, much closer to his perch than I would have thought he'd let us approach, and the crow sat on another limb for part of the time, then flew off and returned again.
baronsnorri remembers reading an article not too long back about a wedge-tailed eagle which had been injured, rehabilitated, and released on the mountain, so we wonder if this is the one, to be so tolerant of nearby hikers.On our way down from the peak I stopped when I saw a tiny snake, no bigger than all of the lizards we'd been seeing all day (it was the first hot day of spring). I had to do a double-take when I saw it, because while it looked like the lizards at first glance, that lack of legs thing was a give-away. It was so cute. It didn't yield the path, which was quite a bit wider than its length, so I figured that I could easily go past it without any danger to either of us (and without stepping on the alpine plants--they have it hard enough without being trodden upon). Much to my surprise, the tiny snake did leap at me in a very aggressive manner, but it was so small, it didn't get anywhere near close enough to touch me. It did repeat the performance with each of the other two as they passed, again missing them by more than its body-length. Feisty critter!
Much lower down the mountain I saw another snake, of more typical size, and behaviour pattern. This one saw us, and promptly slithered off the track out of our way. Sensible of it, I thought.
(for maps and links to details about some of the critters and other things we saw along the way, check out
baronsnorri's post from a bit earlier today). Once home I fell back into the computer repeating more calculations. More than six hours of uni work have happened today, and I'm seeing some nice patterns based on changing this or that, but, alas, I've not yet written up results of what I've done. But I'm now sleepy, so I guess that will have to wait till tomorrow.
