Insect Sleep

When people talk to a pest control technician, they generally expect that the technician will know a lot about pests. This is very reasonable, but knowing things about stuff doesn't happen automatically. Earlier today, I was trying to think of questions people might ask me that I wouldn't know the answers to, and I eventually found myself wondering-- do insects sleep?

A quick web search suggests that insects do indeed sleep; having a central nervous system seems to be one of the major prerequisites for sleeping and insects do check that box. There have been several experiments in insect sleep-- in one instance, researchers kept a vial of fruit flies awake by regularly tapping on the glass. When the tired flies were finally left alone, they were much less active than flies in another vial that was undisturbed. I can just imagine meetings in this lab to brainstorm how to keep flies awake. Apparently, a later insect sleep study found that caffeine would also have done the job.

Motivational Poem

The first best time to plant a tree

Is twenty years ago or so

The next best time to plant a tree

Is right today, then watch it grow

The motivation from this verse

Is strong until the thought begins

The third best time to plant a tree's

Tomorrow, so just do it then

Layering

Working outdoors is a great way to develop appreciation for the power of the sun. When I was in the Yukon, we slept in a few hours past dawn and then started work at 7am; the temperature was usually still around freezing at this point. As the sun got higher, things started to warm up (moving around helped with warmth too) and by mid-afternoon it could be almost t-shirt weather.

This, then, is where I was introduced to the art of layering-- while a single heavy jacket may be fine at a constant cold temperature, being toasty in the morning without being toasted in the afternoon required, in my experience, four or five thin layers that were all worn at the start of the day and successively removed and tied around the waist. A warm hat and gloves usually came off around 11am.

Currently, in the South Carolina winter, three layers is the most I ever need, but the same concept applies. I'm assuming that when summer rolls around, I'll start my day with just one layer and have nowhere to go from there.

Fast and Slow

Some weeks go by fast, others seem to last forever. What makes the difference?

I remember noticing this effect on vacations when I was in middle school. If we went somewhere, the first day would stretch on and on, the second day would be a bit faster, and things would keep speeding up until it was all over. If this is true, it could be novelty that makes time seem slower; if there's more interesting stuff going on, each event is remembered as special and unique, but when habits take over and each day is the same, time flies by with any bumps.

In the past few years, I've created many time bumps for myself by going to new places and doing new things, and there certainly are a lot of memories to fill out those years. I hope that as I go forward I can keep finding ways to find novelty and treat each day as something precious.

Raising Standards

I heard a McDonald's ad on the radio the other day that focused on the new quarter-pounder burger that is cooked right after you order it. Specifically, this on-the-spot cooking with fresh beef makes for a 'hotter, juicier burger', which certainly sounds nice. However, a disclaimer at the end of the ad adds 'hotter and juicier compared to previous quarter-pounder', which really changes everything because I've eaten pieces of cardboard that were hotter and juicier than a McDonald's quarter-pounder.

Now, this isn't to say I don't enjoy McDonald's food, but affordability is their big selling point in my eyes. Will a juicier burger cost more? If so, who will be taking the cost? In a similar vein, I've been irritated recently by a tagline in Food Line radio ads: 'Raising Our Standards Without Raising Our Prices'. Does that mean they're paying their employees less, or have they found cheaper sources that are somehow higher quality? In a situation like this, I'd prefer they keep their standards low.

I've enjoyed having music on the radio while driving around, but I'm still looking for an alternative because listening to ads that are blatantly deceptive gets tiring after a while.

Theater Luxury

One thing I've enjoyed about working in pest control is the chance to see things I wouldn't come across in my free time. I got to go back behind the pins at a bowling alley and see the whole mechanism that sets up pins and returns balls, and just a few days before that I went on the roof of a mall, a vast expanse of flat roofing punctuated by ventilation shafts.

Today, I went to a theater, and everything was fairly familiar until I reached the second-level boxes. This was clearly where top patrons of the arts got to sit-- just outside the entrance on this level was an exclusive lounge full of paintings and tasteful furniture. When I opened the door to the first box, I found myself in a small dressing room complete with a place to sit, a coat-rack, and a table with a few programs and a bowl of mints. From this room, another door opened onto the box itself, an ideal location both to see and be seen. With any luck, my future life will involve going to the theater every now and then, but I can't see myself ever being in a position to occupy a theater box with its own dressing room. I considered trying a mint while I was there, but I thought that would be unprofessional.

Elevator vs Stairs

Most of today's high-rise buildings offer a choice between an elevator and stairs. Sometimes, the choice is clear; if there's a fire, you need to take the stairs, and if you're in a wheelchair, you probably need to take the elevator. For me personally, having to go up more than three stories is about the point where I'll take the elevator unless I'm actively looking for exercise.

In the past, I've had fun racing down stairs to see if I could get to the ground floor faster than friends in an elevator. For a fair contest, you begin at the fourth or fifth floor and start running as soon as the elevator-summoning button is pressed. The next level of challenge, of course, is to race an elevator up, but I haven't gotten there yet.

Historical Prose

In my mind, reading history is like eating whole-grain bread; it's not always as appetizing as other sorts of reading, but it feels healthy and with enough exposure you can get used to it. To begin my forays into history, I got some books about ancient Rome. It's not a bad starting point because there are so many works not only by modern historians, but also by contemporaries, dealing with the two big questions of the Roman empire: what made Rome great, and what made Rome stop being great? Of course, the great historians themselves put it much more eloquently. Polybius, a 2nd century B.C. Greek politician who was himself conquered by the Romans, says the following:

"For the extraordinary nature of the events I decided to write about is in itself enough to interest everyone, young or old, in my work, and make them want to read it. After all, is there anyone on earth who is so narrow-minded or uninquisitive that he could fail to want to know how and thanks to what political system almost the entire known world was conquered and brought under a single empire, the empire of the Romans, in less than fifty-three years-- and unprecedented event? Or again, is there anyone who is so passionately attached to some other marvel or matter that he could consider it more important than knowing about this?

The content of history, then, is enough to recommend its investigation, but I have also found myself enjoying the style in which these histories are written. Long sentences organized by commas and semicolons bring together a variety of ideas and create a logical flow that can be very satisfying to follow, even if it does take reading some passages more than once. Also, as with most things, practice makes it easier. The following sentence from Gibbon's history gives an verbal flourish to plain facts that is like spreading honey on your whole-grain toast.

"Nor was the legion destitute of what, in modern language, would be styled a train of artillery. It consisted in ten military engines of the largest, and fifty-five of a smaller size; but all of which, either in an oblique or horizontal manner, discharged stones and darts with irresistible violence."

To make a long story short, I feel that a bit of history has made a wholesome addition to my reading routine. In other news, I still don't eat whole-grain bread.

Generic Cereal

When I first started grocery shopping on my own, one of the things that surprised me most was how expensive most cereal was; you could shell out four dollars for a box that empties surprisingly quickly, especially if you have a big bowl.

From the ingredients, you wouldn't think cereal has a reason to be expensive, and the existence of generic cereals bears this point out. All the major cereal brands have been imitated at about half the price, and the sweetness of saving money balances any taste difference in my mind. The most extremely generic cereal I've had is Tesco Everyday Value Cornflakes, costing a staggering 31 pence for a 500g box. Either the UK government subsidizes basic foodstuffs or Kellogg's is printing money with their $3.99 cornflake option.

To top it all off, I find the names of generic cereals very endearing. Toasty-Os and Fruity-Os top the list of my favorite cereal names, followed by the lengthy names describing the shape and material of well-known brands (chocolate rice clumps and so on). There's always more to say on the topic of generics, but for now I'm off to enjoy a bowl of Honey Nut Toasted Oats Cereal.