Zenon Kulpa: Assorted Odds & Ends

My daughter Kathy is a Frog (or a Worm, depending on the point of view...). She studied Sinology (that is, ), including a year of study at Xiamen University, Xiamen, China. She now works as a publishing editor and translates books from Chinese and English. She also carries on a successfull blog "tanikomania: Biusciasty stan umyslu" (Bra Obsession: The Busty State of Mind, in Polish). In her care are four (now only two, sadly) she-cats (and one husband...). The photo on the left is an autoportrait made with a mobile phone camera at the summit of Babia Góra Mt. Here are the cats (in pecking order, approximately):

Pusiar (Puss) [The Ruler of the Grounds]	Biala (White)    [The Big One] Deceased of chronic renal failure † Sep 4, 2008, in her 10th year	Kropka (Dot)   [The Calm One] Deceased of cancer † Jan 22, 2008, in her 11th year	Szarsza (Greyer) [The Naive One]
	And here is Robert, her husband, engaged in a seemingly important business call, with his favourite cat (which one, can you recognize?) patiently waiting. He is a computer scientist, President and Partner of the TLS-Technologie software development company:

The National Park and Biosphere Reserve of Babia Góra (The Hag Mountain) lies near the Zawoja village in the Beskidy Mts, southern Poland. Here are some photos from my hiking in the vicinity of the mountain:
The mountain as seen from my living place there; click for description of main features	The summit of Babia Góra; Perc Akademicka (the Academic hiking trail) is to the left of center	The Diablak rock pile: the highest point of Babia Góra
Ominous clouds over the Babia Góra	The Cyl subpeak seen from the main ridge trail	The waterfall Mosorczyk on the Mosorny stream
Muchomór czerwony (the red fly agaric, Amanita muscaria), a young specimen	Jezyny (blackberries, Rubus hirtus). -- Dad, why these black berries are so red? -- Because they are still green!	Goryczka trojesciowa (willow gentian, Gentiana asclepiadea)
Zuk gnojowy (dung beetle, Geotrupes silvaticus)	Salamandra plamista (fire salaman- der, Salamandra salamandra); somewhat out of focus	Konik polny (grasshopper, species unknown); frozen at the tip of my walking stick
The Sokolica rocky subpeak from the green hiking trail	Luskwiak zlotawy (Pholiota aurivella) on a tree trunk	Sitting with the friendly fox at the summit of Welczon ridge

Quotes of the day:

• "All civilizations become either spacefaring, or extinct"
    [Carl Sagan, from "Pale Blue Dot"]
• "Cultures can be graded and judged morally
  according to their contribution to the evolution of life"
     [Robert M. Pirsig, from "Lila"]
• "Who sits at the bottom of a well to contemplate the sky, will find it small"
    [Han Yu, 768-824]
• "Keep an open mind, but not so open that your brains fall out"
    [attribution uncertain]
• "Whoever must play, cannot play"
    [James P. Carse, from "Finite and Infinite Games"]
• "To stay young requires unceasing cultivation
  of the ability to unlearn old falsehoods"
    [Lazarus Long / Robert Heinlein]

Just kiddin':

• "All mushrooms are edible, though some of them only once"
    [Ten Commandments of a successfull wild muschroom picker...]
• "This page has been prepared and transmitted using 100% recycled electrons"
    [Eco-Age Business Survival Guide...]

And a disclaimer:

• "Whatever we may want to say, we probably won't say exactly that"
    [Marvin Minsky]
  

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