Zoo Life - Patricio

Each week I volunteer half a day at the Prospect Park Zoo.  Anyone familiar with my background won't be surprised by this.  Spending time regularly at the zoo provides a unique opportunity to become familiar with the animals in ways that occasional visitors can't.  The amount of time alone makes it more likely to witness telling incidents, and some animals will become familiar with you and interact in ways they won't with strangers.

I suspect that any volunteer at the PPZ has stories related to Patricio, the Cape Barren Goose.  Patricio resides in the Australian walkabout, which means he's free to roam about with zoo visitors along with the wallabies and kangaroo.  Well, usually anyway.  Unlike his would-be mate Ethel who keeps herself hidden most of the time, Patricio spends his day right on the walking trail, usually at the side of the zoo employee or volunteer charged with minding the area.  Just about the only time we see Ethel is when she comes out to give Patricio a piece of her mind when he's acting up and honking.  Ethel is the only one Patricio defers to, and he'll skitter away nervously when she comes running at him.

Patricio

Some days when I'm with him, Patricio will stay right by my side, reaching out to nip at my coat or shoelaces occasionally when I'm not looking.  When he's in a mood, he may decide he'd rather run around with a group of schoolchildren.  Ever see a child panick in fear that they're being chased by a wild goose?  Nothing excites Patricio more- to him it's just a part of the game, while children squeal in terror that they're about to be mauled.  The walkabout has a double-door system to enter, and signs warn visitors to keep only one door open at a time.  This did not stop Patricio from wandering out behind a group of school children one day, following them down the path towards the porcupines before anyone took notice and alerted staff.

Patricio Sneaks Up on Me

Such incidents prompted the animal keepers to relegate Patricio to a fenced in area at the back of the walkabout for a few weeks this fall.  To Patricio, this was jail.  He did not get along with his fellow residents, a noisy flock of guinea fowl and I often saw him charging angrily at them or a squirrel who had wandered in for some free zoo food.  Other times I'd see him practicing his escape.  He'd stretch his wings out to his sides, look in front of himself determinedly and waddle forward as quickly as he could, certain that this would be the time he'd break into flight (I believe his wings are clipped).  It's a bittersweet episode to witness.

I was happy when Patricio was released back into the walkabout proper.  The wallabies are adorable and interesting to watch, but spend most of their time hidden as does the kangaroo, who in her old age is more interested in finding a quiet place to nap.  Patricio is a handful, but in the end he's harmless and he keeps things interesting.

How did I miss Moonraker?

An aside- according to Michele Bachman in the debate last night, we need to "legalize American energy".  Here, here!

How have I not seen Moonraker yet?  This shall be resolved tonight.  In the cottage my family rented over the summer, there was a poster for this movie and I hadn't even realize it existed.  From a review: "My favorite part: when the astronauts get killed in this zero-G environment, they sometimes start falling, as if their willpower alone had been holding them up." He wrestles a snake in the water, has a speed boat chase with gunfire, the excitement seemingly never ends in this epic trailer:

Which reminds me, I completely forgot "Bond Villains" from my list of human(oids) for whose demise I cheer.  Reactions from viewing this movie to come...

Update: Now that I've seen it, I really can't believe I missed that movie, it is a classic.  Don't get me wrong, the plot was disjointed and the dialogue often ridiculous (hilariously so).  But really it gave me exactly what I want from a Bond movie- a series of implausible adventures seeking/fighting with over-the-top villains.  There was not one but two high speed boat chases, one in Venice which ended with Bond showing a complete disregard for public safety by speeding through crowded plazas in a gondola equipped with a hovercraft skirt.  There were sky diving fight scenes, aerial tramway fights, the fight with a giant snake, fights in space, the excitement was just barely broken up with quippy comments between Bond and sexy women and Bond and giant-headed villains.  Oh, and his main squeeze in the flick is actually named Dr. Goodhead.  Yeah, seriously.  If you haven't seen it, or haven't seen it since you were a kid, I highly recommend it.

Simile Timeline in Salesforce, Revisited

The Simile Timeline is a javascript widget that's available as open source to create interactive timelines.  If you go to the main page for the Simile Timeline, you'll see how you can drag the timeline back and forth through time and click on items to see a detailed description; it's pretty slick.

Back in another life, I had implemented this timeline in Salesforce to provide a graphical display of a Contact's history on their detail page: Events, Tasks, (Job) Opportunities, Interviews, Jobs.  I did it by customizing the free Timeline S-control mashup that utilizes that Simile Timeline widget.  It provided a nice graphical narrative that you could scroll forward or backward in time through, and clicking an individual item on the Timeline would display details on and a link to the record.  This is the screenshot of that application from the appExchange:

That application is still available, but in it's original S-control form, now replaced by Visualforce.  Salesforce still supports S-controls, so you can  use it if you're fine with the default configuration it comes with.  If you're going to need to customize the information that's displayed on the timeline, for instance showing custom object child records to Account, Contact, Case or Opportunity or values of custom fields in the pop-up details, I'd recommend just doing this in Visualforce, which is what I've just done for a client.  Anyone with a bit of javascript and Apex savvy can easily implement this themselves.

I'm considering creating a nifty little package that anyone can install to implement it with no code, probably with an admin screen to let Sys Admins select the Timeline settings such as the intervals of time displayed, and a query interface to display custom object records or fields without requiring any code.  Interested?  Leave me a comment.

Not being an asshole wins the race...

Having a tortoise as a pet, I often think of the Tortoise and the Hare fable.  The sum up of that story is "slow and steady wins the race".  The tortoise didn't win because he was slow and steady, he won because that hare was an asshole.  To me, that's a much more important lesson than slow and steady- being an asshole can bite you in the ass.  And that's exactly how you should explain that to your children.  I only wish that were a more predictable outcome. 

My tortoise is very cute; he even likes to snuggle with me-

Still don't think he's cute?  How about this?

What I've really learned from Rokku is determination.  That boy will not give up.  When I take him out on the terrace, 7 flights up, he sometimes gets it into his head that he would like climb over the edge and see what's out there.  I've tried to explain to him that that would be suicide.  I pick him up and move him away, he scrambles right back.  The more you pull him away from his perceived destination, the harder he will try to get there.  Rokku, stop burrowing into those electrical cables!  It's admirable if not nerve-wracking, and I love him for it.

Oh how I loves me some zombie violence

I've discussed this on Friendface and with friends, but figured I'd include my thoughts on it here as an insight into the minds of people.  I was originally going to say it was an insight into my mind, but this is one of those commonalities that brings us together as a species.

There are certain movies and books with scenes of brutal violence against humans (or humanoids) to which we are very much drawn, and zombies stories are a prime example.  I'm also always up for some Nasi violence too.  Our lizard brains get a thrill from violence, it's deep within us from millions of years of  evolution as meat eaters and territorial beasts.  But our rational minds tell us that we can't just go around slaying and beating at will (well, some of us anyway).

Zombie and Nasi violence presents us with the rare opportunity to enjoy a healthy dose of violence with the moral quandry removed.  Storytellers have long been aware of this; it's why they go to lengths to build up the evil qualities of a character before presenting us with their gruesome death.  The more they've worked to show you just how evil someone is, the more painful, gory detail you can expect in their last moments.

Here's a list of some human(oid)s for whose demise I will cheer (did I un-dangle that participle correctly?).  I'll admit that it gets a little ethically questionable towards the end.

• Zombies
• Nasis (becoming an over-used antagonist in movies again)
• Khmer Rouge party leaders (an under-used antagonist in movies that I vote to now replace Nasis)
• Aliens plotting the destruction of our planet, as implausible a concept as I find this to be
• Conquistadors
• Serial killers (or single instance killers, depending on the circumstances)
• Child rapists
• Oh, any rapists really
• Followers of Sauron
• Software agents posing as humans in a virtual reality created to control humans and use us as batteries, as implausible a concept as I find that to be
• Anyone who shouts "Death to America!" (hey, I'll be the first to admit our imperfections, but fuck you, man)
• Anyone Dick Cheney has ever trusted to do his dirty work
• Dick Cheney
• Hedge fund managers
• Executives at companies that implement hydrofracking (I've been a little fixated on this lately.  I like water)

And let's be clear, I'm not speaking about this in terms of death penalty legislation, on which I have a completely different stance, or sanctioning rampant murder sprees of people who fit these descriptions, which would put you squarely in the serial killers category.  This is purely regarding the mutilation and death of fictional characters for my entertainment.  But nonetheless, I accept the impact this will have any future runs for office.