Weathering the Storm: or, It's hard work learning to operate a weather station!

Keswick Weather Station with the rain clearing in the background.

Twice now the Wi-Fi connection between my weather sensors (pictured above) and my desktop console has dropped out during electrical storms. So out came the ladder again.

This time, I suspected the console's batteries, which are trickle charged by a solar panel, might be flat due to the overcast conditions. I tried several remedies, including the use of rechargeable Energizer batteries. I re-booted, removed the batteries for two minutes, tried again and again, all to no avail.

This time, I decided to call Instrument Choice, the company I purchased the weather station from. Daniel was very helpful. The weather station sensors use rechargeable AA alkaline batteries. These hold a charge of 1.5 volts. The Energizer and Duracell rechargeable batteries I use around the house hold only 1.2 volts, which means they are not too good for the sensors.

But the problem was not the sensors, it was the console. Daniel tells me to remove the batteries for twenty minutes, and the sensors will reconnect. I do this, and in the meantime, I decide to put the original 1.5 volt batteries back in the sensors.

So up the ladder I go again. I replace the alkaline 1.5 volt batteries, and I re-position the station. I climb back down, go inside, replace the console batteries, and... nothing.

Why? When the console is connected to my computer via the USB cable, it does not need batteries. So out comes the cable, out comes one battery, and I decide I will just try straight away. Within seconds of putting the battery back in, the sensors are reporting again. 

I must have been up and down the ladder a dozen times to fix this problem. I lost my "gold star" rating with Weather Underground while messing about. All I had to do was power down the console, update the time and date, and let it reconnect by itself. 

But I was impressed with the technical support at Instrument Choice. Daniel was very helpful.

It is a truism that we live and learn; and it's hard work learning to operate a weather station!

Lessons for next time

1. When an electrical storm cuts out the Wi-Fi connection, all I need do is turn off the console, and allow it to reconnect with the sensors. Do this before climbing up the ladder.
2. Jaycar sells the proper AA rechargeable alkaline batteries for my weather station, should I need to replace them.
3. If the AA rechargeable alkaline batteries fail, and I do not have replacements nearby, then non-rechargeable lithium Energizer batteries will last 9 to 12 months in the sensors.

Learning to Draw with Margarita Georgiadis: Creative Gunning's Fine Art Classes

My third still life, "Lenin: or, Bust" (10 February 2018).

Creative Gunning's Fine Art Classes are taught by Margarita Georgiadis at the Tony Foley Centre in Gunning. For more information, check out the details here. 

There are two things that cramp my creative style: having to drive too far to get to the place of work, and being distracted by other things when I get there. Creative Gunning's Fine Art Classes remove both of these barriers and after only three weeks, I feel like I might actually be able to draw!

My first ever still life, "Pear" (13 February 2018).

I did technical drawing at high school up until year 10, but I messed about and, although I enjoyed the drawing, I lacked the discipline and dexterity to do it well. That is not to say that I have not used these skills when building chook pens and other garden structures, but it is always functional rather than pretty.

I have always wanted to draw but felt I lacked talent. Until recently.

Internationally acclaimed Australian artist Margarita Georgiadis is currently conducting beginner classes in drawing on Saturdays from 10am to 1pm at the Tony Foley Centre in Gunning. More classes are due to commence soon, including an intermediate course. I decided to give the classes a go and I am having a blast!

In the first week, we began by learning to draw circles. The trick is to use your shoulder as a pivot, rather than your wrist. I also learnt to hold my pencil in a way that I would never have done if learning by myself. It was strange at first but one picks it up quickly.

We learnt how to use "construction lines" to keep the size of our circles consistent.

"Turner's Trumpet" (24 February 2018). This is my first
attempt at a still life in compressed charcoal. It took two
hours to get it to this stage.

After learning to draw circles, we were given our first still life to try. I chose a pear. Shock of horrors, it didn't look too bad.

We learnt how to add contour lines to bring out the depth and shading to indicate the light. 

I was so pleased with my pear, the next day I practised another still life, this time using my Falcon pipe as my subject.

For the second week, we were asked to bring a favourite object we would like to draw. I racked my brain to think of a "favourite" object, and settled on a bust of Vladimir Lenin. I bought this in Antique Street, Soho, Hong Kong, and I like it because it has Chinese symbols on the base.

At the beginning of the second class, we began by learning how to draw ellipses. Using construction lines and our circle-drawing shoulder technique, we drew ellipses of varying sizes, using a plastic cup for perspective.

My second still life, "Pipe Day" (2 February 2018).

Next was our object. Mine turned out to be rather difficult. But we learnt more about construction lines, and this time, we were not allowed to use our eraser. Except, of course, when one uses one's eraser to create construction lines. Soon enough, my drawing began to take shape.

I was happy with the outcome, although I did run out of time and have not found the time so far to go back to it.

The third class was held on 24 February. The first thing we did was to imagine a bowl, and, using our ellipse-drawing technique, we were to draw our bowl. I have been reading Homer lately, and my first thought of a bowl was a tripod.

My fourth still life, "Homer's Tripod" (24 February 2018).

The Ancient Greeks would give tripods (basically, a bowl with three legs used for cooking or whatever, depending on the style) as gifts and trophies. In Homer's The Iliad, for example, Achilles includes tripods in his list of prizes for the winners of Patroclus' funeral games (after Patroclus had been killed by Hector). 

Once again, I dreamt up the most difficult thing to do. But with a little help from Margarita, "Homer's Tripod" started to take shape.

For the final two hours of the class, a complex still life was revealed. The display consisted of a vase with gum leaves, a model train, a trumpet, some fruit, a couple of bowls, and a metal pot plant holder, and some drapery. 

It looked over-whelming. And this time, we were to use our compressed charcoal. I had never used this before.

Yet, two hours later, "Turner's Trumpet" emerged. The drawing is far from finished, but I am still in shock that I did this, in the time allotted, and I really like charcoal!

My fifth still life, "Turner's Trumpet"
(24 February 2018).

When I think back to when I used to draw, I can only recall as a young child, less than ten years of age, when I would draw amphibious landing battle scenes based on the advertisements in the back of DC Comics. (Remember the "sea people" adverts? These "sea people", otherwise known as brine shrimp, featured on an episode of South Park.) Either the sea people or a toy soldier set was a common advertisement on the inside cover of DC Comics books when I was a kid. I used to draw the battle scene.

Well, since then, I once drew a picture of a scene in my house when I should have been doing something else, and another time I did a drawing of my pets on a home-made birthday card. And that's it. To put it another way, in three lessons, I have drawn more than ever before.

And this is what I enjoy about Creative Gunning's Fine Art Classes. Margarita has everyone drawing on the first day, and in three lessons, I have several drawings to my credit. They may not be the greatest, but I can see that, upon completion of the beginner's course, and with a little practice, I will be able to add drawing as another hobby for rainy days like today. 

From what I have learnt so far, it is all about the structure. Much like essay writing, getting the structure right first leads to a competent outcome. The style and finesse will come with practice. But I highly recommend Creative Gunning's Fine Art Classes, and Margarita is an excellent teacher!

For further information, see the Creative Gunning Facebook page. The next beginner's classes commence on 5 March 2018 at the Tony Foley Centre.

Nietzsche in: "I Smell a Decadent"

The School of Athens [featuring Zoroaster] by Raphael, 1590. Public domain via Wikimedia.

Ecce Homo by Friedrich Nietzsche

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Nietzsche's autobiography is bewildering. The title, Ecce Homo, means "Behold the Man" in Latin, and is ascribed to Pontius Pilate when he presented Jesus to the mob. The title is clever in that Nietzsche, in concluding, is "Dionysus versus Christ" (p. 143). But this seems to me to be misleading when the subtitle (which is absent from this Dover version), reads "How One Becomes What One Is". Without the subtitle, one might justify an off-handed rejection of Ecce Homo as little more than vanity given too much regard by posterity. Indeed, I wonder had Nietzsche written this today, would he have ever been known? At times I felt that Nietzsche was of a privileged class and was able to publish at will, but this is not entirely the case. Nietzsche's father, a Lutheran pastor, had worked for the state and, following his premature death, this qualified Nietzsche for a scholarship. Hardly peak bourgeoisie, yet Nietzsche was a polymath; surely symptomatic of genius. If the subtitle is considered during the reading, then "how Nietzsche became Nietzsche" is less troubling to the modern mind. At the same time, Nietzsche goes out of his way to tell us that the effeminate, decaying, degenerative way perpetuated by Christianity is a denial of nature, of the body, of the present - so why would he be all meek and modest? Hence my bewilderment. Believe "neither in 'ill-luck' nor 'guilt'" - this is the opposite of a decadent (it is Nietzsche) (p. 13). "Unselfishness" and "neighbourly love" are conditions of the decadent, these are signs of weakness; pity is not a virtue (p. 18). Nietzsche tells us how he has never felt bad about himself, no guilt, no self-flagellation. The basic argument is that Christianity has poisoned us against ourselves - not faith, not God per se, but the religion of Christianity. Undoing this decadence is therefore essential. But atheists find no solace, either: Socrates is no role model. Nietzsche hints at Heraclitus as one of the few who understood (at least through the Stoics) (p. 73). This is interesting in that Heraclitus had a particular view of God and the gods that one steeped in the atheistic view of Nietzsche will struggle to comprehend. The most important words from Ecce Homo outline Nietzsche's philosophy for living: amor fati (p. 54):

My formula for greatness in man is amor fati: the fact that a man wishes nothing to be different, either in front of him or behind him, or for all eternity. Not only must the necessary be borne, and on no account concealed,- all idealism is falsehood in the face of necessity,- but it must also be loved...

Nietzsche writes disapprovingly of equal rights, particularly for women (p. 65), yet, at the same time, in addition to his view of the "opiate of the masses", betrays a Marxian loathing for the decadence of the "false economy" of "the division of labour" (p. 76). He goes on to address the problem of our current times: the "large number of young men... all in... [a] state of distress" because of the false "calling" to vocations that are unnatural and lead to a "feeling of emptiness and hunger" (p. 87). With so much going on, it is unlikely that a reading of Nietzsche's work in its entirety is enough to comprehend his insights from the rabbit hole of the human soul. But if I have taken away just one thing from Ecce Homo, it is a deeper understanding of the concept of amor fati. Its opposite can be seen in those who reject the body (interesting that Nietzsche says he can "smell" the decadents), where the golden arrow of consumption masks much of the truth (that many could not face if it were revealed, but can happily consume while it is well-masked), and I take it that Nietzsche meant both the corporeal and spiritual aspects of the analogy. But I will let Nietzsche have the last word:

...that which is necessary does not offend me. Amor fati is the core of my nature.

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