Well That Explains a Lot

When i was in my 20's, i did a little art, painting, on my days off. My jobs were technical, mostly programming, and they required between a fair effort to near complete mental obsession. I learned early on that between quitting time in the technical job to being able to paint required at least 48 hours of down time. I.e., until two days had passed, i was creatively blocked. It was a fact, but why?

Having just finished The Age of Insight, by Eric R. Kandel, i now have something of an answer. In the chapters 'Brain Circuits for Creativity', and 'Talent Creativity and Brain Development', research does conclude that the left and right sides of the brain usually have basically different functions: left side more concerned with logic, deriving solutions from a limited set of options; right side open to a much wider range of problem solutions.  Both sides contribute to problem solving where "inhibitory and excitatory mechanisms interact in complex harmony." Importantly, the left side appears to inhibit the right side to some degree (possibly vice versa).

It is noted that injury to the left brain can result in enhanced function of the right brain, sometimes an increase in creativity in the arts. "After an injury [...] one side of the brain may result in the enhancement of specific functions on the other side of the brain." (p478).

The pressures of programming, project deadlines, predictable outcomes, rely on solving problems by putting together combinations of previously exercised patterns. Only occasionally do you need really creative solutions. This suggests pretty strongly to me that, since work demanded dominance of the left side strengths, it exercised inhibitory control a lot of the time. The 'complex harmony' took about 48 hours to reassert some creativity into mental life.

(Thanks, Chris, for coming up with this book. The author is a bit wordy, but it's a readable book that attempts to link art and neuroscience in meaningful ways.)

A Work in Progress

Crow Haiku

Crow calls happily
    to other crow --
A Spring rain has come.

Stripes Collage

Paper and Marker on paper, approx 13" x 16".

48 Hours Later, Bees Still Confused

Well, this is moderately interesting: after restacking the hive, the girls are still trying to use the old entrance that does not exist now. They're coming back loaded with pollen and trying for the bore hole in the upper right corner. So here's the cronology, with photos.

Tuesday about 1400 we removed the top box which had a bore hole in the upper left corner (for bees returning) opening into an empty box over the inner cover (box completely removed from stack). 99% of the bees were using that entrance. After that there is no longer an entrance there. The bottom box removed too. The remaining 2 boxes were moved down, and a new hive body with empty frames put on as the top of the 3.

Wednesday at 1300, 24 hours later, large clump still trying the old entrance location.

Wondering if the cover was holding some kind of entrance marking scent, I switch both outer and inner cover for ones from the dead hive. (There's no scent on the box, because it's a completely different box.) Paradoxically this immediately caused an even bigger ball of bees to form at the phantom entrance. (Switching the covers did put more bees in the air.) That broke up in about half an hour.

Thursday at 1200, 48 hours later, there are still occasional clusters of bees looking for the missing entrance.

Now, 48 hours after reconfiguring the hive, and nearly 24 after switching the covers, you can still see groups of bees trying that spot. This isn't particularly scientific, but it suggests to me that some bees are really fixated on the visual cue of the top left corner. When several bees land there, that might trigger other predisposed bees to assume the entrance is there, increasing the crowd. The effect kind of comes and goes.

Good Lyric

from a blues:

"You'll be there for the funeral,
but you're gonna miss the trial."

Turbotax 2012 Montana 2EC Form

This year's turbotax (Premium) does not automatically find the Elderly Homeowner / Renter tax credit. The trick is to know about it ahead of time, click on View, then Forms. Next you need to click Open Form icon at the top of the list, then find the Montana 2EC form and OPEN. Fill in the form with your property tax, and whatever else is relevant. Close that form and OPEN the Form 2 Schedule V, and enter the result of the 2EC on that form. You will have to do the addition yourself and enter that on the form. Close that, and now you should be able to see your credit on Form 2.

Took me only an hour to figure that out.

Some Confused Bees

Some loaded bees trying to find entrance that no longer exists.

Temp 71 or higher this afternoon and sunny. Reconfigured the Swarm hive by removing the lowest hive body (H1) and setting it aside. Removed bottom board and replaced with cleaned one. Bees all in the top super (S) and hive
body (H2) immediately below that. Restacked as:

------------
top cover
inner cover
hive body (new box and 9 frames saved from package hive)
hive body (H2)      <--- lots of bees here
super (S)           <--- most bees here
bottom board
------------

The S and H2 boxes seemed clean and very busy and mostly full of bees.  There is an adequate amount of honey until things blossom, and also the new top box has several frames worth of honey. Capped brood in the middle 2 frames of S, about 10%, and maybe 5% in the middle frames of H2.

Cleaned out dead bees from hive body (H1) and put aside.

Bees very confused about the opening now and even 3 hours later are having some difficulty adjusting to that. They are bringing in good quantities of yellow pollen.

Also went out to 2 remaining hives at Dave's and adjusted leanings, fed with sugar water, etc. They have not touched the pollen patties either.

Another bee that found the pollen patty very interesting.

Mandala No 4

Tissue and other paper on card stock - approx 6" x 9".