Saturday, November 17, 2007
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I'm writing this from the Ikea parking lot outside Pittsburg PA.
I'd hoped to find some cabinets at Ikea that would serve as desk storage under the top I built. No good. Nothing here suits me. Ikea's stuff is a bare cut above Wal-Mart. The display is interesting and it was worth the stop to see how Ikea merchandises their goods. I guess I'll build my own cabinets.
From here I think I'll head down along the Ohio River toward the Mississippi. Tomorrow. I'm all driven out for today. It snowed off and on most all day yesterday. I had hoped to get under way a bit earlier in November so I could duck south of this colder weather but there was just too much to do first.
My wool curtains are working out great - I'm glad I took the time to sew them up. I'll have to see if I can get some pictures to post here one of these days.
Night camp: Wal-Mart parking lot in Washington PA
Five Trillion Spiders
Spiders begin their hunting with a few handicaps. They're often smaller and weaker than their prey, and they have no wings to give chase in the air. Some species extend their legs by hydraulic pressure, using the same liquid that carries oxygen from their lungs, so they have a hard time running and breathing at the same time. Even their poison may be no match for their victim's: a crab spider's bite is to a honeybee's sting as "an air-gun compared with an elephant rifle," John Crompton wrote. Yet spiders kill at an astonishing pace. One Dutch researcher estimates that there are some five trillion spiders in the Netherlands alone, each of which consumes about a tenth of a gram of meat a day. Were their victims people instead of insects, they would need only three days to eat all sixteen and a half million Dutchmen.
From Spider Woman by Burkhard Bilger, The New Yorker magazine, March 5, 2007, page 69