Complex Numbers

Loaded For Bear

Feeling less angry today. I think I figured out what it was:

It's freaking February. Yesterday it was cold and there was snow. Today, temperatures got up into the 60s (that's degrees American, of course). Consequently, I had one less thing to be grumpy about, and it made all the difference.

Speaking of cold and other countries:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/feb/13/churchill-canada-polar-bear-capita...

Spend enough time in Churchill, and you will hear the stories.

Of hearing a noise outside, pulling open the drapes and seeing a polar bear looking in through the window.

Okay, that would actually be pretty cool.

Of walking around a corner at night, coming face-to-face with a bear and, implausibly, scaring it off with the strobe light on a cellphone.

I just want to point out that the scary part of that sentence, to me, is not "coming face-to-face with a bear," but the "walking... at night" in freaking northern Canada. I mean, how do you not freeze into a statue three seconds after leaving a warm place, like Lot's wife but with ice instead of salt?

Of being about to, against all better judgment, walk the couple of hundred yards from restaurant to hotel room at night...

Again with the walking at night. What do they serve in that restaurant - anti-freeze?

In fact, the more of that article I read, the more I needed to take a trip to Belize. I can see polar bears at zoos. But in February, I have to travel to get decent weather most of the time.

The bulk of bear viewing takes place on the tundra outside of town, from the safety of bespoke vehicles approximately the size of school buses atop airport fire truck wheels, the immense size of which enables the trucks to traverse treacherous terrain and keep their occupants beyond the reach of even the largest and most curious bear.

In. Theory.

Signs around the town remind residents and visitors alike to exercise caution and report bear sightings on the hotline – 675-BEAR.

Pretty sure that number works in other places, too. But it means something different.

Culvert traps, baited with seal scent, line the perimeter of the community; bears that are caught in them are taken to a holding facility, popularly known as the polar bear jail, where they are held for up to 30 days (without food, to enhance the deterrence factor of the experience)

Because it's such an awesome idea to deliberately make a freaking polar bear hungry.

Ayotte heard Greene’s screams and, clad only in a sweater and his pyjamas, ran toward the scene and brought his shovel down as hard as he could between the bear’s eyes.

Canadians are a lot of things, but easily intimidated ain't one of them.

So anyway, great article, but just reading it made me need a big, roaring fire. Or a tropical beach.