Snow

We had 6 - 8 inches of snow last night. Another storm is forecast for tomorrow. Welcome to the north country.

I had to put on my snowshoes and tromp through the woods to knock the snow off the satellite dish before I could get enough reception to be able to upload this post.

Critters

The deer have definitely decided this is their spot for the winter and we see them in the woods around the house several times a day. This one was particularly bold.

Then there are the squirrels. I put some seed out hoping to attract some birds. But of course the squirrels found it first. This very fat grey squirrel arrived first.

But the red squirrel chased him off and I imagine we'll be seeing a lot of him from now on.

Diet Watch :(

142.5 pounds; up 2.5 pounds for the week. And it is actually up 3 pounds because I was down to 139.5 at the beginning of the week. I guess I've sort of forgotten about dieting while here at camp. I'll have to get back into the groove.

Quilt IV

And here is my "leaf quilt" that is now hanging at camp. Each of the fabrics is a leaf print.

Quilt III

Now that Christmas is over I can post a photo of the quilt I made my grandson. I found some neat animal prints in Alaska and then added to them from quilt shops all over the country, including on-line. There are so many neat prints out there I had trouble limiting myself. As the sign in a quilt shop says: "So many fabrics, so little time."

Snow

In the Adirondacks, that is. We drove to camp yesterday. There is lots of snow on the ground, as you can tell from the photos, and we're supposed to get a few more inches today.

Music Links

Arkiv Music
Choral Public Domain Library
Midi Learning Files from Cyberbass
Princeton Society of Musical Amateurs
Sheet Music

Kayaking Links

Bel Haven, NJ Paddling
Chesapeake Bay Kayaking
Chester River Paddling
Jack's Boathouse, Georgetown
Kayaking Routes
Northern Forest Canoe Trail
Ontario Kayaking
Pine Barrens Paddling

Diet Watch :|

140 pounds; same as last week. Sigh.

Arthritis Medicine Revisited

Just to update the thoughts on the previous post on this subject. The Naprelan definitely works. I was wrong about the dosage - it is two 375 mg tablets a day, which is more than Aleve. But you would think that the inital burst of medication you get when you take an Aleve would work, versus the time-release Naprelan, and it does not work nearly as well. Plus, once I get the inflamation under control I can switch to one tablet a day of Naprelan. Just to be sure that the pain didn't just leave on its own, I stopped all medication for a couple of days. When it woke me up in the middle of the night, I made the decision to go back on Naprelan for the forseeable future. It was good to know that the Naprelan is really working on the inflammation and is not just a pain killer. If it were, the pain should have returned right away.

I am looking forward to cross-country skiing and snow-shoeing at camp next week and signed up for a line-dancing class next month :)

Free Rice

The other day while listening to NPR I heard about a neat website. It is at http://www.freerice.com/. It was created by a father who wanted to help his son study vocabulary for the SAT and who happens to be the creator of another website http://www.poverty.com/. It is now part of my daily routine. For every vocabulary word you get correct, 20 grains of rice are donated to the United Nations World Food program, paid for by the advertisers on the site.

Some of the words are doozies. Did you know that pharisaic means self-righteous?

Diet Watch :)

140 pounds; down 1 pound for the week. But that just gets me back to where I was three weeks ago. Sigh.

Arthritis Medicine

I never thought I'd be touting medication on this blog -- do you suppose I can get money from the drug company? I did our usual 4-mile walk on the boardwalk today and my hip hardly bothered me at all. I haven't been able to walk that far for several weeks. I attribute the pain reduction to the fact that I started a new medication yesterday. The doctor gave me some samples of Naprelan, which is just naproxen sodium, the same compound as in over-the-counter Aleve. Except in Naprelan, it is in a controlled-release form. I actually am taking less naproxen than I was at 2 Aleve a day, which has to be better for my stomach. But apparently the continuous release works much better at getting the inflamation down and keeping it down.

There is one caveat. When I was researching arthritis medication, I read somewhere that the following effect can come into play. Arthritis flare-ups tend to be cyclical. By the time the pain gets bad enough that the patient looks for some new type of medication, it is probably about time for the pain to subside on its own. So improvements that are attributed to the medication may actually have nothing to do with it. The timing in my case seems much too coincidental. But maybe I'll just take Aleve for the next couple of days and see what happens.

Diet Watch :(

141 pounds; down 2 pounds for the week. But still not down to where I was 2 weeks ago. My hip is still bothering me, so I have exercised very little. I have a feeling this winter is going to be tough from a weight-loss perspective. But I'll keep trying.

Genealogical Research

I did lots of on-line genealogical research this week, with some fascinating findings. It just goes to show "you can find anything on the web".

I found someone who has the same great grandparents that I have. I think that means we are third cousins. We are now sharing our findings about our ancestors.

I ordered photos of the headstones of ancestors buried in Indiana in the mid-1850's. You can do that at http://www.findagrave.com/. They have volunteers who take email requests and go out and take the photos.

I found out which cemetery they were in from a family tree on http://www.rootsweb.com/. On that same very extensive family tree I found ancestors way back to the 11th century in England. And they include King Henry I, one of whose large number of illegitimate children is supposedly an ancestor of mine. That particular ancestor has his own entry in Wickipedia. Who knows whether the data that far back is correct, but it is fun to look at all the same. I'm going to concentrate on tracking down those ancestors who immigrated to this country. There are lots of ships lists available on the web so I'll see how many I can find. Several of my ancestors were on the Mayflower and the ships that followed soon after.

Then there are the digital books. I ordered a county history on CD from Amazon. It includes digital versions of 4 books of Pennsylvania history and I found several good leads, including photos of some ancestors' homes.

http://www.worldvitalrecords.com/ led me to the Google book search. You can put in a name in the vital records website and it leads you to occurrences of the name in digital books through which you can search on books.google.com.

I also learned abut the GEDCOM file standard. I can export my data from Family Tree Maker to GEDCOM files and there is lots of free software on the web that can turn those files into HTML. My ultimate goal is to create a website with all the genealogical data hyperlinked together.

And best of all, I finally know how to spell "genealogy".

First Snow

We had our first snow last night. It is supposed to rain later, so it won't stay around. I don't believe we have had snow this early for quite a few years.

Diet Watch :(

143 pounds; up 3 pounds for the week. Well, at least when I fail I do it spectacularly. I really fell off the wagon this week. I wish I knew where the will power came from that allowed me to lose weight to begin with. Then maybe I could find it again. And cutting down on exercising didn't help. But my hip is not as bad as it was, so hopefully I'll start getting more exercise. And the public embarrassment has got to mean something. I'll try to lose next week. Wish me luck.

Diet Watch :)

140 pounds; down 1 pound for the week.

That was a surprise. I was very good at Thanksgiving dinner, which was yesterday since AAJ were at the in-laws on Thursday. I didn't even have any stuffing. But I also have greatly reduced my exercising since my arthritic hip is really bothering me.

Diet Watch :)

141 pounds; down 1 pound for the week.

Diet Watch :|

142 pounds; no change for the week. And that is fine. I lost so much last week I sort of fell off the wagon this week. So no change is pretty good.

Kayaking Dennis Creek

We had a fun explore today. We drove to south Jersey and went to Jake's Landing, which is a boat ramp on Dennis Creek. The creek flows through salt marshes to Delaware Bay. Jake's Landing is marked by a red circle on the satellite view below. We put in there and headed west toward the bay.
The water was so beautiful and calm when we got to the bay that we paddled along the shore a bit to the green spot on the satellite view. This is what it looked like on the ground.After our 9 mile round trip paddle we loaded the boat back on the car and drove to Ocean City for dinner. We had yummy wood-fired pizza at Piccini's, where we have eaten on many previous trips.

Diet Watch :)

142 pounds; down 2 1/2 pounds for the week!!!

I was really good this week and exercised a lot, but the results were still a surprise. I know I can't keep this up.

Biking and Hiking

We've seen lots of beautiful ocean and dunes the last two days. Yesterday was sunny and calm so we took our bikes to Sandy Hook. We rode the 5 mile bike path the length of the hook and back. W found a tiny turtle on the path. It was the size of a half-dollar and had really neat markings. Too bad we didn't have the camera.

Today was also forecast to be calm(ish) so we loaded the kayak on the car and headed for Island Beach state park. We were going to paddle in Barnegat Bay, but it was very windy by the time we got there. So we gave up on paddling and took a long walk on the beach instead. The sand there is nice and firm once the tide has gone out a bit, so it was very comfortable walking. There were quite a few fishermen and their trucks on the beach, but that was better than all the buildings that we usually see on our shore walks, so it was a nice change.

Diet Watch :)

144.5 pounds; down 1 pound for the week. My short term goal is to keep losing a pound a week through the middle of December so I can fit into my palazzo pants for the December chorus concert.

AMNH

We had a nice trip into the American Museum of Natural History in NYC yesterday. We spent several hours touring some of the galleries. We then went out and had dinner at Cafe Frida. Then in the evening we (and about 900 other people filling LeFrak theater) heard Oliver Sacks talk about his new book Musicophilia.

Kayaking the Shrewsbury River

We paddled on the Shrewsbury River again today, and this time I took the camera.

Diet Watch :)

145.5 pounds; down 1/2 pound for the week. Normally, that wouldn't be much to crow about, but given the week, it is really amazing that my weight is not up. The reason I'm a day late in weighing in is that we spent the last few days in MD with W's folks -- and ate restaurant food all the time.

Kayaking the Shrewsbury River

We kayaked from home today and saw lots of birds:
Many double-crested cormorants
Several great blue herons
A pair of common loons in winter plumage
A pair of swans
Several common terns
And some small gulls that were probably Bonaparte's

Diet Watch :)

146 pounds; down 1 pound for the week. Which is really amazing, since I ate out twice yesterday on the way back to NJ for the season.

Cool Dragonfly

This is a female "Common Green Darner" that I found resting on the window screen this morning. Isn't she neat?

Leaf Peeping from Space

Isn't this cool? It is from the October 2007 issue of Adirondack Life magazine and was taken by a NASA satellite. It really makes the Adirondacks stand out.

The article points to the Earth Observatory Web site where I could get lost for hours looking at the cool photos.

Walk Around Mirror Lake

A neighbor had told me about the walk around Mirror Lake so we tried it today. We were going to eat lunch in Lake Placid so figured we had better exercise first. The walk is 2.7 miles on a nice brick sidewalk all around the lake. We got to look at all the neat homes and had some nice views of the lake. Then we ate lunch at the micro-brewery in town. It was a very nice outing.

Kayaking the Floodwood-Rollins Loop

Today we took advantage of having two cars (W came back late Friday evening and the Lake Clear car rental place is closed on the weekend so he kept the rental car until this evening) and did a one-way kayak trip. We always make sure we do the Rollins-Floodwood loop at least once a season and W hadn't done it yet this year. I'm not sure we ever did it this way before. We started at the boat launch on Rollins Pond and ended on Follensby Clear.

It was an 8 mile trip through some of our favorite waters with no portages. The only downside was the three trips we had to make into the Fish Creek/Rollins campsite in order to shuffle cars. Since it is a holiday weekend, there were lots of folks in the campground so it was a slow drive. But the weather was perfect and the colors are still pretty.

Diet Watch :)

147 pounds; down 1 pound for the week.

I've realized another reason that Weight Watchers works. You weigh in the same day every week. So no matter how bad you are during the week, as long as you get your weight down for that one day, you made it. But that means your weight is down going into the next week. My posting my weight every Saturday has the same effect. It's definitely an added incentive to have that goal every week.

Hike near Tupper Lake

Today's temperatures approached 80 degrees, so I chose a woodsy, shaded trail for my hike today. I parked along Route 30 between the two parking areas on the southern end of Tupper Lake (the lake, that is, not the town) where I had seen what I thought was the trailhead. I was right. It is not marked but obviously used to be a road. I had hoped to get over to the beach we found when we were kayaking in the area, but it would have taken some steep bushwacking since the trail remains up on the ridge. It ends at what must have been a house site and is now a campsite overlooking the lake. The trail would make good x-country skiing or snowshoeing, though there would have be enough snow to sift through the overhanging trees. And if there where that much snow, there might not be a place to park the car. But it might be worth checking out this winter.

Kayaking Lower Saranac Lake

I took advantage of the gorgeous weather and kayaked on Lower Saranac Lake today. It has been sunny and in the 70's. It sure doesn't feel like October.

I paddled around the islands in the middle portion of the lake, climbed around on Bluff Island, and took lots of pictures.

"Wild" Creatures

Since our bird feeder was destroyed by a bear, and since I didn't want to attract any more attention from said bear, I had stopped putting seed out overnight. But since we still had a lot of seed left, I had been putting it out on the deck railing during the day, attracting lots of birds and a silly red squirrel who runs up on the deck, takes one seed, runs off to bury it, and then comes back for another, so he doesn't make much of a dent in the seed supply.

But yesterday, I forgot and put out a lot of seed late in the day. It was gone the next morning and at least part of the reason was raccoons. I know that because this evening three very bold raccoons appeared on the deck expecting a handout. I shooed them away 4 times and at that point it was quite dark so they may have come back yet again. The last time I spoke to them through the screen door (I didn't dare open it or they would have come right in the house) one was pushing on the door with his nose, so I poked his nose and told him to stop being so cute and to go away. I tried to get a picture but it was getting dark and I couldn't get a good shot through the screen or use the flash through the glass door. So this photo is very fuzzy but I just had to post it anyway.

Kayaking Round Lake

I enjoyed yesterday's paddle so much and winds were forecast to be light today, so I headed for Round Lake. I soon discovered that I was more tired than I realized and the winds picked up, so I just made it about half way down the lake before turning around. But it was an enjoyable paddle and I still managed to cover nearly 6 miles. Plus, I got some good photos.

Kayaking the Floodwood-Rollins Loop

Today I went on an ADK paddle that was postponed from Thursday due to rain. Al and Jini, were the leaders and the only other participants. W is away for the week.

We put in on Floodwood Pond, went down the stream past Little Square Pond, into Copperas Pond, portaged into Whey Pond, portaged again into Rollins Pond, paddled the length of Rollins, and then had to get out and pull the boats through the stream back into Floodwood due to low water.

I tried using our wheels on the portage from Copperas into Whey and they were a complete failure. At the first root I hit, the wheels just slid back and off the end of the boat. My single kayak does not have a section with parallel sides like our double on which to attach the wheels. I let a salesman talk me out of the type of wheels I need, which just slip over the end of the boat and attach into the cockpit area to prevent the wheels from sliding off. I'll definitely get some of those before coming back next year.

Diet Watch :)

148 pounds, down 2.5 pounds for the week.

Kayaking Lower Tupper Lake

We had a great adventure today, with a bit more exercise than we had bargained for. The wind was supposed to pick up later in the day, but we decided to explore the southern part of Tupper Lake anyway. We did a 7.5 mile loop as shown on the map, starting from the parking area at Rock Island Bay.We found a great beach, marked by the red circle on the south side of Rock Island Bay. It looks as though there is a trail from Route 30 that might allow one to walk to it. We'll check it out one of these days.

We ogled all the neat great camps on the lake. We were surprised that every one of them has the same Adirondack camp color scheme - dark brown siding and green roof. Just like our color scheme, which we chose after seeing yet another great camp on Tupper Lake that our builder took us to.

We were surprised at how little water was coming over Bog River falls. We landed near the bottom of the falls and walked under the road on the rocks, most of which are normally under water.

As we headed north up the western shore, the wind began to pick up. By the time we decided to head back to the car, it was really blowing. So we had a hard paddle through the whitecaps, wearing our kayak skirts to keep most of the water out of the boat. We got soaking wet but the temperature was in the 80's so we didn't mind and it was great exercise.

Kayaking the Raquette River

W is just getting over a cold, so we wanted a short, gentle paddle today. We decided to paddle the Raquette River, beginning at the boat ramp on Rte 3/30 and going upstream for about an hour, and then back down. We paddled about 7 miles total, and that was plenty.
We discovered that our theory on why the leaves are changing so fast was correct - it is definitely because it is so dry. One reason we chose that portion of the Raquette River is that it is lined with swamp maples, which we expected to be bright red. Instead, they haven't even started changing color yet. They are right on the banks of the river, so they are still getting plenty of water.

Another Groucho Marx Quote

"Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana."

This is one of my favorites. I didn't know it was by Groucho Marx until I googled it.

Diet Watch

Current weight 150.5 pounds, inflated somewhat by my recent vacation cruise so the first few pounds should be fairly easy. Goal - 128 pounds, or thereabouts.

I really need to lose weight - for all sorts of reasons, topmost of which have to do with general good health and getting weight off my arthritic hips, knees, and ankles.

I had success many years ago with Weight Watchers, but it is expensive and difficult to do from my two homes. I know what I need to do to lose weight, I just need the will power. So instead of paying a group of unknowns to watch my weight at Weight Watchers, I decided to employ those of you who read my blog, which is mainly close family members.

So I'll try to remember to post my weight every week, and if you don't see it going down, please fill free to post all sorts of insulting comments.

Back at Camp

We drove back to camp yesterday. The maple trees are at their peak and we were surprised how many leaves had already fallen. It has been dry, so fall will probably be short. It is 80 degrees today, so we won't be burning much of our firewood on this trip.

The wildlife had already decided we were gone for the season, as indicated by the deer browsing right next to the house while we were eating lunch.

Groucho Marx Quote

"Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend.
Inside of a dog, it is too dark to read."

Seen on a t-shirt in the Swarthmore College bookstore.

Back to the Real World

We disembarked right after breakfast this morning, picked up a rental car, and drove to Corvallis, Oregon for a visit with my parents. Then it is back to NJ on Monday for a real dose of reality.

Alaska Day 11

We started out the day cruising south in the Strait of Georgia and into Canada's Gulf Islands. Before lunch those of us who wanted a long kayak paddle packed our lunches and headed out in the kayaks. We paddled around Prevost Island and saw the following critters: 3 kinds of sea stars (purple, fat-bodied orange, and many armed orange); plump oysters, 2 oyster catchers, a weasel (probably a mink), harbor seals, great blue herons, stone turners (a type of shorebird). Because the wind was picking up we paddled back to our starting point and took a nice hike.

Alaska Day 10

We started the day in Alert Bay, British Columbia which is a native community on Cormorant Island near the northeast coast of Vancouver Island. We took a guided tour of the U'mista Cultural Center, which houses a world-renowned collection of masks and other artifacts, and saw a native dance performance.

In the afternoon we cruised Johnstone Strait looking for killer whales. We found some at a distance in the preserve set aside for them. You can tell this is a male orca from the size of the dorsal fin. A couple "floating Hyatts" passed us while we were there so it is understandable that the preserve was created to project the whales from passing ships. There is a "rubbing beach" within the preserve where the whales rub against the rocks on the beach and no one is sure why they do it. The cetacean expert on board was ecstatic to witness the behavior in person.

Alaska Day 9

This morning, another gorgeous day, we were in Khutze Inlet for hiking and kayaking. We saw lots of bald eagles, a harbor seal, a swan, more salmon. The scenery was breathtaking. And lunch was served picnic style up on the top deck.

After lunch we continued south through British Columbia’s inside passage and had a great view of Dall's porpoises riding the bow wave of the ship.

Alaska Day 8

We’re actually now in British Columbia. And there is a bright cloudless sky. We landed in Prince Rupert this morning for a customs check-in and had a tour and native dance demonstration at the Museum of Northern British Columbia. In the afternoon we headed south again. The trip from now on is going to be more about cruising through beautiful scenery than seeing wildlife. We have lots of ground to cover to get to Seattle on Thursday -- though we stopped in the evening in Klewnuggit Inlet which is another great spot with steep granite walls. And beautiful reflections in the still water.The sky was so clear we stayed up to see the stars from the top of the ship. The Milky Way was spectacular.

Alaska Day 7

Today is our last day in Alaska. We saw more humpbacksas we headed for Misty Fjords National Monument where we spent most of the day. The fjord we were in lived up to its name with narrow passages through very steep granite walls. There were many beautiful waterfalls coming down the sheer sides.We elected to explore by zodiac rather than kayak so we could cover more ground. We got right up to the bottom of several of the falls and found 3 more brown bears in a salmon stream. This one has obviously eaten LOTS of salmon.

Alaska Day 6

We started the day early this morning heading down the aptly named Wrangall Narrows in fairly dense fog. We headed for the National Forest Service trail to Lake Harvey where we took a 2 mile round trip hike to the lake and back through the temperate rain forest. We have come far enough south that red cedars (Thuja plicata) are mixing with the more northern yellow cedars (Chamaecyparis nootkatensis). W took this great photo of a slug chewing on a mushroom on the damp forest floor.By the afternoon the weather had cleared considerably and the sun even came out. So that made the afternoon kayaking in Beecher Pass Marine Park especially nice. We saw bald eagles, of course, great blue herons, starfish, crabs, and lots of seaweed and mussels.

Alaska Day 5

Today we stopped in Juneau so the boat could do some necessary things like bringing on more food, clean laundry, etc. The first impression of Juneau is the cruise ships, which our crew call floating Hyatts. The huge monsters are docked all around us. What a way not to see Alaska.

We took a bus trip to Mendenhall Glacier, and to the national museum, and then had an opportunity to go shopping. We stopped in a bookstore and I found a quilt shop where I got another quilting fabric. Now I won’t be able to travel anywhere without searching out the nearest quilting store. I wonder if there is one in Corvallis.

In the afternoon we got underway and didn’t do much wildlife or scenery viewing. But one of our great naturalists gave a neat talk on cetaceans, so they are always finding ways to keep us occupied.

Alaska Day 4

Harbor Seals, Bears, Mountain Goats, Sea Lions, Tufted Puffins, Wolves, Bald Eagles, and Krill – Oh My.

Krill?? One of the naturalists scooped some water from Glacier Bay, put it under the microscope, and projected the image on a screen. We saw krill, very young clams, and other cool stuff.

We woke this morning in Glacier Bay National Park, right next to Johns Hopkins Glacier. We had wonderful views of several glaciers and saw and heard some calving.
Click here for a slide show of more glaciers. Use your browser's "back" arrow to return to the blog.

But we also saw some great wildlife. There were lots of harbor seals hauled out on the icebergs in front of the glaciers. We watched a couple of brown bears in a salmon stream, one of which was a master fisherman. I saw her (according to the park naturalist who came on board for this part of the trip it was a female) scoop up and eat two salmon within a short period of time. Then we watched several mountain goats climbing around on Gloomy Knob; Stellar sea lions hauled out on the rocks;and a group of tufted puffins in the water below. Then we moved on and in two different spots saw a black wolf which we were able to watch for quite a while. What a treat. And just about everywhere we stopped we saw bald eagles. There were other birds as well such as parasitic jaegers, scoters, pelagic cormorants, and various gulls.

Alaska Day 3

Today’s weather was more typical of southeast Alaska – cloudy and rainy all day. But that didn’t impede our activities. We started the day by watching sea otters floating past the boat and bald eagles flying overhead. After breakfast we kayaked around the Shaw Islands off Chichagof Island and then hiked up Fox Creek. While kayaking we saw humpback whales blowing in the distance, more sea otters, and a group of harbor seals. I’ve always wanted to kayak through kelp and finally had my chance. It is really strange stuff. It was so thick in spots we just sort of slid over the top. On the hike we saw more salmon going up a very small stream and a river otter that had caught one.

After lunch we took a zodiac ride around the Inian Islands as the tide was coming in from the Pacific bringing more salmon. We had great fun with the Stellar sea lions who came to investigate the boat. We also saw more sea otters and interesting birds.

Another great day in southeast Alaska.

Alaska Day 2

This was a very long day. Despite not getting to sleep until about 10 PM local time, we were awake at 3 AM. Ah, the joys of jetlag.

But what a great day. It started before breakfast with several humpback whales sighted near the ship. Then a group of about 6 humpback whales using bubble nets to feed was sighted. The ship changed course and followed them for quite a while. While watching the whales we also saw a brown bear with two cubs walking along a salmon spawning stream and bald eagles also at that stream.

After breakfast we loaded into the zodiacs to go ashore for hiking and kayaking. Here is the ship as seen from the zodiac.The landing spot was near a salmon stream and there were two brown bears fishing at the mouth of the stream. We saw them from the kayak and then W saw them again when he took a hike.

The kayaking was nice, but we really missed our own boat and equipment. We got back to the ship in time for a late lunch; then the ship went back into Chatham Strait for more whale watching. There was an even bigger group of whales bubble net feeding (about a dozen) and young ones breeching and generally trying to get their mothers’ attention. We heard trumpet blowing for the first time. The more common blows are eerie enough – a very primordial sound. The trumpet blows are even more so.

Click here for a slide show of feeding whales. Use your browser's "back" arrow to return to the blog.

In addition, the weather was wonderful – warm and sunny. By late afternoon I actually left the whale watching and went back to the cabin because I’d had too much sun, which is not a problem you usually have in southeast Alaska.