{"id":445,"date":"2007-05-07T21:59:26","date_gmt":"2007-05-07T12:59:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2007-05-07\/445"},"modified":"2007-06-30T19:40:54","modified_gmt":"2007-06-30T10:40:54","slug":"stinky-feet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2007-05-07\/445","title":{"rendered":"Stinky Feet"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
<\/a>Nikon D200 + Nikkor 70-200mm f\/2.8 @ 200mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>640 sec, f\/4.5, ISO 100 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>Anthony Squishing Around in Good Old Fashioned Wholesome Mud<\/b><\/span><\/div>\n\n

I ended my previous\npost<\/a> with the sad tale of having most unfortunately thrust my foot into\na large,<\/span> gooey pile of finely aged cow poop.<\/p>\n\n

The story doesn't end there. In fact, that wasn't even the low point of\nthe tale — it turned out to be one of those “one of those days” days.<\/p>\n\n

So, to continue the story, I washed<\/span> it off as best I could<\/span> in a puddle<\/span>\nof what I fervently<\/span> hoped was water. I was able<\/span> to get it to appear fairly\nclean, but then again, the shoe was brown to begin with, so who knows.<\/p>\n\n

It really stunk up the car.<\/p>\n\n

A few windows-rolled-down miles later, we came across some large patches\nof snow, and I used<\/span> them to wash the shoe off more vigorously, and as our\nsense of smell would later validate, more successfully. There's still plenty of snow<\/a> in the\nhigher elevations, but this was down in a valley<\/span> where snow was now scarce,\nso it was fortuitous to find some.<\/p>\n\n

An hour later, I still<\/span> worried that there was a lingering<\/span> lilt of eau\nd'bovine<\/i> in the air, so took the opportunity when stopping at a highway<\/span>\nrest stop to make a more<\/span> thorough cleaning. While Anthony played on a big<\/span>\npile of snow made when a plow<\/span> had last cleared the rest-stop parking lot, I fetched<\/span> a soon<\/span>-to-be-considered-old toothbrush and headed to the rest-stop\nbathroom.<\/p>\n\n

<\/a>Nikon D200 + Nikkor 70-200mm f\/2.8 @ 200mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>200 sec, f\/5.6, ISO 250 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>Playing on a Plowed<\/span> Pile of Rest-Stop Snow<\/span><\/div>\n\n

As you can imagine, a rest-stop bathroom is not the most pristine of\nlocations to take one's shoe off, so I maintained<\/span> an awkward balance while\ngoing at the shoe with water and toothbrush. It became<\/span> sparkling... good as\nnew, almost good enough to lick! (Almost<\/small>)<\/p>\n\n

I returned to the parking lot happy as punch, took over from Fumie on\nAnthony duty, and wandered over to the big pile of snow to play with him a\nbit.<\/span> Unfortunately, it turns out that he'd been splashing in some mud at\nthe edge of the pile, and it was all over his shoes, hands, and even some\non his shirt. I didn't<\/span> want him to wipe his muddy hands on his clothes, so\nI returned<\/span> to the bathroom with him in tow to wash his hands.<\/p>\n\n

We then returned to the somewhat dirty pile of snow to climb around\ntogether for awhile.<\/p>\n\n

The pile was somewhat dirty because as it melted, the assorted dirt that\nhad been embedded in the plowed snow collected in a layer<\/span> on top of the\npile. Unfortunately, this marked the second time in as many hours that I'd\nmistaken something else for dirt. This “dirt” was oily tar, and I was<\/span>\nimbecilicly<\/i>\nlate in figuring this out. (That the “mud” on his hands had\nbeen so difficult to wash off should have tipped me off, for example.)<\/p>\n\n

We returned to the car, and with Fumie's help we got him out of the\nboots and his clothes without spreading the damage too widely, pulling new\nshoes and clothes from the luggage. I brought<\/span> his boots and myself to the\nbathroom, retrieved the toothbrush from the trash, and tried to clean his\nboots. They were so thoroughly covered in tar that I really<\/span> had no hope, so\nI put<\/span> them into a plastic<\/span> bag for the trip home.<\/p>\n\n

But for myself, I had only<\/span> the one pair of shoes — a pair<\/span> that had\nonly minutes before had one minty-clean member, and now had two that were\ncovered in black, sticky tar. I didn't<\/span> really want to ruin the inside of our\ncar, so I had<\/span> no choice but to try to clean them.<\/p>\n\n

Factoid<\/b>: a toothbrush<\/span> is much more effective in cleaning cow poop\nthan tar.<\/p>\n\n

The toothbrush, my shining star at the previous cleaning, was worthless\nhere, as it quickly turned into a big<\/span> stick of tar that then did nothing\nbut spread tar around like oily frosting.<\/p>\n\n

Luckily, the soap dispensers were well stocked, so I used<\/span> liberal\namounts of hand soap, water, scrubbing, time, (and a lot<\/span> of awkward\nbalancing), and eventually the shoes seemed to clean up.<\/p>\n\n

I spent considerable additional time trying to clean my hands and the\nbowl of the sink, all of which had turned into a slimy<\/span> black mess.<\/p>\n\n

Then we continued our drive to the ferry for the trip home<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

\n\n

The muddy boots at the top of this post are from April 30th, our first\nfull day in Furano. We were driving<\/span> around among large farm fields in the\nmiddle of nowhere to the east of the city, just looking around. Anthony\nwanted to play in some snow, so we stopped and let him at it.<\/p>\n\n

<\/a>Nikon D200 + Nikkor 70-200mm f\/2.8 @ 150mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>2000 sec, f\/2.8, ISO 100 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>Snow is Fun but Mud Is Funner<\/span><\/div>\n\n\n\n
<\/a>Nikon D200 + Nikkor 70-200mm f\/2.8 @ 78mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>800 sec, f\/4.5, ISO 100 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n\n\n
<\/a>Nikon D200 + Nikkor 70-200mm f\/2.8 @ 86mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>500 sec, f\/6.3, ISO 100 —\n\nfull\nexif & map<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n\n\n

In looking at the satellite\nview<\/a> of this location, you can see we're beside a large<\/span> circular\nstructure. (Its parking lot was convenient; the road was plied by a lot<\/span> of\ndump trucks, and there was no other place to safely pull off the road.) I'm not sure what it was,\nbut the downwind smell made me think it was some kind of holding tank for liquefied, er, “natural fertilizer.”\n\n<\/p>

Perhaps I should have taken this as an omen for things to come....<\/p>\n\n\n

(Anthony's tar-covered boots are still in the plastic bag, sitting outside the front door.)<\/small><\/p>\n\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I ended my previous post with the sad tale of having most unfortunately thrust my foot into a large, gooey pile of finely aged cow poop.<\/p>

The story doesn't end there. In fact, that wasn't even the low point of the tale -- it turned out to be one of those \"one of those days\" days.<\/p>

So, to continue the story, I washed it off as best I could in a puddle of what I fervently hoped was water. I was able to get it to appear fairly clean, but then again, the shoe was brown to begin with, so [...]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,1,2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=445"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}