Big sky country

I love big sky. Look at dozens of photos of landscapes in any given week on the internets. This is one of the very best I've ever seen. Lenticular clouds over Estes Park, Colorado.

Worth clicking on the photo to embiggen. It's even better in larger size.

Rubber duckie, you're the one...

Got Ernie's Sesame Street song stuck in my head after seeing this giant rubber duckie on the Loire River.

Delightful. One more thing on my list of stuff I'd like to see in person. Many more photos and details at the link.

For poetry month

The month is almost over and I've done nothing to commemorate the occasion, so here's one of my earliest exposures to the form:



Still my favorite cartoon of all time.

Starship Enterprise

They're retiring the space shuttle program and as part of the farewell, the shuttle is flying over some big cities. You'll recall it did DC a while back. Yesterday it was over NYC. This is one of the best of the dozens of photos I saw:

And this one was my other favorite:

[Original photos here and here]

Just dropping in...

Like the man said on the twitter machine, an early candidate for picture of the year:

Apparently taken by some student who was in the right place in the right time. Already crashed the server at the school, but everybody has it now. Spreading like the wildfire on the internets.

True colors shining through

I see a lot of photos on any given day on the internets. This is one of my favorites. Just love the colors here. If I ever get a house of my own, I might plant something like this garden in Sammamish, WA.

The bright blue fence really makes the tableau, don't you think? (Click photo to embigger)

Happy Birthday Dave Shapiro

I don't delete dead people from places like my address books, or well, anywhere their contact info is stored. I can never bring myself to break that final connection even though I'll never see them again on this earth. So, had a bit of a twinge when Facebook told me it's Dave Shapiro's birthday today. Of course, he died well over a year ago but his wall was full of Happy Birthday wishes. Clearly, a lot of people don't know he's gone. But not all. Thanks to some person I don't know who left a little memorial post, I finally found out how Dave Shapiro died.

So tragic. You can read the whole story at the link, but short version is he froze to death in his own home. Alone. It was a long time before anyone checked in and found him. I keep thinking, if only he had come to visit me, as he said he would, he might still be alive today.

The article made much of his mental breakdown after Joselyn died, but I don't think he died of a broken heart so much as a broken spirit. Sure he was angry, and acting out a bit, but I don't believe he was a danger to anyone. He died because he couldn't get a job. The man was happiest when he was working. He thrived on an overloaded work schedule. Never knew him to have less than three jobs, plus his music gigs.

Then it all disappeared, at least partly because they hospitalized him for the depression. They would have done him a better service if they had hired him to do something productive. He would probably still be alive.

Anyway, as I said on Facebook, I still miss him. Hope they're throwing a big old party in the Summerlands and he's jamming right now with Levon Helm. And that my Dad's there hanging out with the guys.

Falcons hatching

It's kind of like watching paint dry but I love these bird cams. I'm told this falcon at Cornell Lab is about to hatch her eggs. So far I'm not seeing it, but I expect this cam will get entertaining once they're hatched. Worth bookmarking Cornell livestream falcon cam. Oh wait. Just saw mom get off the eggs and peck at the shells a bit. Someone apparently operating the camera and zooming when she gets off the eggs. You can see the little beaks trying to get out out of the shell. Yes, I'm a dork. Find this exciting.

Your internet access could be in danger

Maybe this is old news but I hadn't heard it yet. Apparently in July, the government could shut down half million internet users because they may have been unknowingly used as zombie bots by internet hackers. It's kind of complicated. They caught the perps and shut down their operation, but had to shift the corrupted users to their own servers.

It seems in July they're going to shut those servers down. If you're one of those users, and you probably wouldn't know it if you were, you have to proactively engage with a government page to let them know you're not a scammer I guess. Get the link to the page and read this article for the details.

Reach for the stars

Well they're retiring the space shuttle and it made a farewell fly by over DC. Loved this photo of it.

And this one.

Via Hecate who has some memories of the space program and the reach for the stars that echo my own thoughts. Also more photos at the link.

Little guy, big voice

Can't figure out how to embed this video so just trust me and click to watch this kid sing. He looks like he's about 8 years old or so and what a voice. He must have a very old soul to sing like that as his age. Like the music shop owner said, smokin'.

Stairway to Heaven

This is was tied for best picture of the week, and the week isn't even over yet.

Via NASA, Venus and Jupiter at Church Rock. Worth clicking over for the large size.

Bugzilla

I lived in New England for most of my life and I have never seen a waterbug that looks like this:

Click to embiggen, and not sure if link will work, but original photo here. If it doesn't, it's from Brian Marchese, the hardest working drummer in the Happy Valley and a dear Baystate friend from my past.

Anyway, if you can't get to the link and read the comments, the bug is about four inches long. It was trying to gain access to the Montague Bookmill. A place where I spent many happy hours of my squandered youth.

Somebody picked it up. That would not have been me.

Life is funny but it's not a joke

Been busy with real life stuff for the last few days, but nothing that interesting to talk about, so here's a funny shot of scary veggies:

[Original photo]

Also, this one is too big to embed, but a stunning shot of the moon rising over Manhattan. It's a really wide shot so you might have to scroll over to see the moon. That would have been something to see in real life.

10,000 Easter Eggs

Happy Easter. Hope it's a great day for those who celebrate the occasion. To mark the holiday this year, instead of my usual antique greeting card, I give you 10,000 Easter eggs hung a tree.

Kraft's apple sapling sported just 18 eggs when he first decorated it for Easter in 1965. The number increased year by year; and by last year, the sturdy tree was festooned with 9,800 eggs, artfully decorated with everything from sequins to sea shells.

This time, Kraft has reached 10,000 — and he says he's stopping there.

Wonder how long it takes to hang them and then take them down?

Generosity

Random thought: In my life experience I've found most often that those who have the least are the most generous in deed and spirit. They find their happiness in the sharing of communal joy rather than personal acquisition.

And in that spirit, let me share the one thing that made me smile the most this week.

So cute it should be illegal. [Original]

Finding Amelia Earhart

She's one of my personal heroes. I've been fascinated with the search for her plane just about all my life. So I want to marry the guy who invented this program:

He calls the Electra Project a "video game with teeth." It's a description that doesn't appear to do the project justice.

The project is a sort of virtual time capsule. Blair has researched every bit of historical data available about Earhart's "Special," relying on primary sources such as the U.S. Naval Archives.

You can virtually conduct your own search using this thing. I probably won't do that, but I'll be waiting to see if somebody figures out where she went down by using it.

You, light up my life

Those of you who know me well, know how much I love weather. Particulary thunderstorms. This is possibly the best photo of lightning I've ever seen in my life.

Click to embiggen, or better yet, go to the link to see the original so you can see the detail. Wish I knew how to capture a shot like this.

The view from behind the bar

Being a former bartender for many years, I found this hilarious because it's so true.



That's not even the half of it of course...

So you had a bad day?

This could help. Something about this one that I just love.

Bunch more comforting photos at this link.

Fly away

They keep getting a little closer all the time, but this is still a bit too complicated to fill my dream of owning a flying car.



Pretty sure you need a helicopter pilot license to fly that puppy. Call me when they invent a self driving car like the Jetsons have, that also folds up like a briefcase.