Look what I found when I cut open a red bell pepper to make dinner tonite: A little green pepper inside!
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matryoshka_doll
Showing posts with label weird. Show all posts
Showing posts with label weird. Show all posts
Monday, November 25, 2013
Matryoshka* Pepper
Look what I found when I cut open a red bell pepper to make dinner tonite: A little green pepper inside!
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matryoshka_doll
Thursday, September 12, 2013
Friday, August 23, 2013
Baby Chickens. Again.
Oh no... This is not good news.
I'm beginning to think that baby chickens are at least equivalent to kittens as internet image searches...
I'm beginning to think that baby chickens are at least equivalent to kittens as internet image searches...
Wednesday, July 3, 2013
Take Warning?
On Tuesday morning I awoke early.
Normally, I have my alarm set for 05:15, but on this day I was out of bed at 04:50. I just checked - dawn in Seattle was at 05:17, so this was about half an hour before sunrise.
I was awake because of the most amazing phenomenon... the entire sky was a brilliant red - brighter in the east but still bright enough in the west. It was that bright red light that woke me.
After going up on deck and standing there half asleep with my mouth hanging open, I rushed down below to find a camera to capture it, thinking, "How does one capture an entire sky? How does one tell the camera automatic white balance to not balance out the brilliant color?"
But sadly, by the time I got back above deck, the color had faded dramatically, and in another minute or two, it was gone.
I can only suppose that this was the responsibility of our heat wave, and the stagnant, dusty air that results from it... somehow.
I wish you could have seen it.
Normally, I have my alarm set for 05:15, but on this day I was out of bed at 04:50. I just checked - dawn in Seattle was at 05:17, so this was about half an hour before sunrise.
I was awake because of the most amazing phenomenon... the entire sky was a brilliant red - brighter in the east but still bright enough in the west. It was that bright red light that woke me.
After going up on deck and standing there half asleep with my mouth hanging open, I rushed down below to find a camera to capture it, thinking, "How does one capture an entire sky? How does one tell the camera automatic white balance to not balance out the brilliant color?"
But sadly, by the time I got back above deck, the color had faded dramatically, and in another minute or two, it was gone.
I can only suppose that this was the responsibility of our heat wave, and the stagnant, dusty air that results from it... somehow.
I wish you could have seen it.
Sometimes it pays to get up before dawn.
Wednesday, June 19, 2013
Extreme boating
One of the websites I visit religiously is XKCD's What If? blog. Each Tuesday, the author takes a subject from a reader and stretches it to the utmost. This Tuesday's column dealt with Extreme Boating (giving me license to include it here)...
Just a hint... Read the full column here. Be sure to hover the mouse over each drawing for an Easter egg...
What would it be like to navigate a rowboat through a lake of mercury? What about bromine? Liquid gallium? Liquid tungsten? Liquid nitrogen? Liquid helium?
-Nicholas Aron
Let's take these one at a time.
Bromine and mercury are the only known pure elements that are liquid at room temperature.
'Michael row the boat ashore.' 'I'm TRYING!'
Rowing a boat on a sea of mercury just might be possible.
Mercury is so dense that steel ball bearings float on the surface. Your boat would be so buoyant ...
Just a hint... Read the full column here. Be sure to hover the mouse over each drawing for an Easter egg...
Monday, February 18, 2013
Baby chickens?
The Internet is an exceedingly strange place.
It is a well-known fact that large numbers of people spend hours every day trolling thru the Internet for pictures of cats and kittens. I have exactly one post that has a cat picture, and those folks regularly find it.
But for reasons that are completely beyond my understanding, I see a small, steady stream of visitors to this post, looking for "baby chicken photos".
I guess that they will now be coming to this page too, so that by simply recognizing this odd fact, I am inadvertently increasing the weird traffic.
It is a well-known fact that large numbers of people spend hours every day trolling thru the Internet for pictures of cats and kittens. I have exactly one post that has a cat picture, and those folks regularly find it.
But for reasons that are completely beyond my understanding, I see a small, steady stream of visitors to this post, looking for "baby chicken photos".
I guess that they will now be coming to this page too, so that by simply recognizing this odd fact, I am inadvertently increasing the weird traffic.
Saturday, January 19, 2013
Strange Days
For the last three days, Seattle has been experiencing some very strange weather. We are living under the strongest inversion I have ever seen.
Here at sea level, we are immersed in a puddle of cold air whose temperature is right at freezing. More, there is a naggingly persistent heavy fog, which is freezing on the roads to black ice. Just plain nasty.
Yet just climb up a little and the sun is out, and it is warm! The high temperatures yesterday in the Olympic range were in the 50's, with one reading of 64°! In fact the puddle of cold air is so shallow that you can take an elevator to get above it!
For the full low-down on this, I'll refer you to our famous local weather blogger, Cliff Mass. He has made several posts about this phenomenon.
Here at sea level, we are immersed in a puddle of cold air whose temperature is right at freezing. More, there is a naggingly persistent heavy fog, which is freezing on the roads to black ice. Just plain nasty.
Yet just climb up a little and the sun is out, and it is warm! The high temperatures yesterday in the Olympic range were in the 50's, with one reading of 64°! In fact the puddle of cold air is so shallow that you can take an elevator to get above it!
For the full low-down on this, I'll refer you to our famous local weather blogger, Cliff Mass. He has made several posts about this phenomenon.
Monday, August 8, 2011
A fluther? I think not.
Collective nouns are interesting to me (you know, a murder of crows, a pod of Orcas, an embarrassment of riches). So what is the proper collective noun for jellyfish? A clump? A wad? A clot? A jar? Wikipedia gives two: a fluther of jellyfish, or a smack of jellyfish. Neither of these, it seems to me, fits well. I propose: a preserve of jellyfish.
This Saturday morning, when returning to Eolian in the dinghy while anchored in Liberty Bay, I encountered the densest preseve of jellyfish I have ever seen. They were packed so tightly that I wondered if my little outboard was going to overheat because it was starved for water. I have never seen jellyfish so densely packed. Luckily I had my trusty iPhone handy to capture the tannish colored heaving mass right alongside Eolian's hull. (Side note: I have never thought of jellyfish as having a color before).
At first, I thought that this was a universal phenomenon - that all of Liberty Bay was viscous with jellyfish. But when I climbed aboard and got a higher viewpoint, the view from on deck showed that this was localized. In this picture, the brownish stain is the preserve of jellyfish. (See? Preserve works.)
The sea is a weird and wonderful place. One should never have the hubris to say that they have "seen it all".
The sea is a weird and wonderful place. One should never have the hubris to say that they have "seen it all".
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
The Abyss?
A recent post by friend Livia reminded me of an incident that happened not too long after we moved Eolian to Shilshole.
It was winter, and quite chilly. And it was dark (but I repeat myself). Jane and I were walking the docks, enjoying the ambiance, when we noticed that there was a large patch of water between the docks, perhaps 100 feet across, that was gently glowing blue.
It was almost as if there was a light source under water, filtering up. Several other folks had noticed it too, and we all stood there, watching it, talking quietly as if to avoid disturbing it. But after a while, we all wandered away. After all, it really wasn't doing anything... it was just sitting there softly glowing, pulsing a little, slowly.
The next day that patch of water was completely unremarkable, and we haven't seen the effect again.
Now I'm not saying it was Cherenkov radiation from a nuclear-powered alien spaceship, but it did kinda look like it...
It was winter, and quite chilly. And it was dark (but I repeat myself). Jane and I were walking the docks, enjoying the ambiance, when we noticed that there was a large patch of water between the docks, perhaps 100 feet across, that was gently glowing blue.
It was almost as if there was a light source under water, filtering up. Several other folks had noticed it too, and we all stood there, watching it, talking quietly as if to avoid disturbing it. But after a while, we all wandered away. After all, it really wasn't doing anything... it was just sitting there softly glowing, pulsing a little, slowly.
The next day that patch of water was completely unremarkable, and we haven't seen the effect again.
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