Birthday Boots

Yay!!! Wow it looks like blogger will let me post bigger pics now...let's see if I can adjust other posts...

Awesome Videos

I found this via Wired today. It's clips from Carl Sagan's "Cosmos" series (with a little Stephen Hawking) mixed into a techno song. One of the coolest things I've ever seen in my life.

Speaking of crazy-cool things, an amazing video I wandered onto of members from the dance group Pilobus, which I'd never heard of before, doing a TED performance.

Larrabee State Park

Just outside of my second home, Bellingham, is Larrabee State Park. On the way up to Vancouver, we stopped by to hang out. Not too much commentary here, just some beachy pics...

Cake!

I made a fabulously awesome chocolate cake. From scratch, not a box! Here's the cake and frosting recipes.

So beautiful!!!

Um, but I didn't level the layers before I stacked them, so it started cracking...

...and finally fell apart under it's own weight.

But it was still delicious!

Snoqualmie Falls

Time to get posting again!

Another day trip was a visit to Snoqualmie Falls. This amazing place is only a half hour drive from my parents' house. On these trips I finally realized the paradise I left behind when I moved to the desert. The view from the top (and note that this was in August, when the water flow is the lowest of the year):

Then you can take a windy path down the bottom. It's been changed since I was a kid. There used to be a million stairs and no crooked boardwalk. A sign says that you are supposed to stay on the boardwalk, but that would be lame and no one pays attention to it.

It's way too tempting to get down and play in the rocks.

This guy was fishing! I wonder if he had any success. Do the salmon make it all the way up here, through the city?

No trip is complete without the obligatory rocks in the water photo...

...and some random foliage...

San Juan Island, Part V: English Camp

Our last stop on the island was a park called English Camp. The island used to be split between the Americans and the English (there is another park called American Camp on the other side of the island). Here's the story:

A shelter of some kind.

Pretty flowers in the garden of the main house.

A monument erected to honor those who erected the monument (seriously, that's what it says).

On our way out at the end of the day, we stopped for dinner at the harbor.  Mmmm...crabcakes and a beer, with this view, what else can you ask for?

We even got to watch a romantic sunset for the ride home.

Today I am 28.

Globular Cluster M28

Wikipedia Facts About 28. In particular, I like this: In Gematriya, the system of Hebrew Numerology, the number 28 corresponds to the word koakh, meaning "power," "energy."

xkcd's thoughts on a 28-hour sleep/wake cycle (click image for original).

 Moon cycles in crop circles!

For My Mom

I usually hate chain mail, but this one was not so bad...

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The prize doesn't always go to the most deserving

Irena Sendler

There recently was a death of a 98 year-old lady named Irena. During WWII, Irena, got permission to work in the Warsaw Ghetto, as a Plumbing/Sewer specialist. She had an 'ulterior motive' ... She KNEW what the Nazi's plans were for the Jews, (being German.) Irena smuggled infants out in the bottom of the tool box she carried and she carried in the back of her truck a burlap sack, (for larger kids..) She also had a dog in the back that she trained to bark when the Nazi soldiers let her in and out of the ghetto. The soldiers of course wanted nothing to do with the dog and the barking covered the kids/infants noises.. During her time of doing this, she managed to smuggle out and save 2500 kids/infants. She was caught, and the Nazi's broke both her legs, arms and beat her severely. Irena kept a record of the names of all the kids she smuggled out and kept them in a glass jar, buried under a tree in her back yard. After the war, she tried to locate any parents that may have survived it and reunited the family. Most had been gassed. Those kids she helped got placed into foster family homes or adopted.

Last year Irena was up for the Nobel Peace Prize ... She was not selected.

Al Gore won, for a slide show on Global Warming.

Powerful message, especially the "cartoon." Let us never forget! 63 years later In MEMORIAM - 63 YEARS LATER  Please read the little cartoon carefully, it's powerful. Then read the comments  at the end. I'm doing my small part by forwarding this message. I hope you'll consider  doing the same.  In Memoriam It is now more than 60 years after the Second World War in Europeended This e-mail is being sent as a memorial chain, in memory of the six million Jews, 20 million Russians, 10 million Christians and 1,900 Catholic priests who were murdered, massacred, raped, burned, starved and humiliated with the German and Russian Peoples looking the other way! Now, more than ever, with Iraq , Iran , and others, claiming theHolocaust to be 'a my th,' it's imperative to make sure the world never forgets, because there are others who would like to do it again. This e-mail is intended to reach 40 million people worldwide! Join us and be a link in the memorial chain and help us distribute it around the world. Please send this e-mail to people you know and ask them to continue thememorial chain.  Please don't just delete it. It will only take you a minute to pass this along. Thanks

Beer from Costco!

I never saw it before just now. I will have to get some for my birthday party!

Finally

Data is from the National Weather Service Website.