Yesterday, I was humming away, working outside and minding my own business when the sky started getting dark. I kept on working until the sky was a little too dark for my liking. I grabbed my tools and walked into the garage.
About five minutes later, the sky fell. It was crazy. The wind picked up and there was like a sheet of rain falling from above. Then, the hail started. I am so glad the cars were in the garage because I am almost sure they would have been all dented up from the hail. Some pieces were really big. They were actually bouncing off the grass and rolling down the front yard.
The storm lasted for about 15 minutes and then slowed down. I looked outside and there was a complete mess. Leaves everywhere. There are now holes in many of our plant leaves because of the hail.
Everything was cool for a while and then the power went out. It just came back on this morning. Ugh. That really stunk.
Here are some pictures. I didn’t get any of the big hail, but my brother’s verbal abuse will make me remember for next time.
Dolphins have a clever trick that doesn’t involve jumping in the air for fish: They can overcome sleep deprivation and remain constantly vigilant for days at a time by resting one half of their brain while the other half remains conscious. Because they need to periodically come up for air and keep an eye out for potential predators.
As proud pet owners, we understand the desire to spoil and pamper your furry, feathered and scaled little friends. But some people take spoiling their pets to a new level, and manufacturers are making it easier with weird and crazy, sometimes preposterous products for pets. We found 16 of the craziest pet products the internet has to offer.
What is it about Florida that inspires pet owners to set their captives free? On a Florida island, forgotten rabbits, the spawn of Easter gifts from as far back as 2002, run wild in a field of two-story condominiums.
Faced with massive population growth, melting ice caps and the need to own an ever-increasing number of gadgets, the world needs to find sustainable solutions.
A new way of comparing ground and satellite collected data on air pollution has shown that 15 of 20 highly populated cities have air pollution levels that 5 to 10 times higher than the World Health Organization’s guidelines.
Although many Texans seem to doubt that climate change is man-made, they are still firm believers in clean energy. According to a new report released by the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), Texas once again leads in wind- energy capacity and largest wind farms installed, ranking sixth in the world behind Germany…
BYD, a battery and electric car manufacturer, is led by Wang Chuan-Fu. Wang has built BYD into a global leader but still wants to be environmentally friendly. To that end, BYD has developed a nontoxic electrolyte battery fluid. “If we’re going to help solve environmental problems, we can’t create new environmental problems with our technology.”
Mostly conceived by international architects, China’s eco-cities were intended to be models of green urban design. But the planning was done with little awareness of how local people lived, and the much-touted projects have largely been scrapped.
Did you do it? You know, turn your lights off for an hour at 8:30PM?
Laura had to remind me a few times, but at promptly 8:30, I stopped what I was doing, turned the computer off and went around the entire house and turned everything else off. It was liberating.
Laura already had the candles lit and spread out all over the place. I decided that even though it was 60 degrees outside, a nice fire in the fireplace would really set the tone. I got a nice one going and we just lay on the floor talking until about 5 minutes ago.
Fire in the fireplace
At around 9PM, I said, “You know, I am really starting to like celebrating small events. We have our reality shows, our walks and now this type of thing.”
This stuff is fun for me and better than that, it keeps me looking forward to so many things so much of the time.
This was an unexpected little scene that occurred on our way back from Costco this afternoon.
While driving down 91 south, towards Hartford (in the HOV lane – luckily) today, we saw some signs lit up warning us of an accident further south, near Interstate 84. I didn’t really think anything of it, because the signs actually said the accident was on 84 west, not 91. When we rounded a bend in the highway, I asked Laura if she saw smoke. She said yes and this is what we saw when we were forced to stop by a police officer.
Car fire on 91 south, near Hartford, CT – March 25, 2009 – Photo 1
Car fire on 91 south, near Hartford, CT – March 25, 2009 – Photo 2
Car fire on 91 south, near Hartford, CT – March 25, 2009 – Photo 3
Car fire on 91 south, near Hartford, CT – March 25, 2009 – Photo 4
Car fire on 91 south, near Hartford, CT – March 25, 2009 – Photo 5
Car fire on 91 south, near Hartford, CT – March 25, 2009 – Photo 6
It wasn’t bad until the fire department started spraying the car. When they did that, the smoke got all white and came near us. I turned off the car vent, but some smoke still got in to give me a headache. Burning rubber and plastic really smells.
While I was sitting there taking pictures, I noticed the guy in back of us doing the same thing. It was a race to get back to see who could post it on their blog faster.
I knew I was on to something. It’s like I can foresee the future; it’s a gift.
I came across an article this morning that talks about how social websites can actually harm the brains of youngsters. Can you believe it? I’m just glad I got out when I did.
I think this is going to be the second and last part of my “Complaining about the Internet” series. I just need to get this one out there.
Have you ever heard of Twitter? If so, you’ll know what I am talking about here. If not, I’ll explain what it is to you. Basically, Twitter is a website that allows you to post very short updates on the happenings of your life. It can go something like this…”I have my hand stuck in the toilet.” You can post as many updates as you would like all day long if you want to. People who follow your Twitter feed can stay updated on how many times you get your hand stuck in the toilet during the day. It’s marvelous.
I hope I am describing the service correctly; I have never actually used it.
Just because I haven’t used Twitter, doesn’t mean I can’t complain about it. Please, let me know if the following is annoying to you too.
The other day, I was watching the news or something like it. Maybe it was one of those news shows, I’m not sure. There was a fascinating story on about how a few surgeons were operating on someone and another doctor was Twittering the goings on of the operation. I didn’t think too much of it at the moment. Then, later that day, I started thinking more about it. I asked myself, “Self, why was a doctor Twittering about an operation as it was in progress?” I began having strange thoughts and my mind started to wander. I must confess, I got annoyed for a while. I finally calmed down and tried to look at the plus side of the whole thing.
Let’s look at the “goods” of Twittering during an operation:
1. Comfort – a family can sit around a computer or a mobile phone reading “Tweets” about their loved one’s operation.
2. Informed – The world can get a first hand look at what goes on during an operation.
3. Progress – The doctors and hospital can glow in the limelight of their cutting-edge technology.
4. Contact – Everyone can be proud of themselves that we no longer need to have any amount of human contact.
Today, I watched the White House press conference for a few minutes. I got to the part where the Press Secretary said, “I find it humorous how many press releases have gone out and how much Twitter activity has gone on about…” I had to stop watching. Are you serious?
Okay, I love technology just as much as the next guy, but at what point do we implant “Borg-like” cybernetic enhancements on the sides of our heads and call it a day?
I thought it was great when email arrived on the scene. What a time saver. Then, when I could read the news online, I was thrilled. When I could finally keep up with friends and families through their blogs, I just loved it. When people started broadcasting every heartbeat that occurs inside their chest cavities, I thought the line was crossed.
I tend to think that this modern computer age is a “tool” to assist us in our “real lives.” Did you read that? A “tool” to “assist” us in our “real lives.” I might be over-quoting here, but I believe we are headed towards a place that is quite the opposite of what I just said. It’s going to be like, “Oh man, I have to go out in the sunshine today? Can’t I just twist the knob on the side of my skull and relay all my thoughts to everyone who belongs to the collective? Well, if I must go outside, I am going to need some sunglasses.”
Exercise? Family time? Conversation? Hiking? Looking someone in the eyes? I don’t think so folks…I’ll just go to YouTube and watch a video of someone else exercising, email my family about what I did today, use Skype to have a face-to-face conversation, get a treadmill and call it a hike and email someone a picture of me. I think that about covers it.
As I am finishing up this post and re-reading it, I am seeing a theme among this post and my prior one about Facebook. It appears that I get most agitated at the constant updating of our lives. With my blog, I write every so often to give you folks some information about me. I do it with thought and care. I plan it, write it and then proof read it. I don’t do it randomly and I certainly don’t do it 30 times a day.
Let’s go back to the Tweet, “I have my hand stuck in the toilet.” I think many of us might ask, “Who cares?” Seriously, “W-h-o c-a-r-e-s?”
To think, I thought I was alone. This guy sums it up nicely.
Daniel Tammet: “Our world is generating more information with more resources and technology now than at any time in history: through TV and radio programs, cell phones, magazines, email, websites, blogs, and other media… Being overwhelmed by a continuous maelstrom of information can be just as damaging to our minds as having too little of it…”
For most of us the universe is unimaginably vast. But not for cosmologists. They feel decidedly hemmed in. No matter how big they build their telescopes, they can only see so far before hitting a wall. Approximately 45 billion light years away lies the cosmic horizon, the ultimate barrier because light beyond it not has not had time to reach us.
The Swedes have a simple message to the Americans: Bite the bullet and nationalize. With Sweden’s banks effectively bankrupt in the early 1990s, a center-right government pulled off a rapid recovery that led to taxpayers making money in the long run.
It’s the “other” ivory. And this week, conservationists in London stepped in to stop its sale. It might not be as well known as the stuff that comes from elephants, but the ivory from the narwhal, the tusked whale of the northern seas, is just as much in demand – and with that demand comes a threat just as severe as the one elephants face.
The number of people on the Internet surpassed one billion in December, according to comScore. The actual number is probably higher than that (Internet World Stats counted nearly 1.5 billion Web surfers worldwide as of June 30, 2008). In any case, only between 15 and 22 percent of the world’s population is on the Internet. We have a long way to go.
Trees in western North America are dying at faster and faster rates, and climate change is likely to blame. The mounting deaths could fundamentally transform Western forests because tree reproduction hasn’t increased to offset losses, according to a new study published Thursday in Science.
There is fierce debate over the direction humanity should take when exploring the solar system. Plans for human exploration of the solar system and beyond often polarize opinions among the public and scientific communities.
Nobody pretends that polluted air isn’t terrible for your health. Clean up the skies over any dirty city and the people who live there will all but certainly become healthier. That, at least, has been popular wisdom, but until now, no one had ever put it to the statistical test. Now someone has and the results are striking.
Mars and Mercury were formed from the scraps of Earth and Venus, according to a radical new theory of rocky planet formation. The model could explain some characteristics of Mars and Mercury that have long puzzled scientists, said Brad Hansen, an astronomer at the University of California, Los Angeles.
President Barack Obama is a smart guy. Where others zig, he zags. It’s perhaps not surprising, then, that he’s been asking around about the benefits of open source, according to Sun Chairman Scott McNealy, who has been asked by President Obama to author a white paper on the benefits the U.S. government can derive from open source.
On March 4, 1901, a lone cameraman in the employ of Thomas A. Edison was dispatched to capture the swearing in of William McKinley. To posterity he delivered a total of 44 seconds of grainy footage showing a white-haired man on the Capitol steps solemnly, if indistinctly, raising his right hand.
Second semester has started and many students went back to college. If you are one of them check out this list of tools, it might help you with your studies. All applications are web based, simple to use and free.
