flying sandhill crane

I posted about the prevalence of sandhill cranes in my neighborhood recently. Today I was driving down our street, on my way to work, and I saw some of them flying. No big deal, but then I got a great view of what they look like underneath when they fly. It was very funny, because their legs just kinda flap around the sides of their tail. So, they look clumsy when they're walking and they look clumsy when they're flying. They're great!

space coast

I just read an article about how fun images on the Space Coast website are going to change because of the following concerns. In order to form my opinion of the images before reading about the concerns, I went to the site. I found the images fun, and that they imply that you can not only enjoy the space center, but the other attractions in Central Florida as well.

Concerns include:

• "when you see the spacemen walking down the beach, it's hard to picture yourself as one of those"
• "the issue is for groups like the Brevard Cultural Alliance is that groups who receive cultural marketing dollars, they must use The Zimmerman Agency, and they have to put the little spaceman on ads and brochures. It's difficult for the groups that have wonderful designers. Because the TDC gives the money to Zimmerman, all advertising has to go through the agency. Everything has to the spaceman, and if we contest it, Zimmerman says, 'The spaceman is the brand.' "

Well, I put a comment on the Florida Today Forums that it seems just fine to have astronauts on the page. It's called Space Coast, after all.

What do you think of the spacemen? If you have any strong feelings, you might even want to comment on the forum. Oh, and make sure you say you're from somewhere else.

Sleep vs IQ

from Arts & Letters Daily:

Overstimulated, overscheduled kids are getting at least an hour’s less sleep than they need. It’s lowering their IQs... more»

Can an MRI See God?

from Utne Web Watch:

Neuroscience and the mystery of religious experience

By Brendan Mackie, Utne.com
Research in neuroscience has focused on the biological nature of consciousness. But does science explain away religious experience, or is there a deeper mystery at work?

The entire story may be viewed at http://www.utne.com/webwatch/2007_320/news/12803-1.html

Shoe Lacing Methods

Who woulda known?!

There's a site that is all about tying shoes. It has good diagrams of ways a person might like to lace his/her shoes:
http://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/lacingmethods.htm

The author also has some other interesteing sites.

Reading is hard work for the brain, as this book proves.

from the Washington Post:

Anyone who reads is bound to wonder, at least occasionally, about how those funny squiggles on a page magically turn into "Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang" or "After a while I went out and left the hospital and walked back to the hotel in the rain." Where did this unlikely skill called reading come from? What happens in our brain when our eyes scan a line of type? Why do some of us, or some of our children, find it difficult to process the visual information held in words? [the article]

haystacks

I just love Monet's haystack paintings.


Well, for years I've wanted to see some art, a painting, photo, etc, of today's version of haystacks. I just found some. This artist makes lots of abstract scenery paintings. It's cool!

I love this furniture

http://www.jakecress.com/picture_gallery.htm

I clipped out an article about this guy in 1991 and just found it while emptying boxes into the new bookshelf (it's done - yay!). I think my favorite is the one entitled "oops"

I'm a Kinda Dorky High Nerd

try this test, it's fun ;-)

I saw it on Barb's blog.

Religious Fundamentalism

In today's Forward Movement wise words were used to describe problems of Religious Fundamentalism. They express my sentiments as well:

The rise of religious and political fundamentalism in recent years alarms me. In general, the trend takes the form of substituting its goal (total control over the lives of everyone it can dominate) for the goal of all true religion-that God should be honored by the human creation's living out his image within us. That image, as defined by Judaism,Christianity, and Islam, is of a God merciful and compassionate, who longs for the salvation of the world from the false gods who encourage cruelty, greed, and arrogance.

Yet these are the very qualities most evident in terrorist groups created in the guise of religion, or the un-Christian hate groups declaring whom God hates. Such are certainly rooted in fundamentals of a kind-the traits of human nature which we know as "original sin." The certainties of the purity police have nothing in common with the "foolishness" of a God who puts himself at the mercy of our sin in order to persuade us of his love for us, nor their violence with the apparent weakness of that strategy.

The foolishness of God is referenced in Forward Movement's quote of 1 Corinthians 1:20-31. God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God's weakness is stronger than human strength.