I Interrupt This Series to Bring You Breaking News: Quick Blurb on Hurricanes

http://masqueradingscientist.blogspot.com/2011/08/i-interrupt-this-series-to-bring-you.html

I Interrupt This Series to Bring You Breaking News: Quick Blurb on Hurricanes

How Hurricanes Form

Click the link to find out more, including some Irene info...

I Have A Science Blog

Check it!

http://masqueradingscientist.blogspot.com/

A Walk On a Sunny Weekend

It is a sunny summer afternoon when these pictures were taken...Instead of just a written synopsis of a walk I took with my daughter, I thought I would document it with photographs.

Yes, it is wonderful to find that one footpath in the local park that can fool you into thinking you maybe miles from civilization...that is, until you hear the whine of the float-plane headed to nearby Lake Washington for a landing.

This bracket fungi is everywhere in Hamlin Park, where we were walking, and after some VERY brief research HERE, I found out that this is actually an indication that the tree on which it grows is dead or dying. Now obviously, this picture is of a fallen log, ergo dead tree, but many of the standing trees had this fungus on them which will probably explain one of the upcoming pics...

Random red leaves:)

The good news is they're trying!

And we're headed back to civilization...

Someone in the neighborhood has some amazing Lillies, below also:



Lily enjoying the rare sunny day walk in North Seattle area...

view up the street:)

Ready for some street ball...

Now, this? I will have to find something to add and definitely return...

And Home Sweet Home...But the sun still shines, for now! Enjoy!

Sunday Comics

When I was growing up, reading the Sunday paper was a huge part of my routine Sunday. I liked all the fluffy stuff they put in there...especially the Sunday Comics. I haven't had a subscription to a newspaper for my entire adult life, and really, what I miss most are those little snippets of color and humor...Here are a few of my faves:




I love this one...wasn't really one I grew up with, I was introduced to it via my parents subscription post-childhood. But it is definitely one of my faves. I mean, "Little 'publican Annie Liberal Decoder Ring?"
Fantastic.

Good ol' Calvin and Hobbes. Besides reading these in the daily paper, my brother always got the books...I could read any of the strips whenever I felt like it.



Who didn't grow up with this family in real-time? Not as hilarious as some of the others, but very endearing in a Family Circus type of way...


Doonesbury, by Garry Trudeau


Ah, Doonesbury. This is how I kept up with politics and current events when the newspaper articles were bland and tired...

Dilbert, by Scott Adams


And of course, Dilbert. I would read it as a kid, but now that I officially spend half my work day in a cubicle, I get it. Ha.

What are your favorites?

Bus Commuting

There is a lot of talk lately about the Seattle Metro Bus system and the budget; cutting routes, giving fees to King County car owners, etc. I am a bus commuter. I walk a little under a mile to my closest bus stop and it makes a 20 minute commute a 45 minute commute (which isn't bad, from some of the stories I have heard).

I love my bus ride. Though it adds thorough inconvenience to my job (a responder doesn't always get to have a regular schedule) it is also a convenient excuse to be "alone" with my thoughts, or, as is the current case, finish a good audio-book. I absolutely cannot read the old-fashioned way when I ride, as it makes me quite sick. I used to be able to do it, but I don't know if it is my new migraine meds, my old age or my insomnia....I just can't anymore, I MUST look out and about.

Anyway, I am currently listening to the audio-recording of Les Miserables, and I am hooked. I never saw the movie, the live production, listened to the soundtrack or read the book before and so I am a Les Mizzz virgin popping the proverbial cherry in 45-min increments every morning and afternoon.

I do think that every once and a while, I should publish a post about my bus rides on here. There is always something humorous to observe...it is people-watching in the best possible sense; not the clean-cut mall or airport people, the bus offers a plethora of the salt-of-the-earth types. From your every-day business persons to crazies having conversations with themselves to some of the greatest over-heard cell-phone conversations ever.

Example from a month-ish ago: Girl on phone "Well, I'm on my way to see my parole officer. (pause). Uh-uh, I just got back from there. (pause). HAHAHAHA (toddler pulls on her purse) oh, hang on....Here mom (hands toddler across the aisle). Ok, I'm back."

And then there are the rude people, the bus-stop people, the dog-owners....Oh, great stuff.

Please, Seattle, don't get rid of my route! Charge all those damn car-owners a fee (I'm one of them, soooo) so I can continue to steal an hour and a half of me-time five days a week.

Wine and Camping

This past few days, I and the fam went camping out on the coast and were lucky enough to find a spot to post up right on the beach. Besides all the wonderful memories created, this trip was especially nice because I discovered that I am perhaps pretentious enough to forgo the beer and drink wine while camping. While I didn't plan ahead, my darling spouse did and had brought our corkscrew. The combination of location and beverage choice were perfect, and I made a few mental notes...


1. Chardonnay pairs perfectly with s'mores.
    No, Lily was not drinking chardonnay. She just ate the most s'mores, ergo, the picture:)

This is especially true if you are on the third or fourth "glass." I put that in quotes because after the first being consumed from a not-so-well rinsed coffee cup, I decided that the notes of pear would taste better straight from the bottle (which I was sharing with my husband, so don't jump to any conclusions about intoxication levels, now) and I am roughly estimating at the quantity at which I decided to bust out the mallow-chocolate-graham mix. I opted for only eating one s'more anyway, as I discovered that fire, melting chocolate/marshmallows and alcohol consumption are not conducive to one's good health. Lily ate the most, and paired hers with an aged (sat in the sun on driftwood all day) red Gatorade.

2. While watching the sunset at an awesome beach campsite, you will end up with enough photos to show the time-lapse version to all.

I do say, sipping wine and watching the sunset makes one feel quite the bourgeois. This does not, however, make one feel like any kind of photographer. After each snapshot I took, I felt that I had not truly captured the essence of the awesomeness of the incredible view I was watching. I tried my best to will my phone's camera to become a professional Canon...This resulted in over 50 photos of a 15-20 min period of time and included one 5 second video of me mumbling something about "what the eff is wrong with th..." I did manage to turn my focus twice within that time to the moonrise behind me, though.

3. A cobble-stone mattress, though INCREDIBLY uncomfy and even painful at times, makes for a wonderful hangover prevention method.

The tent was not located on the sand. We had placed it above the high tide line (for obvious reasons) and that put us on stones large enough to be immovable and lumpy but small enough to be lumpy (yeah, I know). And I could not for the life of me locate the pump for our air mattress and sooooo....But in the end, as I stumbled happily into "bed" at the end of a wonderful day of sunburn and surf, this strange uncomfiness kept all the pain in my back and away from my head. Hooray!

So, cheers! I am officially trading my preference of beer-pong beer for a cheap bottle of wine during my camping excursions.

Just Been Camping

I have been off the grid for a bit, but have some great pictures to post and awesome stories from my past two camping trips so stand by for some great posts the next couple of days!!

:)