Friday, June 4, 2010

Friday Night Grin

One day there were two boys playing by a stream when they stumbled upon a naked woman frolicking in the water. After a few moments one of the boys turned and ran away.

The first boy couldn't understand why he ran away so he took off after his friend. Finally, he caught up to him and asked, "It was interesting man, why did you run away?"

The other boy replied, "My Mom told me if I ever saw a naked lady I would turn to stone, and I felt something turning to stone, so I ran."

Four for Fridays

Hello everybody! Wow, it's Friday after a short week! Can you believe that? This week's questions are about sports.

1) What is your favorite sport?

2) What is your favorite sports team?

3) Did you participate in any sports activities when you were younger? If so, what?

4) Who is your favorite athlete?

Enjoy your weekend!

Open Blog - Weekend Version


Friday, already? What's up for the weekend?

Thursday, June 3, 2010

Jupiter Smacked Again!

Well, I haven't had much time to blog recently (and June doesn't look much better, but I will try) but this story is too good not to do a quick post on. Jupiter has been smacked again by something...a comet or asteroid. Again, it has been discovered by amateurs. First reported by Anthony Wesley and confirmed by Christopher Go, they each got video of the event. Here is a still from Wesley's video.


Pretty prominent little bright spot there. You can watch the video here.

This just happened today, so it's still a developing story...stay tuned.

UPADTE: The video has been posted to Youtube, so here it is.




Reprinted with permission from the Half-Astrophysicist Blog.

A reason to start working out.

My friends say I'm nuts, but this is way more than I've ever managed.

Dear Madame Zoltar

Hello, my wooly Wookies! How are you? Are we sure this is Wednesday? It feels like Tuesday. Those long weekends always throw me off. It will happen again with the 4th of July this year. The 4th falls on a Sunday, so the celebration will be on Monday, the 5th. And the hangovers will be on Tuesday, the 6th. Oh dear. I hope that everyone’s Memorial Day was special. I honor those who gave their lives so that I could live in freedom. Thank you for your sacrifice.

No matter what the calendar says, I know that summer is officially here when people are walking around in shorts and air conditioners are clicked on everywhere. Happy happy June! Enjoy the wonderful, though variable, weather. People have spent a lot of time working on their lawns and gardens. I have seen some simply gorgeous flower beds in Racine. Many stores and businesses have also beautified their grounds. Downtown Racine looks very inviting. Even vegetable gardens are attractive. I think that growing food is beautiful. And yummy.

Unfortunately, the good weather also brings out some bad elements, like boom cars and loud parties. Some of my neighbors celebrated their Memorial Day with sonic assaults of rap music blasting from their house, while various boom cars drove up in apparent duels of decibels. Oh my. This was accompanied by children screaming and intoxicated adults yelling. What a patriotic show. I’m sorry; it was all I could do to keep myself from placing the dreaded Zoltar® Curse™ on them. Fie on such disrespect! Shame, shame, shame.

Not to beat a dead horse (because I believe that it’s still alive), but the Racine Post continues with their campaign of keeping a spotlight on the Laurel Clark Fountain situation: http://news.racinepost.com/2010/05/fountain-cont.html. As I’ve stated in the past, I am very pro-children when it comes to the fountain and I believe that the city should pursue any and all alternatives towards that end. Maybe even supernatural ones, or at least paranormal. If the city is gong to hire grant writers and economic developers, they should also consider hiring a psychic to advise them on city affairs. In any case, I sincerely hope a solution is found which will once again allow our children to play in the fountain. If not, I may still resort to the dreaded Zoltar® Curse™.

Thank you for taking the time to read my blog today. I do so appreciate my regular Irregulars and others. It makes me feel like I am part of an extended family. Thank you all so much for your kindness. Sometimes the solace of a friend is so deep and genuine that it only takes a few moments to feel refreshed.

Don’t forget to submit your musical requests and indecent proposals to: madamezoltar@jtirregulars.com.

Watch out for bicyclists and children on our streets and roads. They don’t always do the adult thing – even the adults. Play hard, but play smart. "Summer’s here and the time is right for dancing in the street." Actizol!

Open Blog - Wednesday


One day of work and it's hump day. That's not too bad.

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Woman Sues Google Maps for Bad 'Walking' Directions

Lauren Rosenberg Googled directions for walking while visiting Salt Lake City. The directions included a stretch of highway that has no sidewalk. She walked on it, got hit by a car, and is now suing Google. Is Google responsible for the accident, or should she have used common sense and not walked on a highway?

http://www.pcworld.com/article/197618/Google_Maps_Error.html

Frank, the Trucking Duck



“As stupid as it sounds, maybe if more people had a duck in their lives, maybe we wouldn’t be all so mad at each other.” – Joe Mansheim, trucker.

I've done all sorts of stupid things. Ducks for peace sounds fine to me.

Eurovision 2010

I've written about Eurovision before bring up examples of Swedish contributions and past winners. Well this past Saturday was Eurovision 2010 in Oslo and while I do not usually like watching it because of the overwhelming amount of really bad music my husband loves watching it and it is tradition. Well This year while watching it there was a really neat moment. This was in a bit of break.. They had just finished up all of the telephone voting and we were waiting to hear who had won and this was the act they had. I found myself quite touched and awed by the whole thing. We all love our homes and countries. Most people throughout the world think that where they live is the best in the world even if it's not perfect. There has been so much fighting and war and ugliness throughout the world it was nice to see something like this. We should never forget that we are all alike. We were born in different stations in life, different geographical locations and opportunities but we are all the same. I really did love watching this I hope you find it as amazing and touching as I did..



The second great story for Eurovision this year is the winner. This is a girl that just turned 19 last week and up to 4 months ago completely unknown, just your average teenager. They were having a competition going on in Germany looking for their Eurovision star, they set up photobooth like things around and people left something like a 1 minute audition in a camera.. the Eurovision officials/producers in Germany found this girl and she ended up winning with over 100,000,000 people watching. Her reaction when she won was great. I did like this song and was glad it won, although not my favorite but pretty good none the less (especially if you were to watch the whole 40 songs that competed). I was trying to find a clip of the final song (the winner gets to perform again after they won) because you can see the surprise on her face.. was having a hard time finding one of the final performance.



This was my favorite, unfortunately he ended up 5th or 6th (the ones I like never end up winning).. kinda a John Mayer kinda sound

Sunday, May 30, 2010

The Davis-Mothan Air Show

I didn't post these when the Davis-Mothan Air Show took place back in March, but thought Memorial Day weekend would be a fitting time to put them up.

A B-1 Bomber on the ground.
An A-10 in flight. These are stationed at DM and are a common sight in the skies of Tucson.
They did a simulated bombing run and set off a bunch of explosives. Very impressive. I still wonder what they set off that made those two cool smoke rings.
There was a halo around the Sun (due to ice crystals in the upper atmosphere). I tried to get an aircraft flying through here, but couldn't get positioned right (and the timing of the shot is difficult with a fast moving plane). I even tried to find a U.S. flag to block the Sun, but the U.S. flag was flying next to a tent and in I couldn't get the U.S. flag in front of the Sun (would have had to stand under the tent for the angle to work). Still, was happy to get this shot.

An F-22 on display on the ground.
The Thunderbirds were the highlight act. I kept trying to get a pic of them doing a pass and found the timing difficult. This is the best one I got (try taking a pic of planes flying in opposite directions at 400 mph!)
Here is a nice low pass.
Finally, a little classic formation flying.

Favorite quotes

2 of my favorite quotes are -

" I don't believe in alot of things but I do believe in duct tape"

" If women don't find you handsome, they can sure find you handy."

Do you know where they are from?

What are your favorite quotes?