I went outside just at dusk looking for a nice sunset photo, but was surprised to see this handsome great horned owl perched on the roof above our courtyard. It flew silently away shortly after I took this photo. Click on the image to enlarge.
Family Entrepreneur
Damsel’s nephew has a little business going where he applies his graphic arts training to creating custom designs for his clients. As a sideline, he started making custom T shirts, many with pro-second amendment messages. I got these images of just two of many Pro 2A designs from his facebook page, TB Creative Designs. Click on the image to enlarge.
I’ve known this kid since he was literally a knee-high. Glad to see him doing well in spite of the dour economical picture.
Flashback – The Dahlia Show
We attended a dahlia show at the South Coast Botanic Garden in Torrance, California in August of 2009. We were browsing through some of the old animated slideshows and thought that this one would be welcome in the wintertime when dahlias are dormant.
Beltway Kabuki
It has been several years since Mark Steyn coined the term “Beltway Kabuki” to describe the liberal shenanigans of Washington politics. When I read the piece Steyn wrote with that term, I decided to add it as a category type for this blog.
Yesterday, Michael Ramirez captured Steyn’s sentiment in this cartoon. Enjoy the cartoon and we wish you a Happy and Prosperous New Year in spite of Beltway Kabuki.
Green Hummingbird
Although winter is here, the cardinals, thrashers, woodpeckers, finches, cactus wrens and the tiny hummingbirds can still be seen frequenting the feeders. This tiny green guy was perched in a creosote by the wash in our backyard. It didn’t fly off even though the camera lens was about five feet away. Click on the image to enlarge.
Mars Science Laboratory – Curiosity Rover
On August 5, 2012, The Curiosity Rover landed on Mars for its two-year-long mission to look for signs of life on the red planet. Curiosity was designed to assess whether Mars ever had an environment able to support small life forms called microbes. In other words, its mission is to determine the planet’s “habitability.”
This image was featured on the Astronomy Picture of the Day yesterday, but at a much larger and higher resolution. The composite image was constructed from 55 different images wherein the robotic arm holding the camera was digitally removed, making it appear as if it weren’t a self-portrait. Click on the image to enlarge.
To find out about the possibility of life (past or present), the rover carries the biggest, most advanced suite of instruments for scientific studies ever sent to the martian surface. The rover will analyze samples scooped from the soil and drilled from rocks. The record of the planet’s climate and geology is essentially “written in the rocks and soil” — in their formation, structure, and chemical composition. The rover’s onboard laboratory will study rocks, soils, and the local geologic setting in order to detect chemical building blocks of life (e.g., forms of carbon) on Mars and will assess what the martian environment was like in the past.
Portions of the description above, came from the Mars Science Laboratory Overview website.