Stormy weather ahead . . .
Tiny Orchids
I really don’t know the official name for these tiny orchids, but I have these orange ones, some yellow ones and some purple ones growing on the patio this week. Click on the image to enlarge.
Frühlingsgold Epiphyllum Flower
The German name translates into ‘spring gold.’ These beautiful canary yellow spider-like flowers have been coming to our patio for the last two years.
We acquired the original epiphyllum cutting from our local botanic garden in 2008. It produced a couple of flowers soon after we got it home. This year it’s on track to have a dozen or more flowers.
I took this shot this morning on the patio just as soon as the sun peeked through the clouds. Click on the image to enlarge.
Peanut Cactus Flower
It looks like I will be getting a lot of these beautiful hot pink cactus flowers this spring and summer. There are dozens of buds on the peanut cactus this year. Click on the image to enlarge.
Shopping Crime Rates in Arizona
One major consideration in Shopping Homes is the crime risk in areas where we might decide to settle. I found a real estate appraisal website, eppraisal.com, where area demographics for a given locale may be found. The crime data that they use is almost ten years old, so it has likely changed some; the data came from year 2000 census statistics. I’m sure that the crime rates, even though they may have changed, will have remained in proportion to those shown.
I chose to compare between Phoenix, the largest city in Arizona, Tucson, second largest and two neighboring smaller towns, one close to Phoenix and one close to Tucson. The numbers in the graphs are incidents per 10,000 people and break down to Personal and Property crimes. (We tend to take property crimes personal, however, but that’s beside the point.)
First, let’s look at Tucson and Marana, both in the southern Valley of the Sun and in Pima County. Interstate 10 runs through or beside both, and both are considered good places to retire. Both towns have a fairly high property crime rate but have a relatively low violent crime rate when compared to cities like Los Angeles, New York and Chicago.
Note that the scale and the personal property crimes are considerably higher than in Tucson proper. Auto theft and burglaries seem to be the major problem in Marana and, to a lesser extent, in Tucson.
Next, let’s look at Phoenix and Wickenburg, closer to the center of Arizona and both in Maricopa County (think Sheriff Joe). Phoenix and the surrounding area are also considered to be nice places to retire. Again, the Phoenix Metro area experiences a lot of property crimes and has been growing in personal crimes due to illegal aliens and drug cartel problems. Wickenburg is isolated from the Northwest Phoenix metro area by virtue of a small range of hills and a distance of about thirty-five miles from the town of Surprise, AZ. Us Highway 60 connects the two.
The vertical scales are different between these two graphs, but inspecting the numbers reveal a very low rate of both personal and property crimes in Wickenburg. We’re inclined to believe that the combination of lower new home prices and lower crime rates makes Wickenburg our very likely choice.
Dilbert Channels Washington
Scott Adams and the Dilbert crew nail the manner in which this administration reports statistics.
First Light for the Solar Dynamics Observatory
These images are just astounding . . .
April 21, 2010: Warning, the images you are about to see could take your breath away.
At a press conference today in Washington DC, researchers unveiled “First Light” images from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, a space telescope designed to study the sun.
“SDO is working beautifully,” reports project scientist Dean Pesnell of the Goddard Space Flight Center. “This is even better than we could have dreamed.”
Launched on February 11th from Cape Canaveral, the observatory has spent the past two months moving into a geosynchronous orbit and activating its instruments. As soon as SDO’s telescope doors opened, the spacecraft began beaming back scenes so beautiful and puzzlingly complex that even seasoned observers were stunned.
Be sure to click on the image above to view full-size and then go to the SDO Website.