Winter Solstice

Someone emailed this poem to me yesterday - So although it is now a day late, I thought I would share it.

The Shortest Day

And so the Shortest Day came and the year died
And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world
Came people singing, dancing,
To drive the dark away.
They lighted candles in the winter trees;
They hung their homes with evergreen;
They burned beseeching fires all night long
To keep the year alive.
And when the new year's sunshine blazed awake
They shouted, revelling.
Through all the frosty ages you can hear them
Echoing behind us - listen!
All the long echoes, sing the same delight,
This Shortest Day,
As promise wakens in the sleeping land:
They carol, feast, give thanks,
And dearly love their friends,
And hope for peace.
And now so do we, here, now,
This year and every year.
Welcome Yule!

Police whack giant snow penis...

...that has to be a contender for headline of the year! See the story here. (found via fark.com)

And now the follow-up letter-to-the-editor responses:

"May God damn this newspaper for running the photo of the snow penis online."

If the site asks you for a password, and you are annoyed, you should consider using the firefox plugin - BugMeNot, if you aren't already. Best.Extension.EVER!

W00t! and Not So W00t!

First the good news: PA court says Intelligent Design is bad, m'kay? And there are lots of great exerpts from the judicial opinion on http://pharyngula.org/ including:

Those who disagree with our holding will likely mark it as the product of an activist judge. If so, they will have erred as this is manifestly not an activist Court. Rather, this case came to us as the result of the activism of an ill-informed faction on a school board, aided by a national public interest law firm eager to find a constitutional test case on ID, who in combination drove the Board to adopt an imprudent and ultimately unconstitutional policy. The breathtaking inanity of the Board's decision is evident when considered against the factual backdrop which has now been fully revealed through this trial. The students, parents, and teachers of the Dover Area School District deserved better than to be dragged into this legal maelstrom, with its resulting utter waste of monetary and personal resources.

Hee hee!

But not so W00t: The House approved an ANWR drilling thingy.

Llama..llama...llama..duck

OK, well Carrie and I were looking at JibJab and found the year in review song. You should check it out. BUT we came across this much more interesting song in their Oddities section. Check it out and see what you think. FYI: let it loop a few times. Enjoy.

Link: http://www.jibjab.com/Oddities/OddityRedir.aspx?oddid=75

See you all at new years.

Kev

How the Fat Man gets down the pipe..

.. In case you were wondering.

EcoVillage at Ithaca

Interesting- I never heard about this before.
____

Just outside Ithaca, New York, more than 160 people have formed aunique, close-knit community. It's called an "ecovillage." Sixtyhouseholds share common grounds, organic gardens, and open space. Andthey share a common goal: leaving a smaller footprint on the planet.

http://www.ecovillage.ithaca.ny.us/

Wool

Following up from our previous post about learning how to spin and weave wool, someone my parents know was gracious to give us a loom and spinning wheel and a whole bunch of equipment. So I made my first plaid, shown below. I also wrote a program to design my own plaids, its at my website, and there are some samples below.

It's thiiis cold.

Pics of the lake yesterday morning versus this morning. This is the earliest that Otisco has frozen since we've lived on the lake. And these fellas are bumming:

Here's a bit of good news

If it gets upheld, anyway.

http://www.cbc.ca/toronto/story/to_water20051213.html

OH, I hope I have done this right....first time blogger, here. Ok, so here are some shots of our place. We didn't pick the colors, so the kitchen color (affectionaly known as either "cheese puff orange" or macaroni and cheese) wasn't Kevin's idea, although it could have been. We love our landlord, as Kevins mentioned earlier. He is letting us borrow a bunch of his furnishings.
The apartment still has the lingering smell of paint, but maybe if I start drawing, this could be used to my artistic advantage :)
I had another job interview today. This one was with the NYS Senate as one of their photographer. Kevin is still hoping to hear from someone (HELLLLOOOO out there! insert echo here)! Well, all are welcome to visit. We like to entertain!

Views of glass

This is downright boring when compared to Steve's kick ass lab. I didn't have to clear off 3 inches of papers, but I've only been at this desk for about 4 months - which also explains the lack of cool stuff. We're supposed to be moving to a new building early next year, so I haven't invested much in making my desk homey. I'm very jealous of Chris's fish tank.

This is the view from my desk and then a nicer pict of the building we stare at. Unfortunetly the building is empty, so I don't have any good voyueristic stories to tell.

A better picture of my office. 3 inches of papers has been removed from the desk just for this picture.

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The joy of cube farms and cubinals...

At my place of employment, they like to cram as much of the cattle into as little space as possible... These are actually some of the bigger cubes... Fortunately, we have more than adequate lab space, for the 5% of my time actually spent in the lab. At least we have a view of Krispy Kreme donuts from our lab... one of my co-workers likes to go on donut runs when the "Hot and Fresh" sign lights up.

Theme Week

Lets have a theme this week and compare pictures from our offices/labs/campus, or window views.
Chris is lucky to have a little wetland outside his office window- even if it is filled with Phragmites. I can only hear the sound of traffic on 690 all day and see the cars go flying by. Not so peaceful. This is the view out the window by my desk (that's my desk).

We're here

Hello everyone,
After moving into our own apartment, Carrie and I are finally able to join you guys. We tried to get on at our parent's houses but 1) they are far too slow (logans) and 2) they would not accept the cookies (riordans). But here we are. So Carrie and I have an apartment in a wonderful residental neighborhood just a few miles away from downtown Albany. The apartment needed a little work so rather than sitting at home waiting, we came and are painting a few rooms and windows. We have been at it for 4 days and will hopefully finish today. Then we can at least continue to move our stuff around. The apartmen tis great and the landlord, who lives downstairs, to about our age and fun...although he is quite a talker. I will send some pictures soon. We are very happy to be in our pwn place and have one location to call home. The job search continues. Carrie has a lead on a job/intership as a photographer with the state legislature. It goes until June and then teh possibility for a permanent positions. I have an interview on Thursday as a math teacher (spring semester only) at a very well known all-girls boarding school. I have to learn how to teach a AP statistics class before my interview. I also have some applications with the DEC (which would be great) and a few other engineering firms. It will be nice when we have a typical daily schedule. Well I have to go paint. Talk to you later.

Kevin

Woodstove Junkies

Maple and Wyatt have taken up regular stations next to the woodstove. There seems to be a daily competition going over who gets the spot on the pillow. There was a rare moment when they experimented with the idea of "sharing" (until Maple rolls over and nudges Wyatt off...)

And its gonna stay

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Winter has finally come to CNY...

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The image as intended...

Here's the image she was trying to post... 

WTF????

Wow. What the hell happened here. JoAnna tried uploading a perfectly innocent picture of Steve (perhaps threatening to eat kittens), and blogger inserted some bizzarre-ass subliminal messages. Click on the messed up picture to be amazed. We have no similar images on our PC. Anyone have any conspiracy theories as to what the heck is going on????

Those kittens

These are those kittens. We just found the pictures a few weeks ago, and there was a very nice photo of Steve on the CD too! Bill 'spained all about how to upload high res photos, but if you want this as your background I find that scary.

Bernie and our tree

We put up a little tree this weekend and Bernie had to investigate...

Turkey Day recipes?

Who has some good turkey day recipes? I like to make cranberry gravy by simmering fresh cranberries in ginger ale with some orange zest for a few hours, skimming and then blending if necessary till it's a nice gravy-like consistencey... Think I got that off of good eats, not sure. Whatcha got for me ??? *Update* Check that, Here are the ingredients for the deliscious cranberry gravy featured on Good Eats:
12 oz Cranberries
2 C Orange Juice
3 C Ginger Ale
2 Tbls Maple Syrup
2 Tbls Brown Sugar
Zest of Orange
Pinch of Salt
Simmer a long time, (stick) blend. Mmmmm... delish.

Let it Snow

First good lake effect snow of the year! Fall is officially over! :)

pict o' the day

Continuing on the theme of cities which have just broken the curses on their sports theme, this is from our trip to Boston this summer.

Kevin and Carrie's Wedding. Teaser Video!!!

As most of you probably know, JoAnna and I shot lots of video at Kevin and Carrie's fabulous wedding. A teaser video ( 6 MB, wmv ) is now available here.

Let us know what you think!

New Years Update

Hey Folks - Hope everyone is getting excited about New Years! I know we are. Wanna try to go ski-ing at Whiteface this year.

So far, we have the following guest list:

Chris, Kelly, Steve, Marin
Bill, JoAnna, Jon and maybe a DC friend or 2, with Kevin and Carrie the newlyweds still holding out as "maybes".

The house accomodates 12 people. There are 2 main bedrooms, a private-ish loft with a queen sized futon, and a dorm style room which has 3 more futons. All are welcome between Thursday, December 29th, and Monday January 2nd - for all 4 nights, or just 1 night, 2, 3 - whatever! The rate for the house is 285.00 per night, and I am sending the payment later this week. For anyone that is coming, I think we'll say $28.00 per person per night towards the rent. No hurry at all - just FYI.

As for meals, JoAnna and I call shotgun on breakfasts!

Cabin Ammenities:

High Speed Internet,
Hot Tub/ Therapeutic Massage, Microwave/ Range/ Oven , Log Cabin Wet Sauna,
Dishwasher , Refrigerator/ Freezer, Coffee Maker, Washing Machine & Dryer, 2 Bathrooms , 2 Bedrooms, Sleeping Loft, Dorm Room with Air Hockey, Dovre Open Wood Stove , Dining Room, Linens/ Towels, Stereo with CD Changer, Satellite TV & VCR , Ski Storage, Wrap-Around Porch, Spacious Riverfront Yard, Adirondack Chairs Riverfront Benches , Loungers, Kayak and Canoe, 60 Acre Forest for Exploring, Fishing, Soaring Riverfront Windows arbecue Brilliant Starry Skies!

Check out: http://www.adirondackholiday.com/otterslideshow/otterslideshow.html

Well this explains everything...

From BBC:

Hormones make women safer drivers

The female hormone oestrogen could give women the edge when it comes to tasks such as safe driving, say researchers.

Tests showed attention span and ability to learn rules were far better among women than men.

They asked 43 men and women aged 18-35 to perform a battery of neuropsychological tests that assessed skills such as spatial recognition memory, rule learning, attention, planning and motor control.

The women were far better at being able to shift their attention from one stimulus to another, making it easier for them to perform everyday actions like driving and reading.

However, other researchers in the past have suggested that spatial skills such as map reading and parking may be difficult for some women because they had too little testosterone in the womb.

Storktelligent Design

Funny.

The Climate Mash

"Monster Mash" replaced with "Climate Mash"

http://www.climatemash.org/

No lieutenant your men are already dead..

So now I have to post the link to my favorite on-line movie...

Life in the Day...

This is funny- best with sound!

Happy Halloween!!!

http://www.hallmark.com/ECardWeb/ECV.jsp?a=5889711541178M000000N

Best video ever

This is rather entertaining.

Science rocks...

BBC has the most excellent science news. Here are my two favorite stories this week...

This is the actual story headline:

A sea creature killed just before it could defaecate has given new insight into the feeding habits of plesiosaurs.

And this story about a new worm that was found on whale skeletons whose name means "bone-eating snot-flower." It's apparently rather hard to find whale skeletons.

Pony wants my dinner!

I uploaded a short video of one of the ponies that wanted to share our dinner. The video is here.

The folks a few campsites over made the mistake of actually sharing, soon found their table overrun with 4 hungry horseys!!

Here's one of the wild ponies that got up close and personal. Lots of cattle egrets around too. 

Anyone now how to post multiple pictures to the same post using Picasa/Hello? It looks like everyone had a great weekend! It was a lovely weekend. JoAnna, Jon and I went camping at Assateague National Seashore. Spent some time with the wild ponies, some of which were very interested in sharing our dinner!
 

Sheep and Wool Festival

Chris and I did end up going to Dutchess County this past weekend for the Sheep and Wool festival - it was a perfect weekend for fall colors and really nice sceneryon the drive down. I never knew Dutchess County had such nice views. The festival was in Rhinebeck but we stayed overnight in a Saugerties and checked out the lighthouse on the Hudson and the little town. Here are some pictures of spinning, the sheep dog trials and the historic lighthouse (which is a bed and breakfast too).

Photo of the week...

There are many to choose from. I'm going with the funky blue ink. Bill prefers the trichomes.

Land Use Impact on Water Quality

This is an interesting way of getting municipalties to take advantage, or at least try out, models that predict the impacts of land use on a water quality. I was surprised to see these kind of thing in a web-format.
Check it out-
http://www.ecn.purdue.edu/runoff/lthianew/

Sigh

Ever been so bored at work, and time is passing so s l o w l y (on a Friday afternoon) that you can’t ever imagine not being bored again? You feel as if your whole world will always be your stupid, boring cubicle and you’ll never do anything of interest again before you die?

AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!

More crazy pythons

From the Miami Herald:

Frances, a Siamese cat, went missing a few days ago. Now experts say he likely fell victim to the 12-foot python discovered Sunday, contentedly coiled in the grass behind Frances' house.

The snake was the second to go public, part of a disenfranchised colony of Burmese pythons that seems to have taken up residence around the Everglades and now refuses to be ignored. This week another enterprising, if bad-tempered, python treated himself to a pre-Thanksgiving feast in South Dade.

Autumn.

I'm not sure if I've ever shared this photo or not. It's one of my favorite aumumn images. Taken from my former office n Illick Hall. 

I am looking forward to a lot of pie!

As we've gotten our first comment spam, I've turned off anonymous posting. Have to log in now with a blogger username to comment on posts. If anyone needs an invite to become a member/contributor, or wants to play around with admin access, just lemme know!

Kev's pies

If not everyone has heard yet, Kevin and Carrie are requesting everyone bring a pie to their wedding to be used in place of a wedding cake. I personally think this deviation from tradition is a welcome change, and I post my recipe below for mile-high apple pie that I will be bringing:

• 10 high-quality baking apples such as northern spy, properly peeled and sliced
  
• 2 cups brown sugar
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 8 oz marajuana (a true stumpie recipe)
  

The secret to getting a truly thick pie is to pre-cook the apples in the oven, as fresh apples reduce in the pie. When people start asking "What is this in my pie, oregano?" the proper reply is "No, grandma, those are apples, now lets go dance in front of the strobe light".

Yeee-haw.

Eyes Were Bigger than Stomach

This is gross. What an ambitious python!
______________________________________
Python explodes after swallowing 6-foot alligator in Florida Everglades http://news.mongabay.com/2005/1005-gator.html The National Park Service released photos that show the carcass of anAmerican alligator that was almost swallowed by a Burmese python. Park officials discovered the animal carcasses in a remote part of Everglades National Park, in south Miami-Dade, Florida, on Monday, Sept. 26,2005. It appears that the 13-foot long Burmese python attempted to swallowthe six-foot alligator before its stomach ruptured, resulting in the deathsof both animals. ...............

SU vs ESF

Take the quiz

Bob Loblaw

Does anyone else watch Arrested Development? I'm in a fit of giggles right now saying "Bob Loblaw" (a charachter in tonight's episode).

Even if you don't watch the show, try to say Bob Loblaw outloud and not giggle.

Bob Loblaw

...so funny...

New camera...

Bill and I broke down and got a digital camera this weekend. We were the last holdouts, right?

We also went for a little hike in George Washington National Forest where we admired all the brown foliage.

Isn't he cute?

Wool

We took our first wool class last night. Spinning wool is not as easy as it looks!
I am still up for having some sheep some day, though.
Chris took on the loom. I think he is going to weave a tartan. Or maybe a "mug rug".
I was reading about the NYS Wool and Sheep Festival and the Cornell Sheep Program when I came across this cool idea- using wool as insulation for buidings. They claim no more "sick building syndrome" and its much healthier. Very interesting. http://www.goodshepherdwool.com/ Wool is cozy and useful!!

FSM

Bill and I wanted to announce that we have recently accepted the Good Word of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster and have become Pastafarians. If you have not accepted the Noodly Master, we urge you to do so.

NYT article about Intelligent Design court battle in PA.

Hybrids

Mother Earth News ran an article this month on a new type of hybrid (not to market yet) that you plug in at night and recharge. So basically its an electric car until you run out of battery. This type of hybrid actually makes sense to me. Its all about the Li-Poly batteries. Fuels cells are bunk. Li-Poly batteries are the way.

Munchies

This catepillars ate two, 4' dill plants in less than 3 days. They ate all of the flowers and then munched down the stems. No dill for Chris's pickles, but we got a picture. I am not sure if they were Monarchs or not?....

Template changes?

Bill can edit the template, or if you want to be listed as an admin too, let him know. Then you can change the template too!

Any suggestions for additional links or pictures?

I added my blog (which I pen under the crazy-cool pseudonym Reese Urcher) to the links. I update it when I get bored at work...

Keep the peace(es)

I recommend using picasa and hello to post images. Quite simple.

My post below is my costume to Kev/Carrie's rehearsal dinner, less the battle axe and sgian dubh.
Turns out, its pretty hard for a man to stay decent when sitting down wearing a kilt. I will post some of those pics by later.

buurn it.