Hot. Wish I had some popsicles. Hope y'all are staying cool today. Forecast temp here is 100 degrees. In honor of the heat, here are some pretty bad jokes that I found HERE. and other places...


You Know It's Hot Outside When...

You've been getting hot flashes, and you're a man.

The hot-dogs sold outside Yankee Stadium are actually hot.

You need a spatula to remove your clothing.

When the beer gut and big butt don't keep you from wearing shorts.

You notice the best parking place is determined by shade instead of distance.

You've experienced condensation on your butt from the hot water in the toilet bowl.



Be cool.

oops

Has anyone ever typed in "stumpies.com" instead of stumpies.blogspot.com?
What IS that?

new music

I'm in search of new music. What have you all been listening to lately? I'm in a contemplative Garden-State-Soundtrack kind of phase.

A few days ago I heard a Jerusalem by Dan Bern and have been obsessed with it since. It's rather old, so you may know it already, but if not give it a listen.

Does anyone have any music recommendations?

Long time, to writie

So, it has been a little while since kev and i wrote anything. All is well in Albany. Session is over (thank goodness) and Kev is enjoying the summer golf league! We signed up for a stained glass class that starts in July. Here is a potpourri of pictures from the past few months. Hope everyone is doing well and enjoying the summer sun!! Cheers!

Bees

The new house is actually a small farm, with a barn and lots of pasture, a silo, an old apple orchard, etc. We'll post some pics of the outside soon but we already have a beehive and below are some pics kelly took.



 

We closed on our new house in Lafayette a couple of weeks ago, we finally have some pics to share. First is the kitchen (with some of the sellers crap left behind), and then the kitchen after me and my dad and Jon got done with it this weekend (obviously the new tile floor, cabinets, and appliances are not in yet). Maple and Jingles love the place now, horses to chase next door, pigeons to chase in the back yard, a big barn to run around in (with tasty manure still in it), and no crazy cats (yet). We hope to move in at the end of the month.



 

ESF's willows

http://www.news10now.com/content/top_stories/default.asp?ArID=70056&

A Texas company is looking for NY farmers with land to plant and harvest willow shrubs.

Finally posting some drunk picts...

These are photos of photos, so the quality is a bit icky -- but the memories (or lack thereof) are good!






There was a lot of giggling going on.

Yellow, anyone?

From HappyNews.com

Fashion-wise, yellow is the new black this season in Thailand. Yellow shirts, honoring the country's beloved King Bhumibol Adulyadej on the 60th anniversary of his ascension to the throne, are so popular that there aren't enough to go around....Suppliers say they're running out of shirts, and buyers complain they are being gouged by sellers.

Perhaps Kevin can send them some extras?

A goodie from the photo archive...

First New Year's Celebration on Rainbow Lake.

Name that bird...

We don't have many pics from the WSB, here's our mystery bird from Brig. A simple cormorant? A Great Cormorant? An Anhinga? ...you decide.

Random post...

Ladies with red hats in the gardens at Mount Vernon...

Trillium in Bloom

ESF on Science Friday

I saw this ESF Insider or something but almost forgot about it.

ESF is hosting Science Friday with Ira Flatow today. You can listen online starting at 2:00.

It's very exciting.

USS Oriskany

Saw this in WaPo this morning.

My favorite part:

It took just 37 minutes for the 888-foot USS Oriskany to slip beneath the waves of the Gulf of Mexico.

As hundreds of veterans looked on solemnly, the Navy blew holes in the retired aircraft carrier Wednesday, sending vessel to the bottom of the sea and creating the world's largest manmade reef.

The rusted hulk became completely submerged about 4 1/2 hours faster than predicted, after more than 500 pounds of plastic explosives went off with bright flashes of light and clouds of brown and gray smoke.

Boy did someone get those calculations wrong...

WSB 2006

Our full photobook is here, but below are some snaps from our WSB event in the Garden State. We saw 75 species of birds, a pod of dolphins, some overtly zealous birding groups, and various other wildlife.


 

Here's a cause big enough for my appetite

May is eat local month.

Kyoto, Iraq and Irony

Saw this online and wanted to share:

Is Kyoto Cheaper than Iraq?

University of Chicago law professor Cass Sunstein thinks so. He makes the case in today's Washington Post:

For the United States, the cost of the Iraq war will soon exceed the anticipated cost of the Kyoto Protocol, the international agreement designed to control greenhouse gases. For both, the cost is somewhere in excess of $300 billion. These numbers show that the Bush administration was unrealistically optimistic in its prewar prediction that the total cost would be about $50 billion. And the same numbers raise questions about the Bush administration's claim that the cost of the Kyoto Protocol would be prohibitive, causing (in President Bush's own words) "serious harm to the U.S. economy."

The incidence of the two costs is not equivalent. Iraq is funded from general tax revenues while any Kyoto-style policy would be likely to increase energy prices. For some, these distributional differences may matter. Moreover, Kyoto represents but a tiny downpayment toward an emission stabilization policy. (Of course, one might say the same about Iraq and its relation to the overall war on terror.)

Meanwhile, on the other side of the Atlantic, the EU's fledgling carbon trading market has experienced tremendous price volatility, due in part to an over-allocation of emission credits. Europe has yet to impose real limits on its own carbon emissions, and questions remain how effectively its carbon trading market will reduce the cost of curbing greenhouse gas emissions.

The comments on the post bring up some tired points about China and India, but also point out some flaws in the logic of the costs not being equivalent. I don't really know much about Kyoto as a specific program, but I have been reading about Europe struggling to meet its goals.

The more interesting connection to me, is what we are willing to expend financially and in terms of American and Iraqi lives to not change our current lifestyle. And that a bulk of our decision to go to war over oil, rather than reduce our use of the product is due to the rhetoric and marketing of some oil men.

Any thoughts on this or the original blog posts comparison of the two costs?

Jingle Pictures

WSB lists!!!

Well, as promised, here is our list from last year, when it was just us and Jon, I do believe. The amazing paper plate, which has been in the back seat of the car for nearly an entire year!

For those of you interested in the list from 2004, you can find it at the end of the video below. Compare what we've seen with the comprehansive list of 321 NJ species available HERE.