Not Ready Yet

It's the last day of August. Everyone seems to be looking forward to fall, just like every year. Summer won't really be over until the end of September but August is one of my favorite months and I'm not ready for it be over yet. And it hasn't been a normal August so all month I've been impatient for "real" August to get here. But this is what August looks like today and has looked like for much of the month. Oh, I appreciate the rain but I also enjoy three or four weeks of uninterrupted hot, sunny weather. I'm just weird like that.

Gene Wilder 1933 - 2016

Earth Image of the Week

This is in Kansas, south of Waconda Lake. This area looks very interesting to me.

It's Beautiful! Get Over It!

Can everyone please stop having knee-jerk negative reactions to everything? The latest "outrage" in our state is the new license plates - the design and the extra five dollars we're going to have to pay for them. Five dollars, folks. Really? That's what... two or three fewer beers? (I have no idea how much beer costs.)

Personally, I love them and I can hardly wait to get mine. I am not terribly fond of the current license plates. I mean, they're okay. I don't hate them. They are culturally appropriate and reasonably attractive but in real life the image of the statue is not so well defined. Unless you're really close to it - closer than you would be in your car driving around behind one - it just looks like a confusing, dark blue... something. Also the red numbers and letters are more difficult to read than the black ones.

The new plates are beautiful. I love them. Did I say already that I love them? Sure, maybe it's the same problem - that you won't be able to tell that the white area is a silhouette of a bird and if you can you might not be able to tell that it's a scissor tailed flycatcher (I'll bet 80% of the people couldn't identify a scissor tailed flycatcher if they had one sitting on their hand.) but overall it's a beautiful design. The colors are beautiful and I think you can at least tell that it has a bird on it, if not the species.

Anyway, get over it. In another few years they will come up with another new design and everyone will hate it and talk about how much better the old design was. So why wait until it goes away? Start liking it now.

Book Quote

Am I evil for liking this one?

From East of Eden by John Steinbeck:

The church and the whorehouse arrived in the Far West simultaneously. And each would have been horrified to think it was a different facet of the same thing. But surely they were intended to accomplish the same thing: the singing, the devotion, the poetry of the churches took a man out of his bleakness for a time, and so did the brothels.

Classical Gas

I'm sure most members of my generation remember this little bit of ear candy. Today is Mason Williams' 78th birthday so...

A Most Excellent Blog Post

You need to read this. No, don't tell me it's too long; I don't want to hear it. But here's just a sample:

I often go through periods of wondering if writing fiction is a waste of time in a world that needs so many more practical things. Why contribute a novel when what is needed is potable water, enough healthy food, more medical supplies, and safer buildings? What is the point of fiction when reality is so pressing?

Invariably I am reminded that stories have power. Because it’s not just our physical needs that need to be met in this life. We need to know that we are not alone. We need to be reminded that restoration and redemption are possible. We need to remember what hope feels like. We need to believe that there is another future for us beyond our current situation. We need to dream. We need to encounter the divine.

Go read the whole thing. Seriously.

Young Hawk

We saw this in this dead tree in my front yard yesterday.

I was facing toward the sun so after quickly snapping a few pictures I circled around and managed to get a few more from the other side.

My camera is a Sony Cybershot with 20X zoom, zoomed in not quite all the way for these two pics.

Earth Image of the Week

This is downtown Tulsa.

Today's Sky

It was supposed to rain today. No rain yet but we do have some interesting clouds.

A Useless Extra

Freaky celebrity fact of the day: Carrie Underwood was born with a third nipple. Also interesting is that there's a blog devoted to supernumerary nipples, though, sadly, the last post was in 2012.

Link sent to me by he who (apparently) talks about nipples at work.

Book Quote

From Brass Man by Neal Asher:

It had not taken the general population, for whom it was a long-established tradition to look upon their human leaders with contempt, very long to realize that the AIs were better at running everything. And it is very difficult to motivate people to revolution when they are extremely comfortable and well off.

Mozart Violin Sonata

This is my favorite of Mozart's Sonatas for Violin and Piano. At least it is right now, at this moment.

Earth Image of the Week

So let's try this for a while. This is the Tulsa Zoo. That sort of boomerang shaped thing at the top of the picture is the parking lot.

I'm thinking that most of the time I won't pick something this specific, rather just a random piece of the world that looks interesting.

Vaughan-Williams

I hadn't heard this one before. I love it, and the paintings too.

From the Youtube page: "CORRECTION: Please note that the orchestra in this performance is the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, not the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, as stated in the opening credits of the video. The film begins and ends with a painting by Sir John Arnesby Brown. The second painting in the sequence is by Albert Julius Olsson and the third is by Robert Gallon. Thereafter, the paintings are all by either Albert Julius Olsson or Norman Wilkinson."

Summer Sky

This page looks so empty. Here's a photo just to fill up some space. Took this a few weeks ago, in July.

Well, Here I Am Again

There should be something here in a few days, maybe a week. Maybe.