Take a trip and never leave the farm

I have been entertaining myself in the far reaches of the Internets. Actually, it was just on Google, but it took me places I would have never imagined I could go.

First, Google Earth. It's a fun little program where you can spy into people's backyards, but the real thrill comes when you click the little planet icon. That switches to a view of outer space. Wowza!

Here's a screen shot of what it first looks like:



But if you double click anywhere out there, it will take you zooming into the stars of a constellation. Here is the close-up of Cancer, the constellation in the middle of the first shot:



Warning: Do not double click if partaking of recreational drugs. You will fall into your computer and be lost forever.


Told ya. Didn't believe me did ya?

I got lost in space for about six hours the other day. I clicked away like a madwoman tripping out amongst the stars and I was stone cold sober.

If you have ever pooh-poohed the notion that there was intelligent life out there, playing with this for a while will change your mind. Odds are there is somebody out there looking at me just like I am looking at them.

It wouldn't surprise me at all to find a black monolith floating around out there somewhere.

If you switch back to Earth view you can spy on people, but actually the plain ol' Google Maps is more user friendly and much easier to navigate.

Type in any address in a major city (over 100,000 roughly) and it will take you to a street level view. This is something recent on Google Maps, because I don't think it was there a month or two ago. This is not the highly pixelated satellite view that's been made to look 3D, it's an actual photo of the location.

Anyway, the usual little red blood drop will appear close to the address. Then in a pop-up word balloon looking thingie, it will show a street level view. Click on that.

A little orange guy will appear and the green thing under him will point towards the view shown. You can grab him and fly him around to get to the next block or even across town. He just has to stay on the furry blue streets.



I chose to eyeball Uncle Buck's Marina Towers in Chicago. Here's his front door:



Then I skootched up the view to look at the skyline.



SWEET.

This will be a boon to Internet stalkers, international terrorists, and Dog the Bounty Hunter. Now Dog can see if your car is parked in the driveway.

Whooda thunk it that some little ol' girl in the backwoods of Arkansas could take a trip to Chicago, New York, Niagara Falls, and Sagittarius without ever leaving the comfort of her computer chair?

I love technology.

Uvulan Violets

No, I have no idea where this stuff comes from. It just pops in my head and won't go away.

Yes, I'm weird.

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That was going to be the entirety of the post for today until this conversation with Hubby:

I saw your sexual flower drawing...

It's not sexual.

I don't get it.

Get what?

The joke.

(sigh) It's not sexual and there is no joke. It's just a weird flower thingy I drew. A *uvula* (waggly finger pointing at mouth) is that little hangy down thing in the back of your throat. You're thinking of a *vulva*. I'm not sure what a vulva is but I think I've got one somewhere in my panties.

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Well, obviously I need to tell the backstory of this drawing.

This flower thingy is something that's been stuck in my head and I needed to draw it out so it would go away. The crux of it is the balloony "E" shape. The shape itself was what got stuck in my head.

I saw it as a sci-fi futuristic flower that was red with a darker maroon interior. The whole drawing was supposed to be bright, bold colors with thick black lines. I tried drawing it digitally, but it just wasn't satisfying.




For my soul to be happy I need to feel the swooping motion of pen against paper. There is something timeless about old-fashioned drawing that digital just doesn't satisfy for me, so I dragged out my paper and crayons.

After drawing and outlining my sketch, I had the option to color it with Sharpies or colored pencils. While Sharpies would get me the rich color I wanted, the palette is rather limited and I can't blend the colors. The pencils are more forgiving of mistakes and I can blend the colors for life and depth. So pencils won.

When I draw I start out with an image in my head and try to capture it on paper. I know what the finished product should look like, but somewhere in the process the drawing takes on a life of its own and decides to be something else entirely. I end up being just a poor sap with a pencil who is along for the ride. Such was the case with these flowers.

After the drawing demanded the colors and shading it wanted, the flowers ended up looking like that little hangy down thing in the back of your throat with a tongue behind it. The heart-shaped leaves looked like the leaves of the wild violets that grow around here. So I titled it Uvulan Violets and called it done.

I tried to explain all this to Hubby. I even did a quick sketch with Sharpies to show him the flowers were actually supposed to be sci-fi looking, not sexual. I hold up this sketch to Hubby.



See???? Now does that look sexual???

He starts in with that husband-caught-with-his-ass-in-a-crack patter where his voice goes up a couple of octaves and is accompanied by much arm flinging.

I didn't know what it was supposed to be I thought you had drawn some girly parts flower picture with ovaries and vulvularies and I didn't get the joke I don't know what all those vulvulary things are or why you drew them as flowers......

Vulvularies. (grin) Yep, Hubby makes up words as he goes along too. As he is flinging around and ranting, I look up vulva on Wikipedia and read him what is says.

A vulva is, "the region of the external genital organs of the female, including the labia majora, mons pubis, labia minora, clitoris, bulb of the vestibule, vestibule of the vagina, greater and lesser vestibular glands, and vaginal orifice."

I stand up, circle my hands in my crotch area, give a little Michael Jackson hip thrust in Hubby's direction and say in a cutesy, squealy little girl voice:

A vulva is a *chootchie*!

His face brightens considerably thinking he has been proven correct.

Yeah, a chootchie! You drew a chootchie flower!

(sigh)

Uvula. It's that little hangy down thing in the back of your throat....

Toilet Water Turbine

I have a kernel of an idea. It's not quite congealed yet and some experimentation would have to be done. The idea starting forming after watching several programs on TV and my unfortunate encounter with the Maytag repair man.

1) I saw a show on ancient technologies where the ancients of Rome or Greece used water wheels to saw marble slabs, turn nine mill wheels at once, and power a row of several 100-pound sledgehammers to crush stone. There is a lot of power in falling water and we currently don't harness enough of it. Smaller water dams originally constructed for flood control only are now being retrofitted to be electric power generating stations.

2) A house flipper wanted to rehab a house using "green" technologies, i.e., recycling the ripped out waste materials, using energy efficient windows and appliances, and using environmentally friendly products. This house is supposed to use half the energy requirements than before the rehab. An energy saving house is good, but why not make an energy *generating* house?

3) The Maytag repairman said in three years or so, I would not be able to replace my extra-large capacity washing machine. The only choices will be front loaders that wash 16 pairs of jeans with a cup of water. Dang! I will be forced to conserve water and energy whether I want to or not.

So, all that got me to thinking about what natural resources we have here in the United States that are currently untapped. How can we create energy without crapping out the environment or depleting our natural resources?

Answer: Water plus gravity.

Water is sloshing to and from my house every day by gravity only. Same with my neighbor's house and every house in the city. Once the water falls from the top of the water tower, gravity alone moves it along through the city until it returns to the sewage plant. Millions of miles of fresh water and sewer pipes with running water. That's a lot of potential energy.

Why can't I put a little tiny generator on my fresh water supply line and my outgoing sewer line so that every time I flush my potty, I generate electricity? Just a little bit, mind you, just a little bit. But just as a few drops eventually make a flood, a few sparks will eventually make electricity. I could generate with the water pressure filling the tank; the water falling from the tank to the bowl, from the bowl to the sewer pipe; then several places along the sewer pipe until it reaches the street.

If I could generate a little bit of power with the water running through my residence, think about what the city could do with the water running through their pipes. The downspout on the city water tank is six or eight feet across. Consider the amount of electricity that bad boy could generate. Water is running through that pipe all day every day. It's about as large as the outlet on the dam. Doesn't it have the same potential? I wonder how fast that thing lets out water?

Maybe it goes too slow because it also has to maintain pressure through the system. However, as the size of the pipe decreases, the velocity of the flow increases. (Learned that on Water Works of the Ancient World, The History Channel.) Could a smaller, alternate pipe be diverted to a turbine that would generate electricity?

Power Potties may be economically unfeasible now, but in a few years, they may be a required installation for all new home construction. That and the front-loading, 16-jeans-in-a-cup washing machine.

Just a thought.

Pileated Woodpeckers

I got excited when two huge woodpeckers landed in the neighbor's tree this morning. I heard them before I saw them. Their calls sounded like a kitten mewling. I got excited because I thought they might be the rare Ivory-billed woodpeckers causing the big stir here in Arkansas.




After I examined the photos I realized they were the common Pileated woodpeckers found everywhere in Arkansas. They were pretty and I enjoyed watching them interract with each other. Who knew woodpeckers were so loving?

I guess it is a blessing in a way that they weren't the rare birds. While it would have been exciting to be the person who took the landmark photograph, I would have gotten mad when all the crazed bird watchers descended on my house and started stomping around in my garden. Ugh!

It's the End of the World as We Know It...

-or-
THREE THINGS ABOUT THE YEAR 2012

The History Channel is airing a series called The Universe and tonight was the premier episode, Secrets of the Sun. We couldn't tear ourselves away from the tube. It was fascinating stuff. They were able to make astrophysics accessible to ordinary bubbettes like me who can barely find the Big Dipper most nights. Woo Hoo! I highly recommend this show. I hope the rest of the episodes are just as great.

One of the things I learned is that the sun has an eleven-year cycle of sunspot activity. Sunspots and solar flares occur most when the sun changes its magnetic polarity or plasma rotation or something like that. Solar flares blast radioactive plasma goo out into the universe like a shotgun. If the plasma happens to shoot towards Earth, it toasts our electronics because the radioactivity interrupts the flow of electrons. If the sun shoots a double-ought buckshot load of plasma goo towards earth, people will be toast.

The period during the eleven-year cycle with the most sunspot activity is called the solar maxima, and the last one was in 2001. The next one is predicted for 2012.

I recommend Toast Protector© SPF 4500 sunscreen, or a lead jumpsuit, whichever is most suitable for the conditions.

+++++++++++

Ten years ago I attended an investment brown bag lunch at my local Edward Jones office. The speaker explained the huge financial impact Baby Boomers have on the stock market and the economy as a whole. Basically his advice was to figure out what Baby Boomers are buying, then buy stock in that company. You will quadruple your money.

He also said when Baby Boomers start to reach retirement age, they will begin pulling their money out of the stock market for lower risk investments. The stock market will then go into a 30-year decline the likes of which the U.S. has not seen since the Great Depression. This decline is predicted starting in 2012.

I recommend buying stock in OTC arthritis medications, but sell before Dec. 31, 2011.

+++++++++++

The ancient Mayan calender, which seems to be uncannily accurate, ends soon. Some people interpret this as the date the Mayans calculated to be end of the world because they didn't bother to make a new calender. Others interpret this date as the end of an "age" when the world as we know it is supposed to be "transformed." The last day of the Mayan calender and the specified date for said transformation is Dec. 21, 2012.

I wonder if the Mayans figured out we would be transformed into toast by a killer solar flare? That would consolidate several theories very nicely. I think they just failed to get the new calender to the printers before their whole civilization croaked.

+++++++++++

It seems that something big is gonna happen around 2012. I don't know whether I will be transformed or toasted or transformed into toast. Either way I'm sellin' my stock. The moral of the story is to enjoy the next five years because in 2012 we may all be screwed.



Cue R.E.M. tune:
It's the end of the world as we know it.
It's the end of the world as we know it.
It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine.

I Feel The Earth Move, Under My Feet...

Yep, we had an earthquake yesterday here in Our Town. 3.0 on the Richter Scale. It scared me silly, mostly because it was stormy outside and the sky was green. When the house started shaking I thought it was a tornado taking me off to Oz. My first thought was, "Dang! I'm not in the closet! Where are the tornado sirens??? Where is the freight train sound??? I didn't get any warning! Crap!!"

Then I looked at my puppy who was laying beside me. She was totally unperturbed about the whole thing, so I nixed the idea of a tornado. Puppy Girl would have been coming unglued if it had been a tornado. She's my four-legged weatherman.

Next I figured one of the chemical plants had blown up. Nope. No sirens. Incoming missile attack? Nope, that would garner sirens too. Maybe it was just my house shifting due to ground heave because of all the rain. Not good, but not life threatening. That theory worked for me so I went back to working on the computer about 30 seconds after the tremor.

The whole episode lasted about five seconds, but it seemed much longer. For me it was akin to sitting in the back of a pickup truck as it bounced along a gravel road. I was sitting still in my chair but it was skip, skip, skipping across the floor. No traction whatsoever. I've felt rumblings like this in the past, but much smaller and usually in the wee hours of morning. Hubby said I was imagining things. Yay! I now have validation! It was published in the local paper so it must be true!

Blind Spots and Brain Extrapolation

Cool thing I learned today:

Every human eye has a blind spot where the optic nerve passes through the retina. The visual cortex automatically fills in these blind spots by extrapolating what should be there based on the surrounding detail. Since a person's two blind spots do not overlap, the brain can cross-reference the eye data when both eyes are active.

You can indirectly perceive your own blind spot by using the image below. Sit very close to your screen with your right eye covered, and focus on the word "Barbecue." Maintain that focus while slowly moving away from the screen, and at a particular distance the puppy will disappear although the purple lines and the word "Worms" will still be visible. If you change your gaze, the puppy will no longer be in the blind spot, and it will reappear.

Cool!

Brain extrapolation. I like that idea. It explains a lot about how I perceive the world. I think my extrapolator works in overdrive most days. I can take an ancient pottery shard and the writings of Aristotle and extrapolate the entire history of Western Civilization.

My hubby can take a guilty-looking puppy and a yellow puddle in the kitchen floor and conclude our roof must have a leak. Ack!

I think his extrapolator beez buss up.

Lunar Eclipse over the Ouachita River

Tonight I was out on the Ouachita River just as the lunar eclipse happened and was lucky enough to have my camera with me.

It's not the greatest picture taken. My little point-n-shoot doesn't have the right doodads to take a good night scene photo.

Note to self: Buy better digital camera.