I finally got one of those microscopes with a builtin LCD screen and camera. I thought about making my own, but I can never find the time. Here's a picture of a CD, at the lowest magnification. At first I was ecstatic--I thought somehow I was looking at bits! Well, no, I was looking at the soft underbelly of the silkscreened dot pattern, ( Read more... )

It couldn't have been Alan (background). It could have been the nephew (foreground), who looks rather guilty.

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I've been meaning to write this entry, but have been too busy. Now that I have a moment, I find myself at a loss for words (well, clarity anyway, but that won't stop me :).

I've heard talk of customers "demanding" satisfaction, but I don't think I've ever seen a company so dedicated to customer satisfaction. It's as though they demand my ( Read more... )

First we have the racing bike. This one is on long term loan from my brother. It was sitting there in my garage with flats, so when a sale came along I took the opportunity to replace the tubes and tires. Actually the bright yellow striped tires makes it look even faster somehow--purple and yellow go together for racing vehicles. And it really ( Read more... )

Normally, I like El Pinto salsa.

Today, however, we discovered that one of the unopened jars looked a little bit strange.

When we opened it up, this is what we found.

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A glittering fossil at the Burke Museum. Iron pyrite, I suppose?

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I hiked to the top of Mount Pugh on Saturday.

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To tell the truth, they were kind of in the way of my commute home on Friday, but at least they're having a good time.

They had at least three sound stages, a plethora of stumblin' junkies, oodles of booths and various structures occupying over a mile of beachfront, and rather amusing signs that said "remember, no narcotics allowed!" (other than ( Read more... )

My daughter insisted on showing me something she made while playing this afternoon. She was really happy with what she had created, and what she had created was an icosahedron. I'm pretty sure she had seen that shape before, but the fact that she was able to create it on her own without anybody's help was exciting to her.

I tried to consider ( Read more... )