Perhaps the only bright side (heh-heh) to the horrible, horrible weather we’ve had the last two months is that the sky was actually clear a fair amount of the time. I didn’t think it possible to get any more grey an gloomy than Seattle during the winter, but there seems to be a law in Ohio that sunlight is prohibited from directly striking the ( Read more... )

Hot diggety dog-for the first time, I saw three sliver moons associated with the same new moon ( Read more... )

Looks like I’m about to set a new record for late-posting a Sliver Moon update. I actually have a sliver moon backup. And for good reason: to make a very long story short, thanks to being assigned a last-minute teaching duty this semester, I’ve done hardly anything the last six weeks except work, sleep and freak out (in every possible ( Read more... )

After about two weeks of unrelenting overcast, we finally got some clear sky late yesterday afternoon-just in time for SLIVER MOON! The sky after sunset was one of those crystal-clear sunsets with an entire rainbow of colors and nearly infinite visibility-the kind we only get in the Midwest when it’s about 2 °F outside. In fact, it was fully ten ( Read more... )

Another plane trip, and another post about airline safety cards! Here we have a selection from Southwest’s B737 300/500 Safety Features of This Aircraft, as Performed by People Who Have Taken Far Too Many Sedatives ( Read more... )

Welcome to Part II of my Yucatán travelogue! Part I, in which we fly to Cancún and enjoy a late tropical storm, is here.

Sunday: Chichén Itzá.We could not imagine visiting the Yucatán without a day trip to Chichén Itzá, the most famous of the Mayan archæological sites. Laura had contracted (with the same company who had provided our shuttle) ( Read more... )

We spent a week in the Mayan Riviera, México, to see my friend Laura get married and to generally celebrate and have fun. We successfully did all three, and got quite a few surprises along the way ( Read more... )

I feel sorry for the artists who draw the diagrams in airplane safety cards. They have to draw people dealing with all sorts of emergency situations, but for PR reasons aren’t allowed to give them realistic facial expressions or body language.

( Click on any photo for a large version. )

So I was goofing around on my computer just now; Yuki was lounging on the carpet just behind me, and Altair was perched atop my old Mac, peering out the window. Suddenly I heard, "Huk! Huk! Huk! Huk!" I spun around and lunged for Yuki-chan to toss her off the carpet-but she was still just sitting there, staring at me with an innocent expression ( Read more... )

It’s been a while, eh? Alas, I really haven’t felt like writing in yonks ( Read more... )