okay...
i was hanging out with my niece, jordyn, the other day, when, out of nowhere, she produced this card--her first birthday card. apparently, she had been going through some old photos and baby stuff and found it, saying that she had never seen it before. and i, of course, hadn't seen it for, let's see...15 years. she said that, since i had posted all of my old christmas cards during the holidays last year, i might as well put this one up as well.
so here ya go.
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following up on the creepy sewer monster that howard porter served up the other day, our friend, gretchen hill, sent me this local news clip along with her own brief commentary...
Todd,
Have you seen this? Ew...
http://www.wral.com/news/local/video/5485506/
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our pal, nic carcieri--portal comics to those in the know--knows how much i dig stuff like this and sent it over the other day. i
do love nature and weather and weird stuff, so when you put it all together like this, how can you go wrong...?
thanks, nic~!
Fantastic Natural Phenomena.
The classical natural wonders are huge and hard to miss - vast canyons, giant mountains and the like. Many of the most fantastic natural phenomena, however, are also least easy to spot. Some are incredibly rare while others are located in hard-to-reach parts of the planet. From moving rocks to mammatus clouds and red tides to fire rainbows, here are seven of the most spectacular phenomenal wonders of the natural world.
1. Sailing Stones
The mysterious moving stones of the packed-mud desert of Death Valley have been a center of scientific controversy for decades. Rocks weighing up to hundreds of pounds have been known to move up to hundreds of yards at a time.
Some scientists have proposed that a combination of strong winds and surface ice account for these movements. However, this theory does not explain evidence of different rocks starting side by side and moving at different rates and in disparate directions.
Moreover, the physics calculations do not fully support this theory as wind speeds of hundreds of miles per hour would be needed to move some of the stones.
2. Columnar Basalt
When a thick lava flow cools it contracts vertically but cracks perpendicular to its directional flow with remarkable geometric regularity - in most cases forming a regular grid of remarkable hexagonal extrusions that almost appear to be made by man.
One of the most famous such examples is the Giant's Causeway on the coast of Ireland (shown above) though the largest and most widely recognized would be Devil's Tower in Wyoming .
Basalt also forms different but equally fascinating ways when eruptions are exposed to air or water.
3. Blue Holes
Blue holes are giant and sudden drops in underwater elevation that get their name from the dark and foreboding blue tone they exhibit when viewed from above in relationship to surrounding waters.
They can be hundreds of feet deep and while divers are able to explore some of them they are largely devoid of oxygen that would support sea life due to poor water circulation - leaving them eerily empty.
Some blue holes, however, contain ancient fossil remains that have been discovered, preserved in their depths.
4. Red Tides
Red tides are also known as algal blooms - sudden influxes of massive amounts of colored single-cell algae that can convert entire areas of an ocean or beach into a blood red color.
While some of these can be relatively harmless, others can be harbingers of deadly toxins that cause the deaths of fish, birds and marine mammals.
In some cases, even humans have been harmed by red tides though no human exposure are known to have been fatal. While they can be fatal, the constituent phytoplankton in ride tides are not harmful in small numbers.
5.. Ice Circles
While many see these apparently perfect ice circles as worthy of conspiracy theorizing, scientists generally accept that they are formed by eddies in the water that spin a sizable piece of ice in a circular motion.
As a result of this rotation, other pieces of ice and flotsam wear relatively evenly at the edges of the ice until it slowly forms into an essentially ideal circle..
Ice circles have been seen with diameters of over 500 feet and can also at times be found in clusters and groups at different sizes as shown above.
6. Mammatus Clouds
True to their ominous appearance, mammatus clouds are often harbingers of a coming storm or other extreme weather system..
Typically composed primarily of ice, they can extend for hundreds of miles in each direction and individual formations can remain visibly static for ten to fifteen minutes at a time.
While they may appear foreboding they are merely the messengers - appearing around, before or even after severe weather.
7. Fire Rainbows
A circumhorizontal fire rainbow arc occurs at a rare confluence of right time and right place for the sun and certain clouds.
Crystals within the clouds refract light into the various visible waves of the spectrum but only if they are arrayed correctly relative to the ground below.
Due to the rarity with which all of these events happen in conjunction with one another, there are relatively few remarkable photos of this phenomena.
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three items of information--
1.) so apparently, when you're posting three blog entries a week, you lose track of exactly how many you've done. this one, blogger informs me, is blog # 591. three weeks and we'll hit the big 600. (we oughta do something for that, no?)
b.) this afternoon, i am going to see my tarot reading/psychic friend, joann defile--yes, THAT JOANN!!!--for a reading. haven't had one in a while and i'm really excited. both for the reading and to see her! (she has yet to read herself in any of the image series...that should be fun...) joann actually does help out local law enforcement with a variety of different types of cases and her readings are always enlightening (and uncannily accurate...) i'll letcha know how it goes.
3.) hey-!! tomorrow's the FOURTH OF JULY!!! we've got a lot going on around here and in the family and so it kinda crept up on me. my nephew, tyler, has been away at camp all this week (and it's been nothin' but raining. poor tyler.) and we have to pick him up in the morning. sharon and i are gonna have the family out for a barbeque and maybe some fireworks (which i got.) (in the closet.) (i'm a closet pyromaniac.) (but, who isn't...?)
have a happy and safe INDEPENDENCE DAY, everybody! HAPPY BIRTHDAY, AMERICA!
"five for friday"
summer fun!
1. what was the nickname of the mechanical shark used in
jaws?
2. who played john cusak's love interest in
one crazy summer?
3. who sang the 1969 hit "hot fun in the summertime?"
4. on the beach boys' 1974 greatest hits compilation album, "endless summer," how many songs actually have the word
surf in the title?
5. frisbees were originally used as what...?
that's it!
HAPPY 4th!!
smell ya later!
todd
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