News
01.4.2008/20:58
Chopper moms
Bad stuff about helicopter parents.

News
01.4.2008/20:47
Missing
Albino alligators in the news.

Drivel
01.4.2008/20:43
Wholly war
By far the best movie we have seen this holiday season is Charlie Wilson's War. Tom Hanks is marvelous, but our favorite portrayal was by Juila Roberts. I don't particularly remember ever having said an unkind word about Julia Roberts, but if I did, I take it all back.

News
01.4.2008/12:42
Fat tip
"I was stunned, that somebody would say something like that. I ain't that fat, I only weigh 277."

Photos
01.3.2008/19:42
Click here for photo
Holiday Farmer
Sugar cane farmer effigy with holiday decorations, New Iberia, LA.

Photos
01.3.2008/19:39
Click here for photo
Winter Window
Arnaudville, LA.

News
01.2.2008/19:06
Milk fat, please
"Further analysis, however, suggested that low-fat or nonfat milk did increase the risk of localized tumors or non-aggressive tumors, while whole milk decreased this risk."

Drivel
01.2.2008/12:18
You could look it up
It's been some years since we all absorbed "To Google" as a verb, but I have started to notice a new phenomenon: When some abstruse topic arises and the now-inevitable observation is offered that you could always Google it, there is just as likely to be someone chiming in with a quick but specific suggestion as to what terms to use to most quickly execute the search. I would like to look further into this, but the phrase "google conversation friends suggest phrase," hasn't led me to anything yet, so I'll bring it up at a few upcoming dinner parties and see if I can get a better suggestion.

Drivel
12.31.2007/13:48
Things are picking up
Mondays are often reviled, but Monday is an exciting day around our neighborhood now, since there is a new disposal system operating, by which the driver of a big truck grabs an especially-prepared 96-gallon vessel and tips it over into the back of his vehicle. Surely, the day will come when the novelty of this has worn off for us, but for now, we sit with alert anticipation, pricking our ears at any diesel grunt that just might mean we get to see the show!

News
12.31.2007/13:46
Orange you glad you're still alive
Dead orangutan in the news.

News
12.29.2007/21:48
Bad taste
Man bites self.

News
12.28.2007/14:44
Number of the Beast
"After decades of living with what Mayor Scott Walker calls a stigma, residents of this southwest Louisiana village are getting a new telephone exchange, one without the biblical connotations attached to their current 666."

Sites
12.27.2007/10:25
Keep cool
"Using your crisper drawer as your starting point, you can alleviate some of the clutter, freeing up valuable fridge space for cream cheese loaf and leftover roast beast."

News
12.26.2007/16:37
Feeding time
Tiger bites men.

News
12.25.2007/16:08
Alert!
Missing turkeys.

Sites
12.19.2007/11:04
Urban life
WebUrbanist.

News
12.15.2007/18:18
News!
Man bites dog.

News
12.14.2007/13:11
Red planet
Mars.

News
12.13.2007/08:26
Just think
"Just think -- seven out of 10 panettoni and pandori exported to the United States do not respect the production norms. Seven out of 10 Americans buying an 'Italian-style' panettone are getting a fake."

Drivel
12.8.2007/11:00
Dread disease
I of course don't want to ever get colon cancer, but I am more fearful of semi-colon cancer, because, based on my years of experience as an editor, very little seems to be known about the semi-colon.

News
12.7.2007/15:14
Roo the day
"Thanks to special bacteria in their stomachs, kangaroo flatulence contains no methane and scientists want to transfer that bacteria to cattle and sheep who emit large quantities of the harmful gas."

News
12.6.2007/12:33
What is in the future?
"Gypsies have traditionally resolved disputes in front of a secret council of elders that can impose fines, make territorial decisions or order someone shunned."

News
12.5.2007/09:41
Shy and retiring
Susan Hester Edmunds in the news.

Sites
12.5.2007/09:04
Wayward wheels
My friend Raleigh points out The Stray Shopping Cart Project, which is rather more richly articulated than you might at first suspect.

News
12.3.2007/12:47
Where I'm Calling From
"AT&T Inc. said Monday it will exit its declining public pay phone business by the end of 2008."

News
12.3.2007/12:30
It's a dinosaur! It's a mummy!
Two of my favorite words, dinosaur and mummy, in one news item.

Sites
12.3.2007/10:34
Forever
Our friend Bruce has become involved in wet-plate photography.

Sites
11.29.2007/10:08
You can listen any time!
Polka.

News
11.29.2007/10:06
A-one, a-two
Polka .

Sites
11.22.2007/11:47
Great web site
I spent a long time on the personal web site of John A. Weeks III. He has lots of well-presented and well-organized information about a wide variety of topics in which he has an interest. You can even see screen shots of his best Minesweeper games. It's a great treat to discover a site like this. Amazon and Yahoo! and Google are great, but it's site like John's that make me think that this is what the Internet was created for. Good going, John!

News
11.21.2007/02:26
Big bugs
"We never realized until now just how big some of these ancient creepy-crawlies were."

News
11.20.2007/08:59
Detour
What. A. Mess.

News
11.20.2007/08:56
Hot squirrels
"By coincidence, another squirrel got into a substation 40 miles away in Ironwood, Mich., Monday morning and caused a temporary outage that affected about 1,400 customers in Ironwood and two nearby communities."

Sites
11.17.2007/05:25
UCE
SPAM on spam.

News
11.17.2007/05:14
Look up!
Meteors!

Sites
11.7.2007/19:35
Good event
I think we're planning to go to this. We haven't missed a year of it yet.

News
11.5.2007/12:40
Look up!
Comet!

Sites
11.3.2007/08:02
Free rice
Of all the addictive, compelling sites on the Internet, Free Rice may be the most addictive and compelling of all. Special thanks to my friend Janet for sending my life onto this new track.

Sites
10.30.2007/10:27
Climbing the walls
KatWALLk of Fame.

News
10.30.2007/08:58
This is news!
Dog shoots man.

News
10.28.2007/22:10
Arachnophobia
Mating tarantulas in the news.

News
10.27.2007/21:08
JFK problem
Feral airport cats in the news.

News
10.26.2007/11:03
Beans or boudin?
"Suggesting that BC might deserve a shot at the national championship ahead of LSU would make every Cajun in Louisiana hotter than Avery Island peppers."

News
10.26.2007/09:11
Yummy!
What the World Eats.

Sites
10.24.2007/21:42
Survival product
"Originally developed for the Swedish Department of Defense, Swedish FireSteel is a flash of genius."

News
10.24.2007/08:35
Bald cat
"Cunningham said the sibling altercation began when Palmer attempted to stop his sister from shaving the family cat."

News
10.22.2007/15:23
Happy day
"The hope that we can fight cancer by influencing emotional states appears to have been misplaced." As a person a bit prone to depression, I find this news oddly comforting.

Sites
10.22.2007/11:40
Free! Games! Travel!
"27 Free Games to Keep Your Kids Entertained on a Road Trip". Or, Susan and me.

Sites
10.22.2007/08:31
Dancing bird
"Snowball is a medium sulphur crested Eleanora cockatoo and he loves to dance and sing."

News
10.21.2007/12:07
Fly away to your new home
"They quickly spread their wings over the rental complex near First Avenue and East 14th Street, crawling into plants, flowers and shrubs in search of leaf-sucking aphids and mites."

News
10.19.2007/02:29
Choo - choo
"Some residents have claimed the trains have blocked several streets for close to 30 minutes at a time." This would include me.

News
10.15.2007/16:19
Yikes! It begins!
Uh-oh.

Sites
10.12.2007/10:51
Large and somewhat large
Having visited this, I of course now want to visit this. And, here's how to get there.

News
10.10.2007/13:12
Sweat this out
It's not just the global heat, it's the global humidity.

Photos
10.7.2007/11:25
Click here for photo
Salsa Class
Eric Rivera and Angelica Burgos of Ballet Hispanico lead a salsa class for students of Opelousas High School in Opelousas, LA. The class was an outreach activity associated with the ballet company's residency in south Louisiana hosted by the Performing Arts Society of Acadiana.

News
10.6.2007/10:26
A three-hour tour
"Early demand for the 3-hour tours is so high they are booked for at least six months."

Sites
10.5.2007/09:25
Solar wheels
I am tempted to think that one of these might actually be practical for, you know, going to the dry cleaners, making the bank deposits, picking up a jug of milk at the local grocery...

News
10.5.2007/08:43
Crow about this!
My friend Jackie alerted me to this story about Crow Cam.

News
10.5.2007/08:21
Check it out
Privatizing a library system.

Sites
10.4.2007/08:28
No, not no dice
My friend Raleigh points me to new dice.

Sites
10.2.2007/11:02
Rotate!
Everyone gets ice cream!

Photos
09.27.2007/12:20
Click here for photo
South Beach
Point Reyes National Seashore, CA.

Photos
09.27.2007/12:19
Click here for photo
Gulls and Pelicans
Drake's Beach, Point Reyes National Seashore, CA.

Photos
09.24.2007/17:30
Click here for photo
Pierce Point barn
Hay barn at Historic Pierce Point Ranch, Point Reyes National Seashore, CA.

Photos
09.24.2007/17:28
Click here for photo
Compatible Uses
Dairy cows that are part of the scene at the Point Reyes National Seashore.

Photos
09.23.2007/22:25
Click here for photo
Jet over the beach
Point Reyes National Seashore, CA.

Photos
09.23.2007/22:22
Click here for photo
Beach vulture
Point Reyes National Seashore, CA.

Photos
09.23.2007/22:21
Click here for photo
Sierra Snow
Fish Camp, CA.

Sites
09.22.2007/11:32
Dynamite!
Sweet! You can go to actual Napoleon Dynamite film locations!

Photos
09.21.2007/23:35
Click here for photo
Yosemite Tunnel
Yosemite National Park.

News
09.21.2007/21:49
Non-hyhenated
"The hyphen has been squeezed as informal ways of communicating, honed in text messages and emails, spread on Web sites and seep into newspapers and books."

Photos
09.21.2007/13:15
Click here for photo
El Capitan reflection
Yosemite National Park.

Photos
09.21.2007/13:13
Click here for photo
Looking up
Susan enjoys the majesty of El Capitan, Yosemite National Park.

Photos
09.21.2007/13:12
Click here for photo
Meadow in Yosemite Valley
Yosemite National Park.

Photos
09.21.2007/13:08
Click here for photo
Tree that looks like a man
Kings Canyon National Park.

Photos
09.21.2007/13:06
Click here for photo
Cambium
Susan points out that recent cut exposes cambium layer of tree.

Photos
09.21.2007/13:05
Click here for photo
Big tree
Kings Canyon National Park.

Photos
09.21.2007/13:03
Click here for photo
Dust Devil
Near Fresno, CA.

Photos
09.21.2007/13:01
Click here for photo
Morning Stretch
San Fransisco school children begin the week with Monday morning stretches before going in to classes.

Photos
09.21.2007/12:56
Click here for photo
Chicken John
Political statement of San Francisco's John Rinaldi, Cesar Chavez St., San Francisco.

Photos
09.21.2007/12:53
Click here for photo
Walking to School
Our friend Izzy walks to school in the company of her dad.

News
09.20.2007/23:15
Cold seeds
"Dynamited out of a mountainside on Spitsbergen island around 1,000 km (600 miles) from the North Pole, the store has been called a doomsday vault or a Noah's Ark of the plant kingdom."

Drivel
09.14.2007/09:32
Our lifestyle can be described as:
Unassisted living.

News
09.12.2007/20:59
900 pound gorilla
"Walsh said even in ideal conditions, it would take the gorillas decades to bounce back."

News
09.11.2007/07:20
Yeccchhhhh
DOWNGRADE.

News
09.8.2007/15:29
Nyun nyuk
Stoogeum. (also here)

News
09.6.2007/15:37
Flyover
Oops!

News
09.6.2007/13:00
Species? What's a species?
Gosh, I hate it when this happens.

Sites
09.3.2007/18:33
Where's the fire?
This should help you decipher the rank of Hong Kong firemen you might see.

Sites
09.3.2007/18:25
Old views
Some old postcards from South Dakota.

News
08.31.2007/15:45
Web of intrigue
Giant spider web in the news.

News
08.29.2007/12:37
Road not taken
"They can send drivers on the most direct routes which turn out to be narrow roads completely unsuitable for heavy and long trucks and lorries. Satnav can be a wonderful tool for drivers but it does have its dangers."

News
08.28.2007/20:17
Maine rejoice!
The puffins are back!

Drivel
08.28.2007/10:28
Elevation information
In New Iberia, LA, where I live, there has lately developed quite a consciousness about the elevation of our home sites, since the storm surge associated with Hurricane Rita caused considerable damage here in Iberia Parish. Of course, this is equally of concern all along Louisiana's and our neighboring states' Gulf Coasts.

I have been in several dinner conversations in the last couple of years where the topic turned to home site elevations, with various of us making fine points of comparison, with counter claims put forward to being located at "the highest point in the city," a boast to which I will admit having on occasion proffered.

In an effort to provide at least a starting point for a bit more well-sourced elevation information, I have created a demonstration project utilizing Microsoft Virtual Earth's online component and the information at hand on LIDAR elevations from the U.S.G.S..

I have created a demonstration map page where you can click on a point on the map and get elevation information for that location. You can see the map here:
Elevation Demo Map

What's under the hood? Using the Virtual Earth API, we read the latitude and longitude that the map associates with the point where you clicked, and feed that into a web service offered by U.S.G.S. that returns elevation information for a specific latitude and longitude. The code was written in ColdFusion, with javascript, the VE API and AJAX all being utilized to poll and display the information.

Note that the map starts at New Iberia's City Hall. It can be zoomed out and back in, scrolled, etc. to find info for just about any location. I purposely elected to not provide an address input to re-center the map, as geocoding algorithms are not very precise. I figured anyone could zoom in/out and scroll around and find some spot of particular interest by visual identification. I liken it to ... reading a map to find your way. But what better place to start than New Iberia?

News
08.24.2007/21:12
Pastorized
"The suit seeks to put the people back in control of their church. They don't want money. They want him to leave."

Sites
08.24.2007/09:53
Thump!
How to pick a good watermelon.

Sites
08.23.2007/20:14
Junk?
Deleted Images. They were not deleted, actually -- much to our delight!

News
08.23.2007/19:58
The skies are not cloudy all day
Antelope plays, not news. Antelope plays with dog, now that's news!

Sites
08.23.2007/17:31
Yummy!
United States, human feed lot.

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