I’m finally going through my photos of the trip to Washington, D.C. that Cindy and I took last July (the album or albums will be posted this week) when I come across this photo I snapped while we were walking around the Washington Mall area.
I guess the birds were trying to block the drain to form a birdbath.
While scientifically the term “Global Warming” is an accurate and true description of what is undeniably happening, too many people like the parents depicted in this cartoon (or the U.S. Senator who thought he was being clever yesterday when he said “It’s cold. Al Gore told me this wouldn’t happen.”) lock onto the “warming” part of the term and think they’re being funny when we have unseasonably cold weather.
I’m hoping we will move to using the term “Climate Change” universally, not as a retreat on the phrase “Global Warming” because it is incorrect, but as a way of removing the ignorant misconception and the purposefully misconstrued meaning of the phrase “Global Warming” by the unscientific public and/or political extremists.
If you own a dog and it turns in circles before relieving itself, this video explains why that may be happening.
Just a short test of the iPhone mobile app for WordPress. If it works we’ll all get to see it on the blog.
We checked out of the airport-area hotel this morning and returned to Cindy’s parent’s home. Took Bella for a walk and now doing laundry and having lunch. In a little while we’ll drop Bella at the vet’s to be boarded and then drive to Daytona Beach where we’ll stay in an oceanfront room so Cindy can enjoy her Valentine’s Day gift of watching the sunrise the next two mornings and the full moon the next two nights. Then we return to Orlando Saturday afternoon.
If this mobile app works maybe next time I’ll try adding a photo or two.
My father-in-law’s cousin and her husband flew out of OIA this morning at 7am to spend the last 12 days of their vacation in Antigua before flying home to London.
Cindy and I last saw Frank and Jenny 8 years ago when we spent 3 days in London at the end of our 2 week trip to Scotland. They were kind enough to show us around in the short amount of time we had there, though there are still plenty of places we want to return and visit. One of the highlights was their getting us into a rarely visited portion of the royal estate to view the gravesites of my father-in-law’s ancestors, one of whom was the Royal Gardener (I’m sure the title was something more regal sounding, but I can’t recall it) to Queen Victoria and one who was the Head Housekeeper.
With a name like Wetherington, I should have looked around for some of my ancestors, but that stuff really holds no interest to me. However, Cindy and Jenny love looking into their family’s past and spent a lot of their time together doing just that on this visit. Here’s photographic proof.
Jenny (left) and Cindy already on the computer exploring family genealogy within minutes of our arrival Saturday afternoon.
They arrived this past Friday night and we did some visiting on Saturday afternoon/evening. We finally got them away from the computer so we could have dinner. We were joined by Amber and Abby.
From the bottom left; Dad, Cindy, Amber, Abby, Mom, jenny and Frank.
They also came out with Cindy’s parents to the Eola Market on Sunday to see Cindy’s Mountain Creek Candles business in action and walk around Lake Eola.
This past Monday Cindy and I, her parents and Frank and Jenny had afternoon tea at the Dickens Tea Room in Lake Mary and they said it made them feel a bit at home.
From the left: Frank, Me and Dad, plus unidentified ladies in the background.
From left: Mom, Jenny and Cindy, plus unidentified ladies in the background.
My cup and plate; I have never felt so refined in my life.
After the tea Cindy and I returned to the hotel while her parents and Frank and Jenny took a stroll around Leu Gardens.
Tuesday, Cindy’s parents took Frank and Jenny on the Scenic Boat Tour of Winter Park’s Chain of Lakes and by all accounts they had a great time. Tuesday evening we joined them for a few last hours at Cindy’s parent’s home for dinner, some genealogy tracking and enjoyable conversation.
Frank, Jenny, Dad, Mom and Cindy looking at family photos on the laptop.
Far too soon it was time to say “Goodnight” so that they could finish packing and get some sleep before arising this morning at 4am to get to the airport in time for their flight to Antigua.
Jenny, Dad, Mom and Frank in front of the fireplace with Mom holding the gift from Frank and Jenny.
Frank and Jenny, it was such a pleasure getting to see you both again. Hopefully we can make a return trip to London in the near future to visit further with you and finish our sightseeing. 🙂
Today is the 205th birthday of British naturalist and the father of evolutionary biology, Charles Darwin, and is celebrated as Darwin Day across the globe.
In 1993, Dr. Robert Stephens proposed the creation of Darwin Day and co-founded the Darwin Day Program with Amanda Chesworth. Here is what Darwin Day is all about, from the organization’s website:
Darwin Day is an international celebration of science and humanity held on or around February 12, the day that Charles Darwin was born on in 1809. Specifically, it celebrates the discoveries and life of Charles Darwin — the man who first described biological evolution via natural selection with scientific rigor. More generally, Darwin Day expresses gratitude for the enormous benefits that scientific knowledge, acquired through human curiosity and ingenuity, has contributed to the advancement of humanity.
And for our friends who walk by faith rather than science, I thought this was a humorous cartoon that poked some harmless fun at those of us who are humanists and believers in science.
Today has been set aside on the Internet as the day for websites, blogs, podcasts and others across the web in America and around the world to let it be known that we are against the mass surveillance practiced by the NSA, in particular, and the intelligence agencies of other nations. Peaceful protests are also planned in the streets of cities around the globe like San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Copenhagen, Stockholm and others.
If you go to The Day We Fight Back website, you can see how many organizations have joined hands in this effort. The usual groups against privacy infringement such as EFF and ACLU are joined by Mozilla, Reddit, BoingBoing, Greenpeace and many others, along with (as of this writing) 5,923 websites which have added the banner you see at the bottom of this page, urging U.S. citizens to contact their elected officials and world citizens will be asked to contact the appropriate officials in their area of residence to urge privacy protection.
I am a patriotic American citizen who believes in a strong America, but not at the cost of our ethical integrity. To me, the NSA practice of “Hoovering” every American’s phone calls, emails, website visits, chat room messages, video calls and text messages is analogous to the police department deciding that, in order to prevent future crimes, they will sneak into their citizenry’s homes, inventory all of their possessions, catalog all their bank accounts, record all their home alarm system passcodes and note all occupants of the home and their family and friends. Then they will hold that information and cross check it with all the other homes they have sneaked into and surreptitiously watch all those homes, adding other homes to the connection as more information becomes available.
If you too believe that the mass surveillance of your fellow citizens is wrong, I hope you’ll use the banner at the bottom of this page to contact your appropriate elected official and let them know you do not support the questionable and unlawful actions of the NSA or whatever intelligence agency is applicable to your home country.
It was 50 years ago tonight. I was 8 ½ years old and my mom, dad and I gathered in the living room (my little brother was asleep in his room, as most 2 year olds should have been at that hour) to sit in front of our black and white TV to watch the American television debut of the British rock and roll group, The Beatles, on The Ed Sullivan Show.
My parents usually watched Ed Sullivan on Sunday nights. Most of the time I didn’t join them because there weren’t usually that many guests that were of interest to me. But the British Invasion was about to begin and I had already heard a couple of their songs on my little transistor radio and wanted to see what all the fuss was about.
I remember my dad complaining about their “hippie hair” during the songs (he was a country/western music fan). I remember me asking why all these girls were screaming and crying and sobbing and fainting. My mother said that when she was a girl the same thing had happened when Frank Sinatra (I don’t think I even knew who Sinatra was at that time) sang and I just could not imagine my strict, disciplinarian, by the book mom EVER screaming for some singer (though she DID like Elvis and used to tease my dad by telling him that Elvis could leave his shoes under her bed anytime…and I didn’t get THAT either at 8 years of age, though I would later on).
The music of The Beatles was a large part of my life from that night through my mid-teens. My generation of kids listened to it, danced to it, played it in our own bands and loved it as it became a part of the musical landscape of the 60’s and 70’s across this country.
Publicity photograph taken on stage when The Beatles made their debut on The Ed Sullivan Show.
If you’re on Facebook then you’ve recently been gifted with the Facebook Look Back video, a nice little montage of your time on Facebook through your most popular posts and photos. I haven’t heard of anyone yet saying they were unhappy with their 1:02 minute production.
But here’s a parody version of Facebook’s Look Back that provides a more realistic look at all the privacy policy issues and changes we’ve had to deal with during our time on Facebook. Perhaps you can relate to this Look Back as much as the one Facebook provided to you the past few days.
