Mike,

On our way across the pond last month, our Brit Air pilot just missed Greenland.  According to the map monitor on the back of the seat in front of me, we flew just south of the southern tip. (It was cloudy anyway.) But on the way back, we crossed the southern tip, and I got some photos. I’m in the negotiation stages with my hiking buddies to go here on our next backpack trip.

Our flight was probably about the latitude of Paamiut, on the west coast at latitude 62 deg, but I saw no towns. Apparently they were lost in the clouds along the coast.

Some of my pictures show a massive east-west fjord, possibly Lindenow Fjord on the east coast. But that’s just a wild guess.

A few of the shots are crystal clear, the luck of the draw with airplane windows. In one of them you can see the crevasses in a glacier system flowing out of the mountains.

The last few shots are of northern Canada –  the Barren Lands and James Bay, the southern extension of Hudson Bay.  The spring breakup was in progress. Whether it was early or not, as it has been in the last few years, I can’t tell.

–rakkity

Michael,

On our way to the Piazza dei Miracoli in Pisa, we learned that the Baptistry (adjacent to the Duomo and the Torre) has wonderful echoing acoustics. The echoes are exploited by chanting singers every half hour during the day, so I came to the Baptistry ready to record.  This is a big file (85 MB), so I couldn’t just attach it to my message, you’ll have to download it.

Oh, and there’s a problem — it’s rotated sideways. Can you use your iMovie powers to rotate it upright after downloading it to your site? Even if you can’t do the rotation, it’s nice to have it just to listen to the chanting and the echoes of the singing.

Click here and watch.

–rakkity

Hi Mike,

It looks like you all returned from Aruba about the same time we got back to Boulder, but you don’t have any jet lag, while we do. Right now in Colorfulado it’s dinner time, but my brain and stomach are confused because it’s 2 am in Manarola, Italy.

Our flights back from Sicily clicked right along, except for an announcement by our pilot in Rome. “This is the captain speaking. Due to aircraft controller strikes in France, the European air space is very busy, and we have been told that our departure will be delayed 55 minutes.” So we groaned inwardly and curled up with our books, but 15 minutes later we were winging our way homeward. Go figure. That’s “Italian time” for you. During our trip, some of our buses or trains left early, and some of them left late. We got used to it after 14 days in Italy!

Cinque Terre was all that we expected, and more.  I took 250 pictures there, and winnowed them down to a pretty good 56.  See them here.

–rakkity

Mike,

Here‘s an unusual movie of one of our favorite celestial objects.

The black curve is the edge of the Sun–the top of the photosphere that you see by eye. Above it is the roiling, boiling chromosphere as seen by Hinode’s ultraviolet telescope.

–rakkity

Mike,

With Katie and Patrick here in Boulder at Thanksgiving, we couldn’t pass up a chance to reprise our 3-way racketball games, especially since Patrick brought 2 rackets in his luggage. So off to the north gym we went, and played 2 3-way games, giving KT a 5 point handicap. (For those who always want numbers, the scores were 15-12-11 and 12-15-11, Rakkity-Patrick-KT). And just for fun we made movies (with sound) of a few volleys. What a blast!

–rakkity

Michael,

After getting out of the hospital (again) today my docs/nurses said to go easy on the exercise.  So I was on a post dinner amble around the house long after sunset.  I saw something moving out of the corner of my eye.  There were dozens of these little unidentified flitting critters sucking on the nectar of our Jupiter’s Beard flowers.  It was too dark to see what they were.  I called out to Beth inside, “Come out and see these amazing little things! And bring my camera!”

I could get quite close to them without alarming them, and got 8 good photos.  They appear to be 1 1/2 to 2 inches long, not including the bill, which is about 1 1/2 in long. Each time the camera flashed the UFC jumped up about 3 inches in the duration of the flash. I don’t know what that translates to in terms of speed, but it’s *fast*! Their colors are grey and pink, like nothing I’ve ever seen.  Their bill/proboscis is long and bent.

Does anyone know what these are? Genus/Order?

–rakkity

Michael,

You can remove Funny Business from the Upcoming.  My next photo collection will be one of the following:

1. The canals of Boulder  (probably should wait till the spring runoff for this one.)

2. The fountains of Boulder (I might combine this with #3)

3. Boulder’s outdoor art–not including murals & bronzes   (This will be a monumental project and may take a year or so.)

–rakkity

Michael,

One of the first things we noticed after coming to Boulder (Jan/2007) was the wealth of non-traditional and funny-named businesses. I’ve been collecting names and photos (and sometimes web pages) for 7 months now. There are a couple of businesses/buildings I’m not sure the purpose of, and I included one that is completely obscure.

I divided the businesses up into 3 categories:
The first category is a bunch of businesses with similar or rhyming names. Click on the thumbnail to see a bigger version. The second is numerical– 1 This, 2 That, etc. Clicking on the thumbnail shows a big slide.The third category is whimsical or outrageous names. Try to guess what the business is from the thumbnail before clicking and getting the answer. You may be surprised!

Funny Business

–rakkity

Michael,

The last week or so I’ve been going on very short trips, since I just had a big (successful) operation. After my Boulder doctor back in July recommended an operation which would leave me with limited mobility for the rest of my life, I asked for a second opinion. One of the names was Dr. Shandra Wilson After talking to her, I found I could be mobile and fancy-free a couple of months after a rather complicated (7 1/2 hours) surgery, which has a very, very low failure rate.

The operation, performed on 8/30 at the CU Hospital in Denver was 100% successful. I lost about 10 lbs in my 6 days in the hospital, and I’m trying to gain it all back. And I’d like to gain strength, too. However, for the next 2-3 weeks I’m limited to short (1/4 mi or so) walks with forgiving friends.

I decided we should go on a tour of the nearby Haystack Goat Dairy. We invited my hiking buddy, Chuck, who is an outrageous gourmand of goat cheese. His wife Esther refused to come because she hates the stuff. (To each her own, but too bad for her.) We drove out towards the small volcanic plug that sticks out of the prairie just north of Boulder and circled for a while till Katie spotted a truly minuscule sign pointing to the farm.

While we waited for the little tour and tasting to start, we patted the nannies and kids, but stayed away from the bucks, who exuded a powerful musk. The sign on their pen exclaimed: “Don’t get musk on your skin or clothes!” The best part of valor here was avoidance. I think Chuck was a little alarmed that Esther might get a whiff of musk on himself when he got home, and have to camp out in his backyard for the rest of his life, so he stayed at an even wider distance than I.

After viewing the milking and cheese-making areas, we partook in a tasting of 5 different kinds of cheese. Beth & I bought two small bricks, and Chuck filled up a bag with 6 or 7 different kinds. Katie patted about a dozen more cute kids who nuzzled up to the fences for their individual pats, and we headed home with pleasant tastes in our mouths and memories of strange and interesting scents, odiferous smells, and goaty aromas.

Haystack Goat Farm

–rakkity

Michael,

Patrick told us that he and Georgia drove down through NH on their way back from Canada, and stopped in at Grok Hill. They drove up past the Littells,who didn’t appear to be home, and parked at the bottom of Beech Lane. The pictures show the rifugio and the campfire spot that generations of Millers et al have used for boiling/burning/smoking dinners, breakfasts and midnight snacks. They also show the sturdy atrium constructed by el Kib & the blogmeister. The inside shots show no mice, but I didn’t tell Patrick to get a shot of the inside of the stove, where they’ll lurk until some gutsy person throws them out (hopefully in the spring, when the rigors of winter have passed, and they can go find another home).

Photos

–rakkity