Tuesday, January 6, 2009

intentions for the new year

slow down

pay attention

question everything

start now


“simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”

- leonardo da vinci

oh night... diiviiiiine!

just in case anyone thinks i was exaggerating about my annual family christmas extravaganza... here are a few nice photos that my cousin, jeff, took of this year's event!


grandma with the "christmas carol lyrics"


hahahaha! love it. thats my dad, two uncles and an aunt standing up - all siblings, of course :)


miss you all - glad to see your enthusiastic faces (and energetic entertaining, diane!!)!

Monday, January 5, 2009

ganymede plays peek-a-boo with jupiter

this image of jupiter and its largest moon, ganymede, was taken by the wide field planetary camera 2 (WFPC2 = "wif-pic-two") on the hubble space telescope. three images, taken april 9, 2007 in red (673 nm), green (502 nm), and blue (410 nm) filters, were combined to produce this sharp color capture!


hubble took a series of 540 pictures over a two hour period as ganymede appeared to approach the giant gas planet and disappear behind it! you can watch these images together as a great video at the hubble site.

here's an interesting image showing the scale and orientation of the observation. the white line at the bottom represents 25,000 miles (40,000 km)! consider that earth's diameter at the equator is only about 8,000 miles (12,800 km)!

Friday, January 2, 2009

my man, paul simon.

paul simon has been a favorite song writer of mine for a long long time. i used to sing a lot of simon & garfunkel songs with my pops, so the beautifully flowing melodies coupled with the simple harmonies reach right to my depths.

its hard to limit my choices of favorite songs, but i found a few good live recordings on the internets.

homeward bound - 1967



around 1970, paul simon and art garfunkel broke off their duet and paul went thru a series of musical experiements. early on, he stuck to his brilliant song-writing roots. (the stache in this recording is great!)

american tune - 1975



slip slidin' away



in the 1980's, my man paul went to africa to work on the "we are the world" project. while there, he worked with the powerful vocal group, ladysmith black mambazo, among others, to produce his most well-known solo album - graceland. not only was this album great to listen to, but it introduced much of the western world to "world music," and also resulted in one of the best music videos ever produced (in my opinion).

i know what i know:



and finally, feelin' groovy! ok, so the song is properly titled the 59th street bridge song (feelin' groovy), but i dont think anyone actually uses the whole title of the song, nor should they!

idyllic italy - the amalfi coast

i took these images in several cities along the amalfi coast of italy. the landscape is absolutely breathtaking, while the atmosphere reveals a tourist-dependence in the region - even during the off-season when i visited in november.

clear water.


the town of amalfi.




the duomo (cathedral) of amalfi.


altrani.






scratch that - i want to change my house number!


absolutely no bugling!


along the walk from altrani to ravello, a town whose name is derived from its onetime "rebellious" attitude!




scenes from ravello.










the world is full of ex-doorways.










cool lights in salerno




mmm.... pizza.


i stayed at hostels while traveling, but there are wide variety of amalfi hotels to choose from.

other posts and pictures in the italy series:

rainbows over pompeii,
ercolano,
all high-res photos so far sorted and online!

the sky in motion

a meditative start to the new year...


túrána hott kurdís by hasta la otra méxico! from Till Credner on Vimeo.

Thursday, January 1, 2009

new years night

the planets are putting on a show for our benefit this last night of 2008! for a few hours after sunset, look for the bright planet venus right next to the crescent moon.

ready for the new year!

1907 was the first time they celebrated the new year in new york with the drop of a large illuminated sphere made of iron and wood. the ball was adorned with one hundred 25-watt light bulbs, was 5 feet wide and weighed 700 pounds!




times square, 1942 (link)

hope everyone is ready to welcome in a new year! be safe and happy!