sunlight

i love this photo from the home of friends in austin.

hope and happiness

tis the day to reflect on the past year.  

days are long, but years are short. 

i hope you all have learned some good lessons, shared some insights, had hearty moments of laughter, and pushed yourselves beyond what you think you are capable of.   and i hope that next year will be fulfilling.

i dont know why, but i've been motivated to do spring cleaning today.  my seasons are all messed up.

inside the mind

a couple inspired pieces of art from 18 year old artist sebastian eriksson:

the courage of our questions

carl sagan remains a constant source of inspiration.  here he is teaching a class of young students about the cosmos.   it's interesting to remember back at how lessons and talks were given before the digital days of power point presentations. 

near the end of this video, carl says "there are in fact 100 billion galaxies, each of which contain something like a 100 billion stars....we find that we live on an insignificant planet, of a humdrum star, lost in a galaxy, tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe, in which there are far more galaxies than people."  


"we make our world significant by the courage of our questions and the depth of our answers."

yes.

christmas sting

this is the first christmas day that my skin is stinging from a sunburn.   yesterday's trip to the beach was wonderfully warm and sunny - just wish i had applied a second round of sun block!

they're asleep

sound asleep, waiting for the big day.

this image comes from a project called darkened cities by thierry cohen.

the world continues

hello everyone.   nice to write to you a few days after the solstice, a few days after the date some people feared the world would end.  i'd like to say "i told you so," but mostly i'm just happy that i wont be receiving ridiculous emails anymore (after having received them steadily for the last THREE years) or witnessing young students i talk to about science genuinely fearful because they heard some adults talking about this nonsense. 

my cynical side reminds me that it's just a matter of time before these easily-influenced people latch onto the next doomsday scare-for-all.   my optimistic side hopes those people will remember this non-event and believe in trusted sources of information instead of believing in silly rumours that dont make sense.   please trust me, the so-called planet niburu does not exist. 

anyway, here is a beautiful photograph of the mayan pyramid, el castillo, located at chichén itzá in the yucatán peninsula of mexico.  orion is there, peaking brightly behind the illuminated clouds. 

christmas tree food

yum!

a cloudy night observing

the consolation prize of a cloudy night at the observatory is usually a gorgeous sunset.