Hideki Matsui drove in 6 of the 7 Yankee runs tonight and is named the World Series MVP.
Wednesday, November 04, 2009
The Yankees - World Series Champs
The Yankees are celebrating their 27th World Series championship with their win tonight.
Hideki Matsui drove in 6 of the 7 Yankee runs tonight and is named the World Series MVP.
Hideki Matsui drove in 6 of the 7 Yankee runs tonight and is named the World Series MVP.
Friday, October 30, 2009
The Daily Meme
Link to TDM The Daily Meme
This week’s questions.
1. Name one bad habit you have in the kitchen.
2. Do you have a tv in the kitchen?
3. What’s one food you can’t stand cold?
4. What’s your favorite juice?
This week’s questions.
1. Name one bad habit you have in the kitchen.
- I leave a big MESS for Susan to clean up.
2. Do you have a tv in the kitchen?
- NO! (I'd rather watch french fries warming in the microwave)
3. What’s one food you can’t stand cold?
- Beer - it shouldn't be colder than 65 degrees F
(I forget what food group it's in...)
4. What’s your favorite juice?
- Cranberry - It rulz!
Monday, October 12, 2009
Books I'm Reading II - Millennium Trilogy
The Millennium Trilogy is a series of three novels by Stieg Larsson
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest, were published posthumously in 2005, 2006 and 2007 respectively. I’ve finished reading the first two novels and eagerly await the Kindle version of the third.
The title girl is Lisbeth Salander. She’s described in Wikipedia as “an asocial punk who has been victimized by authorities throughout her whole life.” But that description is superficial. She is much more complicated than that. In Dragon Tattoo she reveals her skills as world-class computer hacker and tireless detective with a photographic memory as she and journalist Mikael Blomkvist solve a 40 year old murder mystery. Lisbeth may be asocial but she has a strict moral compass that has few limits on retribution.
At the end of Dragon Tattoo, Mikael and Lisbeth have a falling out but you just know they will have to work it out somehow.
In Played with Fire, as Mikael investigates sex trafficking in Sweden, another murder throws Salander and Blomkvist together again.
Stieg Larsson web site
Millennium Trilogy on Wikipedia
in the Swedish movie Män som hatar kvinnor
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Wonder what the Ash is for?
Food Crop Fertilizer Features (Gulp!) Human Urine
It's the ultimate in recycling. Take some wood ashes from the fireplace, add a little of your own urine and spread it around your tomato plants. You may get a blockbuster crop.
Scientists in Finland have found that wood ash and human urine perform just as well as more expensive mineral fertilizers, at least for some crops, such as tomato plants.
Scientists in Finland have found that wood ash and human urine perform just as well as more expensive mineral fertilizers, at least for some crops, while doing less damage to the environment. The combination is rich in nutrients, nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, calcium and magnesium. The researchers raised a healthy crop of tomatoes in a carefully controlled series of laboratory experiments.
Other research has shown that human urine is an effective substitute for synthetic fertilizers, at least for cucumbers, corn, cabbage, wheat and tomatoes. Ash has also been shown to be useful in agriculture.
But the Fins say they are the first ones to combine urine with wood ash, and plants treated with that substitute performed four times as well as unfertilized plants and left the soil less acidic. The scientists insist it's safe and doesn't pose "any microbial or chemical risks."
Story on ABC News: http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/DyeHard/food-crop-fertilizer-features-gulp-human-urine/story?id=8517396
It's the ultimate in recycling. Take some wood ashes from the fireplace, add a little of your own urine and spread it around your tomato plants. You may get a blockbuster crop.
Scientists in Finland have found that wood ash and human urine perform just as well as more expensive mineral fertilizers, at least for some crops, such as tomato plants.
Scientists in Finland have found that wood ash and human urine perform just as well as more expensive mineral fertilizers, at least for some crops, while doing less damage to the environment. The combination is rich in nutrients, nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, calcium and magnesium. The researchers raised a healthy crop of tomatoes in a carefully controlled series of laboratory experiments.
Other research has shown that human urine is an effective substitute for synthetic fertilizers, at least for cucumbers, corn, cabbage, wheat and tomatoes. Ash has also been shown to be useful in agriculture.
But the Fins say they are the first ones to combine urine with wood ash, and plants treated with that substitute performed four times as well as unfertilized plants and left the soil less acidic. The scientists insist it's safe and doesn't pose "any microbial or chemical risks."
Story on ABC News: http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/DyeHard/food-crop-fertilizer-features-gulp-human-urine/story?id=8517396
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Books I'm Reading- Cryptonomicon
Above is the book cover for the First Edition
Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson published in 1999.
Just last night I finished this extraordinary novel. (Like so many recently read books, it's part of a series. The Baroque Cycle is set in past and Jipi and the Paranoid Chip continues in the future.) It is interesting in so many ways. When my initial confusion with the first chapter finally started to fade, there was an "ah-ha" moment that came together as "historical novel" maybe?
But it's so much more than that. The historical novel is just one of the time lines in the story. That story line is set in World War II. It's main characters all have decendents in the second, a modern time line.
A central theme in both time lines is cryptography. The title, Cryptonomicon, is a ficticious book compiled of the years to include all knowldege of secret code writing and code breaking.
The novel won the Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel in 2000 and nominated for two other sci-fi awards, the Hugo and Arthur C. Clarke awards. That was a surprise to me because sci-fi wasn't a genre that I would have considered. At least Wikipedia agrees with me and calls it "...closer to the genres of historical fiction and contemporary techno-thriller than to the science fiction setting of Stephenson's two previous novels..."
In addition to Wikipedia, there are other sites worth mentioning. Neal Stephenson's website. The Harper-Collins site has the first chapter for you to read here.
Below is the book cover for the Kindle e-book that I read.
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Post-Bill Photos from the Beach
Went down to Avon-By-The-Sea's beach last Sunday and shot a few surf photos. Some with and some without surfers.
(click the photo to view full size.)
(click the photo to view full size.)
Surfers
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Saturday, July 04, 2009
Ortonville, Minnesota
Just over the state line from Big Stone City, South Dakota is its sister city of Ortonville, Minnesota. Separating them is the long (26 miles) and narrow (1 mile) Big Stone Lake. Like Big Stone City, Ortonville’s history often is told in the history of the lake. The photos here are of the old, the Columbian Hotel built in 1892, and the new, the Big Stone Lake/Whetstone River Project completed in 1985. The Whetstone River Project created the Big Stone National Wildlife Refuge south of Ortonville.
Big Stone City, South Dakota
Our trip west for the reunion brought some interesting sights. Lots of Birds. Some life birds for Best Wife. Lots of walking in the Big Stone National Wildlife Refuge in Odessa, Minnesota. (It impacts environments in both Minnesota and South Dakota.) Plus the environs of Big Stone City, South Dakota.
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