So today when I left work to go pick up my kid from school I checked out the brush at the far end of the parking lot before driving off.  I heard a Yellow Warbler singing!  My first warbler this year!  Then something even more amazing happened...   more »

This is a pretty cool idea, for a relatively inexpensive fee this company (MyPublisher) will take a series of digital photos you've shot and print them in a bound book for you.  (Found on J-Walk Blog. Thanks John, for sharing that!)

$29.95 will get you an 8x12 hardcover book with 10 pages that contains up to 80 photos printed on glossy paper.  (Additional pages of are $2.95 per page.)  Hardcover bindings include linen and leather.  $9.95 will get you a "pocket book" which is a 6x8 inch paperback book, with the same number of pages/photos, and the same glossy paper.  (Additional pages $0.49 each.)...   more »

Where I live we have curbside recyclables pickup every other week.  Yes, every other week Recycle Guy™ comes to our house and dumps our recyclables into his binmobile.  Though I believe it's every citizen's civic duty to recycle... I have to admit, I hate Recycle Guy™...   more »

I started the day on a positive note today. For the first time this year I heard old whitethroat singing when I stepped into my backyard (White-throated Sparrow). Also heard: House Sparrows, American Goldfinches, Black-capped Chickadees (singing the summer song) and a Northern Cardinal. Only managed to see the cardinal on the brief walk to my car but we take what delight where we may...   more »

I wish I were making this up, but I'm not. A 15-year-old kid has an art assignment to draw several pictures and keep them in a notebook. Some of his drawings are political in nature and are against the war. He depicts George Bush as a devil launching a missile. He draws a picture of a Middle Easterner carrying an effigy of Bush's head on a stick...   more »

Several years ago I was in a computer software store looking for a new game to play on my PC.  I grabbed "Sid Meier's Civilization III" off the shelf.  Little did I know that the deceptively innocent looking box housed the Necronomicon of games...   more »

I mentioned that to my friend Matt and his girlfriend Sarah not long ago, and they both looked at me like I had cottage cheese for brains. I've enjoyed comedy all my life, and in fact have written plenty of it in my days. I came to the realization that cheese was inherently funny back in my early 20's (that would have been in the late 1980's or early 1990's.) It's hard to pin down the exact moment that I realized cheese was so funny, but I will try...   more »

Saturn's outermost visible ring, the F ring, is curiously thin. When Voyager 1 arrived at Saturn in 1980 the reason for this became apparent. There were two tiny moons orbiting Saturn in the plane of the rings, one on either side of the F ring. The action of these two moons prevents the F ring from spreading in either direction. In essence they "shepherd" the particles that make up the F ring into a thin band, and so they were collectively referred to 'Shepherd Moons'...   more »

This is a story I first heard when I was a boy, long before I was interested in bird watching.  It is the story of a rare species of bird that is now extinct, completely exterminated by a single house cat.  Yeah, you heard that right...   more »

Remember this compelling photo that appeared in the Seattle Times article "The somber task of honoring the fallen"?  The person who took it (Tami Silicio) and her husband (David Landry) have been fired from their jobs (over this photo) from the contractor they work for in Kuwait...   more »

I got 9 out of 10 right.  How'd you do?

http://www.malevole.com/mv/misc/killerquiz/

Thanks to my friend Jude for the link.

This past weekend I picked up Madonna's new CD "American Life" (tracks and lyrics).  I was surprised to note a parental advisory on the insert, I'm not sure Madonna's ever earned one of those before, even for the lyrics to Human Nature (i.e. "I'm not your bitch, don't hang your shit on me.").  I've been listening to the CD for 4 days now and my opinion on it is mixed, though I do recommend it, especially if you are a Madonna fan like me...   more »

Thinking of changing my blog from a 2-column layout to a 3-column layout, as 3 columns would allow me to provide more navigational sections like recent comments, last 25 articles, a search form, and so forth. Please have a look at the screenshot below and let me know what you think?...   more »

As I have noted in earlier articles (Prime Trees -- A Minor Obsession and Prime Trees -- Update) I am on a quest for a prime tree of depth 23 or greater.  The deepst prime tree found thus far has a depth of 22.  Today a second tree of this depth was found...   more »

Part of maintaining a secure network is knowing who your users are and making sure they are educated. Are they choosing obvious passwords? Are they willing to exchange their passwords with strangers on the street for chocolate? Are they... hmm? What was that about chocolate?...   more »