Driftwood horses...

Driftwood horses...  Beautiful sculptures by James Doran-Webb. 

My brother Scott makes driftwood sculptures, too...

Memories...

Memories...  My dad and I once stood in a grove of giant sequoias, looking up at a scene much like this.  My camera didn't have a wide enough lens to capture it, to my regret.  This photographer did it beautifully...

Not adding up...

Not adding up...  ObamaCare's primary purpose was to reduce the number of Americans who had no healthcare insurance.  In that goal it has completely failed.  Just one of the indications of failure is this simple fact: far fewer uninsured people signed up for ObamaCare than were expected to.  Megan McArdle digs into the reasons why, concluding with this:

That leaves us with two possibilities: First, would-be applicants may simply be waiting until March. They’ve gone without insurance a long time; why not wait a few more months and save on premiums?

The second possibility is more troubling: There may be something seriously wrong with our understanding of who the uninsured are, and what they are willing and able to buy in the way of insurance. I don’t know exactly what the fault may be in our understanding. But if the numbers stay this low, I’d say we need to reassess the state of our knowledge about the uninsured -- and the vast program we created to cover them.

The comments, as ever on her site, are quite interesting, and occasionally entertaining...

A Russian photographic talent...

A Russian photographic talent...  I was entranced by the simple beauty of these photographs (just one example at right).  The photographer is Elena Shumilova, who first took up photography in 2012 to document the lives of her two children as they grew up on their family farm in Russia, in a small town near Moscow.  Her Flickr collection is here, and more information here...

Worried dog parents...

Worried dog parents...  Yesterday Debbie noticed a growth on the inside of Lea's mouth (Lea is our oldest field spaniel, over 16 years old now).  This morning we took her down to see the vet, and the verdict is that (a) it must come off, pronto, and (b) it is likely some form of a cancer.  She'll be operated on today, and then we await the biopsy results.

I really hate this waiting part...