Spring in Logan, Utah...

Spring in Logan, Utah...  I parked in front of the tabernacle in downtown Logan, this morning, on my way to get a haircut.  This was the view (click to embiggen) as I leaned on the passenger side of my pickup...

Excellent...

Excellent...  Explaining how the world worked was not one of my dad's major skills :)  Sometimes he would explain it well (and correctly), sometimes he would get it wrong (occasionally spectacularly so), and often he'd make up a hilarious “explanation” that even as kids we knew wasn't right. 

For instance, when I asked him once why clouds were different shades of white or gray, he told me that it depended on what kind of birds were pooping on the cloud.  Pristine clouds were pure white, he said.  The really nasty gray clouds were the victims of mass Canadian geese poop attacks.  I was probably 7 or 8 at the time, and even then I wasn't buying it.  But we got a good laugh from it.

Goat, sneeze, terrified girl...

Goat, sneeze, terrified girl...  Awesome.

Smithsonian's photo contest finalists...

Smithsonian's photo contest finalists...  Here's one example (my mom will like this one!).  You can find all of them here...

Baltic Sea time bomb...

Baltic Sea time bomb...  I don't know how close this is to my Estonian friends, but it sure doesn't sound good...

Geek: one-bit computers...

Geek: one-bit computers...  This was a new one to me, and I'm a little surprised by this because I used to do a lot of work in the controls area.  I found the ideas fascinating.  Follow the links in the article I linked above for more information.  I just might have to build me one of these!

A Finnish back yard...

A Finnish back yard...  My father and I hiked through a forest that looked very much like this, but in a vastly different place: Hawaii.  Specifically, on the Awini Trail as it transits the east side of Pololu Valley on the Big Island...

Is (climate) science actually settled?

Is (climate) science actually settled?  No! says Dr. Craig Idso, in a guest post on Watts Up With That?

Not so rare after all...

Not so rare after all...  Asteroid impacts, that is.  If these articles are accurate, the Earth is being smacked upside the head by a couple of asteroids every year.  That's not quite as scary as it sounds, though.  Remember, roughly 3/4 of the earth is covered by ocean, and about 1/40 of that 1/4 that is land is covered by cities – so each asteroid has only about one chance in 160 of actually hitting a city.  That means we should expect an asteroid to smack down a city about once every 80 years.  If an asteroid landing outside a city hurt or killed anyone, well, they were just having a very unlucky day.

There are days when the idea of an asteroid taking out Washington, D.C. is an attractive one.

Most days, actually.

Maybe every day.