My mom sends me things...

My mom sends me things...  Most recently this one, with the comment “This observation should have been made eons ago!”

Thought from the Greatest Living Scottish Thinker – Billy Connolly:

“If women are so bloody perfect at multitasking, how come they can't have a headache and sex at the same time?”

My mom's ancestors were Scots...

Utah isn't much different ...

Utah isn't much different ... especially near the Idaho border where I live.  Sent along by friend, former colleague, and Idaho mogul-of-everything Doug S., who says:

Sure it's a juvenile internet meme. But I can say in talking with an Ada County (Boise) Deputy friend of mine, there are 'registered' 9 guns for every individual in the State of Idaho and >26% of the population have a CCW (Concealed carry) permits ... of course no measure of us that actually carry...

Which all equates to us here dealing with bike thefts and kids breaking into unlocked cars ... Oh the humanity... Now if only we could get rid of those troublesome plastic bags...  Heh!

Anyone who owns a border collie ...

Anyone who owns a border collie ... will look at this video and say “Of course!  What else would you expect?”

Then and now...

Then and now...  Here's a very cool site forwarded to me by Jim and Cathy J.  The site shows photographs from WWII that you can fade into photographs of the same exact place as it appears today.  There are no directions on it, but here's how to use it:

When you first go to the site, you'll see a WWII photograph of Weymouth harbor, in England.  You can scroll up and down to see more photos.  If you click on any photo, it will fade gradually into a photo of the same spot, taken recently.  Clicking again will put it back to WWII.  You can also point to any photo, click and hold down, then "swipe" from left-to-right to fade into the modern photo, or right-to-left to fade into the WWII photo.  Very nicely done!

Odd bump on a Mars rock...

Odd bump on a Mars rock...  I spotted this in the latest download of Curiosity photos.  It appears to have been brushed off (with Curiosity's handy-dandy rotating rock brush).  I've no idea what it is, and I don't see any commentary on the Curiosity site about it yet...

3D model of Comet 67P...

3D model of Comet 67P...  This model was inferred from the images taken by the Rosetta robotic explorer.  Click to embiggen...

You don't want to meet this guy in a dark alley...

You don't want to meet this guy in a dark alley ... 'cause he beats the living crap out of anything that comes along.  It's a steamer duck, and you should be very afraid...

Ten recipes that even I can't screw up...

Ten recipes that even I can't screw up...  So promises Megan McArdle, the world's tallest female econoblogger, who also happens to be a culinary geekette.  Some of these recipes look pretty darned good...

The President...

The President...  No, I don't mean Obama – I mean the giant sequoia in the photo at right (click to embiggen).  That tree is 247 feet high, and is part of a grove.  There is no place one can stand to take a photo like this, so the National Geographic folks took hundreds of photos of different pieces of the tree, then picked 127 of them to stitch together to show what you see here.  Note the tiny little person at the bottom – that will give you a sense of just how big this monster tree is...

Barn: delays and trusses arrived...

Barn: delays and trusses arrived...  This week has seen little work done on the barn, mainly because of rain and mud.  Over the past weekend and into the early week, we had intermittent rain and overcast days (so no drying out).  The storm total was well over 2 inches of rain, and the fields are gloppy muddy.  Yesterday (Friday) was the first entire day that we had sunshine, clear skies, and low humidity, so the drying process could begin.  Hopefully by Monday conditions will be good again.

The builders did get some work done this week: they sheathed the last wall on the second floor, and did some layout work in anticipation of the arrival of the factory-built trusses.  These trusses were engineered for this building, and built in a factory near Salt Lake City.  Yesterday afternoon the truck with our piles of trusses arrived – but unloading that truck proved much more challenging than we expected.

The challenge came from the combination of mud and subtle topology.  The access road through our property to the barn is very slightly lower in elevation (about 8") in a spot near the paved road.  In the middle photo below, you can see the truss delivery truck sitting in exactly this spot.  Between where I stood to take that photo, and the spot where the truck is, there is a very gentle slope – nearly imperceptible to the eye.  In that low spot, naturally, the rainwater collected into a nice big mud-puddle.  And the surface of the road was nice and muddy – and as slick as ice.  When the truck backed in off the paved road, it got stuck in that low spot – if it tried to go forward or backward, it could only move a few feet before its tires started spinning futilely.  Our builder saved the day by using his loader to scoop up about a cubic yard of gravel (from a pile scavenged from our driveway) and scattering it under the wheels of the truck.  With that assistance, the truck was able to back in to deliver our trusses (last photo), and zipped right back out to the paved road.  The driver looked quite relieved at this bit of success :)

The weather has also kept me from working outside.  My flagpole base still needs a bit of work, restoring the soil and turf around the giant concrete cube I now have in my back yard.  I've been working mostly indoors, putting up the last of the fixtures in our bathroom (meaning that I spent a lot of time drilling holes through porcelain tiles).  The paving crew and the roofers were both delayed, most likely at least through the middle of next week.  Our flagpole didn't arrive on time, though I don't know if that's because of the weather or for some other reason.  And the rock for our fireplace was also delayed, as their production was delayed by the rain...