Sign of the end times?

Sign of the end times?  Instapundit is down :(

A solar system being formed...

A solar system being formed...  This photo was taken by ALMA, and shows for the very first time a system of planets in the process of being formed around a star.  It verifies a long standing theory about how our own solar system formed, from a disk of dust and frozen gases.

ALMA is a radio telescope, operating at millimeter and sub-millimeter wavelengths.  It uses an array of relatively small antennae to achieve remarkably high resolutions, something that modern electronics technology has made possible.  The colors in the photograph are false colors representing the intensities of various radio frequencies...

20 liberal delusions...

20 liberal delusions...  From Reality Bats Last.  An example:

It is morally acceptable to borrow massive amounts of money from our grandchildren to support our own current consumption.

Morning smiles...

Morning smiles...

2014 growing season...

2014 growing season...  The Schulz family farm, in Canada, grew wheat, canola, and peas this year.  They also put together a really nice short movie about their year, at right.  Farming sure has changed a lot in the past 50 years or so!

So cute!

So cute!  This is an orphaned baby sea otter, being cared for by the staff of Shedd Aquarium in Chicago.  Amongst other things, you can see the little lady take her first stabs at swimming...

I'm not sure I want Congress to get going again...

I'm not sure I want Congress to get going again...  Boehner and McConnell have a piece in today's Wall Street Journal, wherein they lay out what they're going to try to accomplish with Obama.

Just reading the headline got me worried, and reading the whole article doesn't make me feel much better.  I can boil my reaction down to two points:

• I feel better when Congress is gridlocked.  They do less harm that way.
• I'd feel better if the Republicans would fight Obama tooth and nail, rather than try to find ways to cooperate with him.  I'm afraid that if they try to find common ground, they'll be less inclined to engage him robustly on the issues that really matter to me.  I was already afraid that would happen; reading this piece makes me think that's already their plan.

It sounds like the Republicans are already working as hard as they can to squander their victory...

Somewhere, a Microsoft product manager is fuming...

Somewhere, a Microsoft product manager is fuming...  Check out the screen scrape at right, taken from a CNN show.  In front of the woman (to the left of the CNN mug) is a computer: a Microsoft Surface Pro 3, to be exact.  That's Microsoft's “iPad killer”.  Now look closely at that computer, and you'll see that it's being used as a stand – for an iPad!

Har de har har har har!!!

An almost perfectly circular forest...

An almost perfectly circular forest...  No, it's not a natural phenomenon.  It's a national park in New Zealand that surrounds an active volcano: Mount Taranaki.  The park was laid out with circular boundaries.  See it on a map...

Gorgeous rendering of the bodies in the solar system...

Gorgeous rendering of the bodies in the solar system...  The relative sizes are accurate, all computer-rendered.  Full resolution version downloadable here...

Progress report...

Progress report: the demolition of our house's roof is complete.  This morning the roofers will return to “dry in” the rest of the roof (making it waterproof), and next week they'll start putting the steel on.  We had an accident here yesterday – one of the roofers fell off his ladder, landing on his feet on our concrete apron.  He suffered a small fracture in his ankle as a result, and he'll be out of action for several weeks.  We also discovered another small problem.  The old roof (of fiberglass shingles) was laid over top of the edges of the flooring material on our small second-floor balcony.  The installers glued those shingles down with some very effective glue, possibly an epoxy of some kind.  There was no way to get the old shingles off without tearing that balcony flooring material, and that means we have to replace it.  We're working on finding a contractor who can do that.  It's always something...

Meanwhile, nothing has happened on the barn this week, though that should change this morning.  The lumberyard is due to deliver all the interior sheathing this morning, and the builder's crew should arrive to start installing it.  We expected the plumber and electrician to do their thing this week, but so far all that's happened is that the electrician has installed the meter box.

I've been working with the local power company (Rocky Mountain Power) to figure out how to get electricity to the barn.  We've got a plan, permits are in place, and I've started working on it.  Much of the actual work is trenching, as this service will be underground.  I'm partway through digging a 375' long trench from the pole where our power comes onto our property over to near the barn.  About 10' from the barn we will have a transformer, mounted on a pad in the ground.  That also needs a large hole dug under it to provide a foundation.  My neighbor (Tim D.) is helping me with this, and I'll try to get some photos today.  He's done a lot of this before, and he's given me some really good direction and advice on exactly how to do it.  I'm operating my backhoe to do the major digging, while he stands in the completed trench just back from where I'm working.  He checks my depth (with a section of plastic pipe I've marked up with the target depth) and smooths the bottom of the trench with a shovel.  With the two of us working together like this, I never have to jump on and off the tractor, and the work goes much faster than I could do myself.

Having good neighbors is a wonderful thing...