We took the day off today...

We took the day off today ... and drove (with our three dogs) down to Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge, which is about 40 minutes from our house.  There's a 12 mile long loop road through the marshy refuge, and we spent almost three hours exploring it.  The temperature was just above freezing (37°F), and many of the shallower areas were iced over.  We saw thousands upon thousands of tundra swans, innumerable ducks (some of the quite beautiful) that we couldn't identify (our bird book is still in a box somewhere!), four great blue herons, many cormorants,  a bazillion Canadian geese, one cheeky marsh wren, several dozen hawks, a bald eagle, grebes, and lots of coots.  In other words, we saw a lot of birds!

I took some photos to try to give a flavor of the place, and in one of them you just might be able to pick out the hundreds of white dots – tundra swans, as photographed without a telephoto lens :)

Comet 67P is outgassing...

Comet 67P is outgassing ... and Rosetta captured this beautiful photo of it...

Food models...

Food models...  When I visited Japan in the early '70s, one of the more delightful things I ran into was the display of food models that could be found in a glass cabinet in the entrance of every restaurant, like the ramen models at right.  Without speaking a word of Japanese, I could learn a great deal about the food served by that restaurant.  I had quite a few meals that were obtained simply by pointing to what I wanted.

At the time I was in Japan, these models were made of wax.  In one of the shopping districts, I ran into a shop that made and sold them, so I got to see a bit of the process, which was fascinating.  These days the models are made of plastic, and the process of making them is a bit different...

On the relative dangers of recreational drugs...

On the relative dangers of recreational drugs...  I find these results completely unsurprising, but I don't know if that's how most people would react.  Over a lifetime of managing hundreds of employees, I've dealt with far more human problems caused by alcohol than with any other drug.  I have, quite literally, never had a problem I had to deal with that was caused by marijuana – even though amongst the young people I managed the use of marijuana was very widespread (nearly as widespread as alcohol use, I believe).  I've had to deal with a few problems caused by meth, cocaine, or heroin use – but I will also observe that these were all behavioral problems, not problems with the ability to perform at work.  Alcohol use, on the other hand, has caused numerous issues that affected both performance and behavior in the workplace.  I would think it is obvious to any manager that alcohol is a vastly more impactful and dangerous drug than marijuana.

Funny how the law treats alcohol use so much more benignly than marijuana use...