Kayakas!

It”s an age-old ritual for college science majors around the country: every year, a new wave of students takes a series of chemistry laboratory courses which, while interesting, often inspire much dread and stress. Students are expected to work with hazardous chemicals under cramped conditions to complete a set of preordained, stepwise experiments with speed and precision. Ken Doxsee and James E. Hutchison, both professors of chemistry at the University of Oregon, thought there ought to be a better way. “We were meeting every evening and on Saturday mornings. It was just inappropriate for everyone involved,” said Doxsee, referring to the rigorous lab schedule he a…

Sport fishing ought to be a big input for any locally produced, 100-mile (or any other radius) diet. It”s been seldom discussed here; but we aim to correct that. Now…it”s true that there are many water bodies from which no fish should be eaten due to pollution. It”s also true that there are several species of sport fish that, with perhaps some few exceptions, should just not be eaten at all, such as carp. But the fact of the matter is that the bulk of the sport fish are just fine. Every time you happen to turn on the local news you”re going to see car crashes and home fires. Every time. So does that mean you should sleep out on the lawn and refuse to drive ever …

Is truth stranger than fiction? Have you ever used Dr. Bronner’s soap and wondered how this tingly product has so many uses? In Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soapbox, director Sara Lamm follows around the Bonner family in their quest to sell soap and unite everyone under one plan (the Moral ABCs), listed on the side of every bottle, along with a variety of other quotes and directives. Dr. E.H. Bronner’s life is the stuff that movies are made of, which is probably why someone decided to make a movie about a family of soapmakers, which does not exactly sound like the stuff of blockbuster movies….

Cleaning out my camera with some visual gems.

Sis and I were coming back from the grocery store when she snapped this for me. Good thing we were all on a highway, or we might not have been able to see him. Whew.

I went with my mom last Saturday to a local place called Romeo’s. It’s this GIANT warehouse that sells mostly Italian foods, but pretty much everything is for sale.

See?

Driving home from work, the hills looked amazing.

And finally, these are from a Washington Wild Things minor league baseball game about a month ago. I kept meaning to put them up, but after a week I felt like the moment was gone. It fits here. Anyways, if you scroll up and down the page really fast, you’ll feel like you were there.

Please note that this is the first time I’ve tagged ’sports’. It’s impact on my life is obvious.

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I am determined to eat food grown locally but am having quiet a hard time with this. I have found that Wilcox milk is local, pesticide free and hormone free, but alas, does not come in glass. Oh well….And trying to buy shrimp from the US….forget it..It seems it all comes from China, Malysia, Viet Nam, or Mexico. To my amazement, much of the Copper River Salmon is caught by Alaska and processed in China! When did this Icky New World sneak up on us?

On another more cheerful note….Here is one of my paintings ..If you want to see this one in person, let me know and I will bring it to Art in the Park this coming Thursday the 5th.

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Lake Victoria water levels may have increased in quantity due to the recent rains but the quality still remains a question to ponder. The quality of Lake Victoria recently came to the limelight when, on April 3, the Daily Monitor broke the story of a strange matter growing on Lake Victoria shores particularly at Kitubulu Bay in Entebbe.

Experts from different government departments were immediately dispatched to the scene to assess the situation. Their findings showed that the lake is eutrophied - meaning excess nutrients like phosphorous and nitrogen have made the lake fertile to enable the growth of green matter that experts call algal blooms.

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The modern time’s Houdini isn’t a magician, but an entertainer from the Coyote Hills State Park in Fremont, California. He is about six years old and had to be moved to Coyote Hills since he was always escaping from his previous home! Now he is in a 6 x 1 tank. Is that big enough? No - not for Houdini, but that doesn’t deter him from being his own self.

Meet Houdini

By the time I reached him, it was time for lunch. The care taker had just put in a colorful bunch of fishes that would last him about a couple of weeks. Houdini loves fishes, and from what we could see, he loves fish food too. For he gulped all the food that the care taker had given for the fishes to eat. And then, he would take his time to chase the fishes around, till he could snap one into his mouth.

Houdini hunting

So what his Houdini doing when not eating or chasing fishes? He is “exploring” - all that he could from the confines of his 6 x 1 home. He is very curious and its easy to believe that he would scramble out of his tank very frequently. And for people who are equally interested in Houdini, he would take time to pose!

Houdini posing for pictures

Join the Regional Parks and help save other Houdinis that are still struggling for survival. For more information, write to photoduniya.com

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It was commonly thought that the Egyptians domesticated the cat. However, according to this history of cats, they domesticated themselves–and they did it about 10,000 years ago, somewhere in the Near East.

Scientists now believe that today’s 600 million house cats were descended from five female wildcats who wandered into a village and decided to stay when they discovered food in the form of rodents. Sounds just like a cat–feed them and you’ll have friend for life (or, at least, until the food runs out). Anyway, by eating the rodents, the cats protected the grain and everyone was happy, especially when the cats started squeezing out kittens.

Originally, there were five subspecies of wildcat. The domesticated critters are descendants of the Near Eastern wildcat. The other four subspecies are the European wildcat, the Southern African wildcat, the Central Asian wildcat and the Chinese desert cat.

Anyway, it’s interesting reading for those of us who love cats, including this guy.

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Just as we were gearing up for another long hot summer, the rain gods smiled.  Chennai has been seeing overcast skies and light showers for a whole week now.   The city enjoys a much needed respite no doubt, but I wonder if the unseasonal showers we are experiencing are a direct effect of global warming…

Looking back, I began this blog on a reminiscent note, but it has now taken on a socio-economic/ environmental tone.  Perhaps it is because subconsciously I realize that issues pertaining to the present and future are more pressing.

Carl Sandburg once said, ”The past is a bucket of ashes.”  I’m not sure I subscribe to
that rather extreme view, are you?  I wouldn’t have changed my childhood (until age 16) for anything, and enjoy going back now and then…

As late as the mid ’80s I couldn’t have even remotely imagined what the future would bring in terms of technology.

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The latest word is that some oil has been spotted in teh water at Nobbys Beach, Newcastle, the site of the beached Pasha bulker.

You can hear the choppers scrambling outside to cover the breaking news developments.

 The second attempt for tonight is still planned to go ahead at this stage..

Stay tuned to NBN news & 1233 ABC radio for breaking updates in the Newcastle area.

Salvage#1 vision…

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