How to Eat More Fruits and Vegetables
9 years ago
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Monday, June 8, 2009
Thursday, April 30, 2009
St. George Pictures
We went to St. George over the weekend and had a great time visiting with all the Grandparents, Mom and Pop and Jan and Mike. Here are a few pictures from the trip.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Charlton Heston reads the forward to Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park, February 1995
A Tribute to Eath Day:
You have to imagine the Great Charlton Heston with his rythmic voice reading this passage.
HESTON: You think man can destroy the planet? What intoxicating vanity. Let me tell you about our planet. Earth is four-and-a-half-billion-years-old. There's been life on it for nearly that long, 3.8 billion years. Bacteria first; later the first multicellular life, then the first complex creatures in the sea, on the land. Then finally the great sweeping ages of animals, the amphibians, the dinosaurs, at last the mammals, each one enduring millions on millions of years, great dynasties of creatures rising, flourishing, dying away -- all this against a background of continuous and violent upheaval. Mountain ranges thrust up, eroded away, cometary impacts, volcano eruptions, oceans rising and falling, whole continents moving, an endless, constant, violent change, colliding, buckling to make mountains over millions of years.
Earth has survived everything in its time. It will certainly survive us. If all the nuclear weapons in the world went off at once and all the plants, all the animals died and the earth was sizzling hot for a hundred thousand years, life would survive, somewhere: under the soil, frozen in arctic ice. Sooner or later, when the planet was no longer inhospitable, life would spread again. The evolutionary process would begin again. Might take a few billion years for life to regain its present variety. Of course, it would be very different from what it is now, but the earth would survive our folly, only we would not.
If the ozone layer gets thinner, ultraviolet radiation sears earth, so what? Ultraviolet radiation is good for life. It's powerful energy. It promotes mutation, change. Many forms of life will thrive with more UV radiation. Many others will die out. You think this is the first time that's happened? Think about oxygen. Necessary for life now, but oxygen is actually a metabolic poison, a corrosive glass, like fluorine.
When oxygen was first produced as a waste product by certain plant cells some three billion years ago, it created a crisis for all other life on earth. Those plants were polluting the environment, exhaling a lethal gas. Earth eventually had an atmosphere incompatible with life. Nevertheless, life on earth took care of itself. In the thinking of the human being a hundred years is a long time. Hundred years ago we didn't have cars, airplanes, computers or vaccines. It was a whole different world, but to the earth, a hundred years is nothing. A million years is nothing. This planet lives and breathes on a much vaster scale. We can't imagine its slow and powerful rhythms, and we haven't got the humility to try. We've been residents here for the blink of an eye. If we're gone tomorrow, the earth will not miss us.
You have to imagine the Great Charlton Heston with his rythmic voice reading this passage.
HESTON: You think man can destroy the planet? What intoxicating vanity. Let me tell you about our planet. Earth is four-and-a-half-billion-years-old. There's been life on it for nearly that long, 3.8 billion years. Bacteria first; later the first multicellular life, then the first complex creatures in the sea, on the land. Then finally the great sweeping ages of animals, the amphibians, the dinosaurs, at last the mammals, each one enduring millions on millions of years, great dynasties of creatures rising, flourishing, dying away -- all this against a background of continuous and violent upheaval. Mountain ranges thrust up, eroded away, cometary impacts, volcano eruptions, oceans rising and falling, whole continents moving, an endless, constant, violent change, colliding, buckling to make mountains over millions of years.
Earth has survived everything in its time. It will certainly survive us. If all the nuclear weapons in the world went off at once and all the plants, all the animals died and the earth was sizzling hot for a hundred thousand years, life would survive, somewhere: under the soil, frozen in arctic ice. Sooner or later, when the planet was no longer inhospitable, life would spread again. The evolutionary process would begin again. Might take a few billion years for life to regain its present variety. Of course, it would be very different from what it is now, but the earth would survive our folly, only we would not.
If the ozone layer gets thinner, ultraviolet radiation sears earth, so what? Ultraviolet radiation is good for life. It's powerful energy. It promotes mutation, change. Many forms of life will thrive with more UV radiation. Many others will die out. You think this is the first time that's happened? Think about oxygen. Necessary for life now, but oxygen is actually a metabolic poison, a corrosive glass, like fluorine.
When oxygen was first produced as a waste product by certain plant cells some three billion years ago, it created a crisis for all other life on earth. Those plants were polluting the environment, exhaling a lethal gas. Earth eventually had an atmosphere incompatible with life. Nevertheless, life on earth took care of itself. In the thinking of the human being a hundred years is a long time. Hundred years ago we didn't have cars, airplanes, computers or vaccines. It was a whole different world, but to the earth, a hundred years is nothing. A million years is nothing. This planet lives and breathes on a much vaster scale. We can't imagine its slow and powerful rhythms, and we haven't got the humility to try. We've been residents here for the blink of an eye. If we're gone tomorrow, the earth will not miss us.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Friday, March 6, 2009
Moving Day
We will be moving into our new home on March 21st. Not to be too presumptuous, but we could use all the help we can get. The new home is only about half a mile from where we live now, so it should be a very easy move. We will have plenty of food and drinks. After we settle in there will be a house warming party and we will notify everyone of that date once it's decided on.
Monday, February 16, 2009
Sunday, January 4, 2009
Pictures from the 2008 Christmas season
We were plagued with illness all season long. Beginning in early September Jack caught everything you could imagine at his daycare, then passed it to me. The worst came in December when Jack caught a lower lobe pneumonia, which in turn gave me mild tachycardia for the next two weeks.
Despite all our woes we managed to have Christmas. The video of Christmas morning is entertaining to watch. I'm sick as a dog with the flu, and Jack is hanging on with double ear infections and pneumonia. The only one who came thru relatively unscathed was Belle.
2008 is over and it's a new year. Jack was yanked from Little Critters daycare and is now in home daycare. He is looked after by one of Belle's Filipino friends, Josie, who is fully licenced and has been doing daycare for 13 years or so. She only has five or six kids at a time and Jack loves it. He's healthy and happy and I'm finally over all of my afflictions, so we'll keep our fingers crossed.
That face says it all.
Despite all our woes we managed to have Christmas. The video of Christmas morning is entertaining to watch. I'm sick as a dog with the flu, and Jack is hanging on with double ear infections and pneumonia. The only one who came thru relatively unscathed was Belle.
2008 is over and it's a new year. Jack was yanked from Little Critters daycare and is now in home daycare. He is looked after by one of Belle's Filipino friends, Josie, who is fully licenced and has been doing daycare for 13 years or so. She only has five or six kids at a time and Jack loves it. He's healthy and happy and I'm finally over all of my afflictions, so we'll keep our fingers crossed.
That face says it all.
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