October 29, 2007

The Sound of One Whip Cracking

A friend recently wrote "Whhhi-chhhhhh" to indicate the sound of a whip cracking. I read it and re-read it and all I could come up with was which or, at best, witch. Then I got to thinking, how the hell do you write the sound of a whip?

wwwssshsssskwip
wwiiiiiiiiikkeh

How would you spell it?

October 25, 2007

Tea Cup/Lady Bug deja-vu


I realized, as I was about to projectile vomit across the Tea Cup ride at Disneyland, where I last experienced this feeling...

October 23, 2007

October 2, 2007

Astronomy Picture of the Day


Part of my unique parenting style is to make my kid's homepage NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day. Pretty darned clever actually.

This one struck me as pretty amazing with respect to getting a kid's (or my) attention. You know with the juxtaposition of the analemma and the waterslide; that's cool.

Explanation: If you went outside at exactly the same time every day and took a picture that included the Sun, how would the Sun appear to move? With great planning and effort, such a series of images can be taken. The figure-8 path the Sun follows over the course of a year is called an analemma. With even greater planning and effort, the series can include a total eclipse of the Sun as one of the images. Pictured is such a total solar eclipse analemma or Tutulemma - a term coined by the photographers based on the Turkish word for eclipse. The composite image sequence was recorded from Turkey starting in 2005. The base image for the sequence is from the total phase of a solar eclipse as viewed from Side, Turkey on 2006 March 29. Venus was also visible during totality, toward the lower right.