Alpha Gruis (Wikipedia) Alpha Gruis is the brightest star in the southern constellation of Grus. It is officially named Alnair; Alpha Gruis is the star’s Bayer designation, which is Latinized from α Gruis and abbreviated α Gru. With an magnitude of 1.74, it is one of the brightest stars in the sky and one of the fifty-eight stars selected for celestial navigation. Alpha Gruis is a single, B-type main-sequence star located at a distance of 31 pc. Andrei Tarkovsky (Wikipedia) Andrei Arsenyevich Tarkovsky (Russian: Андрей Арсеньевич Тарковский, IPA: [ɐnˈdrʲej ɐrˈsʲenʲjɪvʲɪtɕ tɐrˈkofskʲɪj]; 4 April 1932 – 29 December 1986) was a Russian film director and screenwriter. Widely considered one of the greatest and most influential directors in cinema history, Tarkovsky’s films explore spiritual and metaphysical themes, and are noted for their slow pacing and long takes, dreamlike visual imagery, and preoccupation with nature and memory. ARES | Meteorite Falls (exploration.jsc.nasa.gov) Learn more about other fall events and possible landing sites that have been identified across the United States. Astronomers Unveil Strong Magnetic Fields Spiraling at the Edge of Milky Way’s Central Black Hole (eventhorizontelescope.org) A new image from the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) collaboration has uncovered strong and organized magnetic fields spiraling from the edge of the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*). Seen in polarized light for the first time, this new view of the monster lurking at the heart of the Milky Way Galaxy has revealed a magnetic field structure strikingly similar to that of the black hole at the center of the M87 galaxy, suggesting that strong magnetic fields may be common to all black holes. This similarity also hints toward a hidden jet in Sgr A*. The results were published today in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. Cascade Range compass (navigation) 
Conifers along Rattlesnake Ridge TrailDelta Ursae Majoris (Wikipedia) Delta Ursae Majoris (δ Ursae Majoris, abbreviated Delta UMa, δ UMa), formally named Megrez /ˈmiːɡrɛz/, is a star in the northern constellation of Ursa Major. With an apparent magnitude of +3.3, it is the dimmest of the seven stars in the Big Dipper asterism. Parallax measurements yield a distance estimate of 80.5 light-years (24.7 parsecs) from the Sun. 
Do not enter parking ramp
Expression of NorthgateFaroe Islands (Wikipedia) The Faroe or Faeroe Islands (/ˈfɛəroʊ/ FAIR-oh), or simply the Faroes (Faroese: Føroyar, pronounced [ˈfœɹjaɹ]; Danish: Færøerne [ˈfeɐ̯ˌøˀɐnə]), are an archipelago in the North Atlantic Ocean and an autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark. The official language of the country is Faroese, which is closely related to and partially mutually intelligible with Icelandic. flag Flag Rock (cliffhouseproject.com) This page has a nice collection of pictures and newspaper clippings about Flag Rock, as known as Fishing Rock and Fisherman’s rock. 
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us: From June 3, 1928 until 1950 a ferry service ran between Titlow Beach, Pt Fosdick and Fox Island. Greece (Wikipedia) Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe, located on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula. Greece shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, North Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to the east. The Aegean Sea lies to the east of the mainland, the Ionian Sea to the west, and the Sea of Crete and the Mediterranean Sea to the south. Greece has the longest coastline on the Mediterranean Basin, featuring thousands of islands. It has a population of nearly 10.3 million (as of 2024). Athens is the nation’s capital and the largest city, followed by Thessaloniki and Patras. Gulf of St. Lawrence (Wikipedia) The Gulf of St. Lawrence fringes the shores of the provinces of Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and Labrador, in Canada, plus the islands Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, possessions of France, in North America. Hamlin Park highest point I am a persistent item I decided to keep the spelling error. Good find. 
Icy path to the Stillwater BridgeIndian John Hill Rest Area Westbound Integrate the Bouncing Ball into the home page Introduction to Earth Science (pressbooks.lib.vt.edu) Introduction to Earth Science is designed to provide a comprehensive introduction to Earth Science that can be freely accessed online, read offline, printed, or purchased as a print-on-demand book. It is intended for a typical 1000-level university introductory course in the Geosciences. Islamic State claims members escaped after attacking concert hall (theguardian.com) Julius Caesar Lake Washington Ship Canal (Wikipedia) The Lake Washington Ship Canal, which runs through the city of Seattle, connects the fresh water body of Lake Washington with the salt water inland sea of Puget Sound. The Hiram M. Chittenden Locks accommodate the approximately 20-foot (6.1 m) difference in water level between Lake Washington and the sound. The canal runs east–west and connects Union Bay, the Montlake Cut, Portage Bay, Lake Union, the Fremont Cut, Salmon Bay, and Shilshole Bay, which is part of the sound. Lesotho (Wikipedia) Lesotho (/lɪˈsuːtuː/ lih-SOO-too, Sotho pronunciation: [lɪˈsʊːtʰʊ]), formally the Kingdom of Lesotho, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. As an enclave of South Africa, with which it shares a 1,106 km (687 mi) border, it is the only sovereign enclave in the world outside of the Italian Peninsula. It is situated in the Maloti Mountains and contains the highest peak in Southern Africa. It has an area of over 30,000 km2 (11,600 sq mi) and has a population of about two million. It is the largest enclaved country in the world. Its capital and largest city is Maseru. The country is also known by the nickname The Mountain Kingdom. 
Looking out at Picnic Point ParkMartin Luther (Wikipedia) Martin Luther OSA (/ˈluːθər/; German: [ˈmaʁtiːn ˈlʊtɐ]; 10 November 1483 – 18 February 1546) was a German priest, theologian, author, hymnwriter, professor, and Augustinian friar. Luther was the seminal figure of the Protestant Reformation, and his theological beliefs form the basis of Lutheranism. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in Western and Christian history. Minnesota MOLLUSCS: THE SURVIVAL GAME (shapeoflife.org) Their basic body plan includes a foot for mobility; a mantle that secretes a shell and a radula for eating. Molluscs today show many variations on this original body plan. An abalone escapes a sea star predator using its foot; and a moon snail hunts a cockle using its foot as a weapon. The radula has even evolved in an astonishing variety of ways to serve as a tool for feeding. The ancient nautilus was the first mollusc to leave the sea floor. Their ancestors evolved a way to swim using jet propulsion and evolved a way to maintain buoyancy. The evolution of speedy fishes drove the next step in the survival game: speed and loss of the shell, as seen in squid. Octopuses returned to live on the bottom and evolved intelligence and an ability to instantly camouflage itself in order to survive. Molucca Sea Collision Zone (Wikipedia) The Molucca Sea Collision Zone is postulated by paleogeologists to explain the tectonics of the area based on the Molucca Sea in Indonesia, and adjacent involved areas. MOST OF THE AREA WILL BE UNINHABITABLE FOR WEEKS…PERHAPS LONGER. AT LEAST ONE HALF OF WELL CONSTRUCTED HOMES WILL HAVE ROOF AND WALL FAILURE. ALL GABLED ROOFS WILL FAIL…LEAVING THOSE HOMES SEVERELY DAMAGED OR DESTROYED. 
NC-4648 in SeaTacNorthgate, Seattle (Wikipedia) Northgate is a neighborhood in north Seattle, Washington, named for and surrounding Northgate Mall, the first covered mall in the United States. Its north-south principal arterials are Roosevelt Way NE and Aurora Avenue N (SR 99), and its east-west principal arterials are NE Northgate Way and 130th Street. Minor arterials are College Way-Meridian Avenue N, 1st, 5th, and 15th avenues NE. Interstate 5 runs through the district. Besides the eponymous mall, the most characteristic distinctions of the area are North Seattle College (NSC) and the south fork of the Thornton Creek watershed and Seattle Kraken Iceplex center. Notes on Tajikistan (mattlakeman.org) Over the summer, I spent about two weeks in Tajikistan, mostly in Dushanbe (the capital) and various points along the Pamir Highway, which borders Afghanistan and later leads into Kyrgyzstan. Novel Gens (novelgens.com) On 17 October, after midnight, the physician leaned over him and asked whether he was suffering greatly. “No longer”, he replied. He died a few minutes before 2 a.m. He was 39. On April 25, 2004, the body of Alena Stathopoulos, 29 was found on the Squak Mountain trail not far from SE May Valley Road by two hikers. Her roommate Esther Rose Havekost was convicted in December 2004 for murdering her in their shared apartment and for paying a man $10,000 to dump the body. She was sentenced to 27 months in prison. On February 8, 2024, the Justice Department released the report by special counsel Hur, which concluded that the “evidence does not establish Mr. Biden’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt”, so “no criminal charges are warranted in this matter”. On whether we’re living in a simulation (scottaaronson.blog) If they say, maybe you should live your life differently, just from knowing that you might be in a simulation, I respond: I can’t quite put my finger on it, but I have a vague feeling that this discussion predates the 80 or so years we’ve had digital computers! Why not just join the theologians in that earlier discussion, rather than pretending that this is something distinctive about computers? Is it relevantly different here if you’re being dreamed in the mind of God or being executed in Python? OK, maybe you’d prefer that the world was created by a loving Father or Mother, rather than some nerdy transdimensional adolescent trying to impress the other kids in programming club. But if that’s the worry, why are you talking to a computer scientist? Go talk to David Hume or something. Our life is frittered away by detail… simplify, simplify.
Henry David ThoreauPál Szalai (Wikipedia) Pál Szalai (September 3, 1915 – January 16, 1994) also spelled Pál Szalay and later anglicized as Paul Sterling was a high-ranking Hungarian police officer and reinstated member of the Arrow Cross Party after 1944. In 1945, together with Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, Szalai helped save hundreds of Hungarian Jews in the Budapest ghetto. In 2009, he was honored by Israel as Righteous among the Nations. Paul Stamets Stack: Microdosing Psilocybin and Lion’s Mane (microdosinginstitute.com) The Paul Stamets Stack or stacking Lion’s Mane has quickly gained popularity in the microdosing community. Stacking refers to combining various non-psychoactive substances with a psychoactive microdosing substance to increase the benefit related to microdosing. Since renowned mycologist Paul Stamets first mentioned this stacking combination, a large community of biohackers, microdosers and people looking to improve their brain health have adopted Stamets’ (now patented) microdosing stacking method. Pigeon Hill was so named for the abundance of pigeons that roosted there, and fed on the spilled grain of the nearby flour mill. (Seattle Department of Engineering. SWSHS/Log House Museum FIC2006.0936) 
Puget Lobe Quartz (Wikipedia) Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica (silicon dioxide). The atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon–oxygen tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tetrahedra, giving an overall chemical formula of SiO2. Quartz is the second most abundant mineral in Earth’s continental crust, behind feldspar. Rainier Beach, Seattle (Wikipedia) Rainier Beach (/reɪˈnɪər/ ray-NEER) is a set of neighborhoods in Seattle, Washington that are mostly residential. Also called Atlantic City, Rainier Beach can include Dunlap, Pritchard Island, and Rainier View neighborhoods. René Descartes (1596–1650), 1647 - 1648 Frans Hals | SMK Open (open.smk.dk) 
Roosevelt, Seattle (Wikipedia) Roosevelt is a neighborhood in north Seattle, Washington. Its main thoroughfare, originally 10th Avenue, was renamed Roosevelt Way upon Theodore Roosevelt’s death in 1919. The neighborhood received the name as the result of a Community Club contest held eight years later, in 1927. Sea of Azov (Wikipedia) The Sea of Azov (Crimean Tatar: Azaq deñizi; Russian: Азовское море, romanized: Azovskoye more; Ukrainian: Азовське море, romanized: Azovs’ke more; Adyghe: Хы мыутӏэ, romanized: Xı mıut’ə) is an inland shelf sea in Eastern Europe connected to the Black Sea by the narrow (about 4 km (2.5 mi)) Strait of Kerch, and is sometimes regarded as a northern extension of the Black Sea. The sea is bounded by Russia on the east, and by Ukraine on the northwest and southwest, currently under Russian occupation. It is an important access route for Central Asia, from the Caspian Sea via the Volga–Don Canal. Seattle Neighborhoods: Madison Park — Thumbnail History (historylink.org) The Madison Park neighborhood of Seattle is situated on the western shore of Lake Washington. The Duwamish peoples who originally inhabited it called it “Where One Chops.” The Duwamish shared the forested banks, swamps, and inlets with bear, deer, otter, and mink. After Seattle was founded in the 1850s, Madison Park became a favorite picnic and recreational area. Judge John J. McGilvra (1827-1903), the area’s first developer, purchased land and opened Madison Street at his own expense in 1864-1865. Today Madison Park is an affluent, end-of-the-carline residential district on Lake Washington which has a small, elegant shopping area. Shinglebolt Slough Restoration Project (snohomishcountywa.gov) The Shinglebolt Slough project is a mainstem, off-channel, riparian, and floodplain restoration project. The project is located along the Skykomish River mainstem and active floodplain. Several project alternatives will be evaluated – looking at existing flood and infrastructure conditions, modeled river hydrology, and predicted changes in river morphology – to determine ecological and flood benefits, as well as infrastructure resiliency needs. 
Smiling above the erosion
Solaris (Atari 2600) screenshotSpokane, Washington Squak Mountain (Wikipedia) Squak Mountain is the second most westerly mountain of the Issaquah Alps mountain chain in Washington state. It is situated between Cougar Mountain to the west and Tiger Mountain to the east. Interstate 90 parallels the base of the north side of the mountain. Much of the Squak Mountain watershed drains into Lake Sammamish. Most of the mountain is protected by Squak Mountain State Park and the Cougar/Squak and Squak/Tiger Corridors of King County. Star Tales - Aquarius (ianridpath.com) Star maps show Aquarius as a young man pouring water from a jar or amphora, although Ovid, in his Fasti, says the liquid is a mixture of water and nectar, the drink of the gods. The water jar is marked by a Y-shaped asterism of four stars centred on 4th-magnitude Zeta Aquarii, and the stream ends in the mouth of the Southern Fish, Piscis Austrinus. Who is this young man commemorated as Aquarius? Stillwater, Washington County, Minnesota, was located in 1838 and named in 1842 by John McKasick, because, owing to the great depth of the waters in the river (St. Croix), and from the fact that the fall in the water until it reaches the Mississippi River, is very slight, the waters ran very still. At an early day the town was called Dakotah from the Dakota (Sioux) Indian tribe. Tertiary (Wikipedia) Tertiary (/ˈtɜːr.ʃə.ri, ˈtɜːr.ʃiˌɛr.i/ TUR-shə-ree, TUR-shee-err-ee) is an obsolete term for the geologic period from 66 million to 2.6 million years ago. The period began with the demise of the non-avian dinosaurs in the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, at the start of the Cenozoic Era, and extended to the beginning of the Quaternary glaciation at the end of the Pliocene Epoch. The time span covered by the Tertiary has no exact equivalent in the current geologic time system, but it is essentially the merged Paleogene and Neogene periods, which are informally called the Early Tertiary and the Late Tertiary, respectively. The Bureau The County Hall of Records houses the County Clerk-Recorder’s office and sits at the north-west corner of the Courthouse building. The diversity of your experience is necessaray for our survival. The Doors (Wikipedia) The Doors were an American rock band formed in Los Angeles in 1965, with vocalist Jim Morrison, keyboardist Ray Manzarek, guitarist Robby Krieger, and drummer John Densmore. They were among the most influential and controversial rock acts of the 1960s, partly due to Morrison’s lyrics and voice, along with his erratic stage persona. The group is widely regarded as an important figure of the era’s counterculture. The Field of God The Gradient The periodic rupturing of ice dams at Glacial Lake Missoula resulted in the Missoula Floods, with discharges exceeding the combined flow of all the other rivers in the world, dozens of times over thousands of years. The Rich Thirteen Ways of Looking at Art (salmagundi.skidmore.edu) Art is useless, said Wilde. Art is for art’s sake—that is, for beauty’s sake. But why do we possess a sense of beauty to begin with? A question we will never answer. Perhaps it’s just a kind of superfluity of sexual attraction. Nature needs us to feel drawn to other human bodies, but evolution is imprecise. In order to go far enough, to make that feeling strong enough, it went too far. Others are powerfully lovely to us, but so, in a strangely different, strangely similar way, are flowers and sunsets. Art, in turn, this line of thought might go, is a response to natural beauty. Stunned by it, we seek to rival it, to reproduce it, to prolong it. Flowers fade, sunsets melt from moment to moment; the love of bodies brings us grief. Art abides. “When old age shall this generational waste, / Thou shalt remain.” To get credit To the American people who are struggling right now, know this: We hear you. We see you. We smell you. We’re inside your kitchen right now looking through your fridge. And what’s that on the top shelf? Migrants.
Scarlett Johansson, Saturday Night LiveTrain at night in Meadowdale Bearch Park Transnistria (Wikipedia) Transnistria, or Pridnestrovie, officially known as the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic (PMR), is a breakaway state internationally recognized as part of Moldova. Transnistria controls most of the narrow strip of land between the Dniester river and the Moldova–Ukraine border, as well as some land on the other side of the river’s bank. Its capital and largest city is Tiraspol. Transnistria is officially designated by the Republic of Moldova as the Administrative-Territorial Units of the Left Bank of the Dniester (Romanian: Unitățile Administrativ-Teritoriale din stînga Nistrului) or as Stînga Nistrului (“Left (Bank) of the Dniester”). U.S. Route 2 (Wikipedia) U.S. Route 2 or U.S. Highway 2 (US 2) is an east–west United States Numbered Highway spanning 2,571 miles (4,138 km) across the northern continental United States. US 2 consists of two segments connected by various roadways in southern Canada. Unlike some routes, which are disconnected into segments because of encroaching Interstate Highways, the two portions of US 2 were designed to be separate in the original 1926 highway plan. 
View the TODO list for things that need to be done. Washington State Route 542 (Wikipedia) State Route 542 (SR 542) is a 57.24-mile-long (92.12 km) state highway in the U.S. state of Washington, serving Mount Baker in Whatcom County. SR 542 travels east as the Mount Baker Highway from an interchange with Interstate 5 (I-5) in Bellingham through the Nooksack River valley to the Mt. Baker Ski Area at Austin Pass. It serves as the main highway to Mount Baker and the communities of Deming, Kendall, and Maple Falls along the Nooksack River. The highway was constructed in 1893 by Whatcom County as a wagon road between Bellingham and Maple Falls and was added to the state highway system as a branch of State Road 1 in 1925. The branch was transferred to Primary State Highway 1 (PSH 1) during its creation in 1937 and became SR 542 during the 1964 highway renumbering. Washington State Route 9 (Wikipedia) State Route 9 (SR 9) is a 98.17-mile (157.99 km) long state highway traversing three counties, Snohomish, Skagit, and Whatcom, in the U.S. state of Washington. The highway extends north from an interchange with SR 522 in the vicinity of Woodinville north through Snohomish, Lake Stevens, Arlington, Sedro-Woolley, and Nooksack to become British Columbia Highway 11 (BC 11) at the Canada–US border in Sumas. Three other roadways are briefly concurrent with the route: SR 530 in Arlington, SR 20 in Sedro-Woolley, and SR 542 near Deming. A spur route in Sumas serves trucks traveling into British Columbia. Western Europe What worries you, masters you.
John LockeWhere was Richard Francis Burton in August 1864? Wisconsin Central Bridge Ruins, Somerset, WI (johnweeks.com) The Wisconsin Central bridge over the Saint Croix river was built in 1884 by the Union Bridge & Iron Works. The Wisconsin Central was pushing west, and this bridge was the last link to connect Milwaukee and Chicago to Saint Paul. The bridge features a number of very well crafted cut-stone piers. There were nine 160-foot deck truss spans, one 160-foot pin-connected though truss span, and 25 plate girder spans, each 30-feet long. Woodway, Washington (Wikipedia) Woodway is a city in Snohomish County, Washington, United States. The population was 1,318 at the 2020 census. WWUS74 KLIX 281550 NPWLIX URGENT — WEATHER MESSAGE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE NEW ORLEANS LA 1011 AM CDT SUN AUG 28, 2005 
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