Greetings from Gurnee!

[opus]

That's all. Just sitting here remembering the time I met Trevor here. That was a good day.

It's chilly here today; how about the rest of you?

[Trevor Ash]

Hi Kelly! I saw your name, and Gurnee, and remembered the same thing.

This morning I got up early and did a ~30 mile ride in the Barrington Hills/Dundee area with a few other fixed gear riders. We did the same thing a month ago and are making it a monthly thing (next month is going to be freezing!!).

We have breakfast afterwards at a little place that has a "Bed and Breakfast" feel to it. I had a stack of three buttermilk pancakes with whipped butter. The other fellas had some delicious looking omelettes and french toast. I don't describe it as well as it tasted, trust me on that one.

I got home, threw my clothes in the washer and took an hour long bath. It's been a good day so far.

Here's a couple photos of our bikes (mine's the one with the red bartape) The black bike is pretty cool I think

I'm thinking of you too kellybean

[opus]

omelettes ... french toast ... buttermilk pancakes with whipped butter ...


you described them just fine.

Hey, are you another soul in the world who doesn't use syrup on pancakes? Tell me I'm not the only one who appreciates the simple taste of whipped butter on pancakes without any added sweetening ...

[Trevor Ash]

No syrup for me It's not so lonely after all is it?

[opus]

[walterick]

That's all. Just sitting here remembering the time I met Trevor here. That was a good day.

It's chilly here today; how about the rest of you?

Yeah it's getting chilly here too. I think it was down round 73 last night. Right now it's still 90 fun loving degrees outside. Brrrrr!

I went for a walk in the Phoenix Preserve this morning where there were many mountain bikers also doing their thing. I rambled up a huge mountain in record time, took in the breathtaking views of the Salt River Valley, and proceeded to bushwack my way back down the backside of the mountain after a little good-spirited exploring.

Got home and did laundry, but our drain in the laundry room is backing up and I can only do a half-load at a time. That, and keep an ear constantly pointed toward the door to catch the sound of the water pouring out. Girlfriend is in SoCal with her family and I can't find the Drain-o.

After laundry I took to the kitchen and whipped up a "scrambled omelette" as my grandmother calls them. Sauteed onion, garlic, turkey, and Rosemary. 4 eggs, a dash of milk, romano and parmesan. Yummm! Makes me happy. I have yet to make the same eggs twice!

Since then I've been working on my paper for school. It's on childhood bilingualism, pretty interesting stuff. I just don't have any interest in doing it right now. Looking forward to being distracted... thanks Kelly for the opportunity to procrastinate Later I get to start reading two chapters of my text a day to get caught for class next weekend.

I didn't take any pictures this morning's walk though I should have. Here's a couple old ones just to keep it in the vein.

I love happy Saturdays

[opus]

oh gee thanks, walterick, in your procrastination you force me to do my homework! I've sat here most of the day procrastinating on reading my textbook, until finally I logged off the computer, took a little snooze (in the cafe at Borders! ) and then read my chapter. Walter, your pictures demonstrate what I was reading! Reflection, refraction and scattering in the atmosphere.

SO: the reason the sky is blue is because of scattering (of light). All those short blue and red wavelengths hit the tiny dust particles in the atmosphere and scatter in all directions. But at sunset, because of the angle of the sun, the shorter (blue and violet) wavelengths can't make it through so much atmosphere -- only the reds and yellows do.

Your second picture, the rainbow, is due to refraction, or bending of light, due to the change of speed the light experiences when passing through the higher density water droplets.

AND, the cloud cover depicted in both pictures have different effects on earth's temperature. The higher clouds allow the sun's energy to pass down to the earth, but trap and absorb the infrared radiation coming up from the earth, making the earth warmer ("cloud-greenhouse forcing"). The lower clouds don't allow as much of the sun's energy to reach earth ("cloud-albedo forcing"), so the earth stays cooler.

Let's see, can I get anything else from your pictures? Well, I could get into what albedo is, but I think I'll spare you.

This was, of course, greatly simplified. But, I demonstrated knowledge of what I read.

Now I need to read my other textbook, about earthquakes. Interesting how this Pakistan earthquake happened just as we're starting our unit on earthquakes. Hurricanes Katrina and Rita have found their way into both my Environmental Geology class, and my Geology: Weather & Climate class. I picked a good year to take my science credits, I guess!

Thanks Walter!

[adina]

I cleaned my house yesterday.

[another view]

Yeah it was cold and windy, but I still had to make it out on the water in my kayak. Probably wouldn't have gone if he didn't call, and I'm glad he did. We went a different direction than usual, and saw a bunch of rowers practicing for today's big race - which I didn't make it down to watch this year. When we were loading up afterwards, another kayak landed at the same spot so we walked over to say hi.

Turns out he's paddled half the length of the Rock River, from the headwaters north of Horicon Marsh in central WI to this spot, where he grew up. He's been at it all spring/summer, paddling a different section every time, and it's been a couple hundred miles so far. He's seen at least one bald eagle every time out, and one day saw more eagles than people. Who woulda thunk? I thought that was a really cool way to spend the year.