Picture I took of the Catskills:



A winter's night:



Pine Cone:


Sunset:

After work today, I sat outside under the trees, listening to podcasts and eating lunch. It felt so great to be out in the warm weather and fresh air. I've been feeling happy in general lately.

One of the podcasts I was listening to (NPR Science Friday) is about some of the first recorded sounds, some created by french scientists before Edison developed phonographic technology. Some of those first sounds are actually on this website ().
There are actually photoautograms sounds from 1857 on it. It's not very discernible, but I still find it interesting. The first guy who really developed this kind of technology was a french scientist. He wasn't interested really in the idea of records. Mostly, he just wanted to translate sound into a record on paper. I guess that was where he and Edison differed.

Oh, and I went with a friend lately to a good Indian restaurant downtown (Gandhi's). I wasn't sure if that was the one e:James had suggested to me, but I liked it. They made excellent Naan(?) bread and a chicken dish that I can't remember the name of.

I was wondering... if you had to make a choice between Internet Explorer and Safari as a web browser, which one would you pick? I've always had IE, and recently Safari was downloaded for me along with the newest version of Itunes. I was trying to figure which would be the best as my default browser.

It was another gorgeous, warm day here. I love it! I went to a coffee shop and just sat outdoors and did my work. I felt so much better to be able to do that in the fresh air.

The sky today:

I wish I could help out my parents more with financial stuff and things that they need. My dad had to stop working a couple of years back because of illness that was pretty serious. He has a good attitude about his disease, even though he's in pain most of the time. My dad gets a pension which is decent and my mom works part-time, but the medical bills are high.

I'd like to help them with their bills. I also wish I could buy them a stove that actually worked, and a good dryer. I'd buy them the materials to fix the porch. I'd treat my mom to a vacation because is under a lot of stress much of the time.

I don't make a very big salary. After paying rent and bills- it's hard to find much extra. I wish there was more I could do for the people I cared about.

Everything is going well here. It's a little stressful the next couple of weeks with papers/projects/grading/teaching etc. I've really been liking the school and my job lately. I've felt a lot better about both this semester. I may have a couple of part-time jobs this summer that might be decent. I'm not 100% sure if they are hiring me, though.

Thank you all for the advice about the internet stuff. I have been using safari as my default browser, and I really like it. I may try firefox too.

The first pregnant man?


This was a story I found about a guy who carried his twin in his stomach for almost forty years:

(I never knew something like that could happen as well).