Time is a river…and where is Huck when I need him?

crates | June 30, 2007

      
 
As a child
On the way to school
My pants were painted
With daubs of yellow
As I walked through
 Fields of nodding flowers
 
I’m not sure how it all came on…this feeling of loss.  I was thinking how as a child, my friends and I would hike across a grassy prairie to Jim Miller Woods in Pleasant Grove, now a [...]

Don’t worry about the tropical rain forests, we’ll still have the freaking tree farms!

crates | June 29, 2007

Not too many  years ago, a French company after comparing satellite images said that Washington state had cut relatively more forest than had been cleared in the Amazonian rain forest.  This came at a time when alarms were being spread around the world concerning the rate at which the rainforests of that area were disappearing.
Weyerhaeuser (“the tree growing company”) responded indignantly by saying [...]

Score one for the Bald Eagle, but what about less glamourous species?

crates | June 28, 2007

     There was an article in the paper a few days ago talking about how the common birds of Washington State are diminishing drastically in numbers.  Today they took the American Bald Eagle off the endangered species list, but unfortunately many of these common birds don’t have the glamour nor do they occupy public awareness as does the magnificent [...]

What? You fish with STINK BAIT?

crates | June 27, 2007

     Everybody is familiar with the pervasive bigotry and racism that has so long run like a dark strain of feculence through so many societies.  Today,  in our society at least, most of us join together in condemning these destructive attitudes that have caused so much pain, suffering and death.  We do this despite the fact [...]

Should this loss bother me this much?

crates | June 26, 2007

     For many years I have admired this incredible stand of Western Redcedar beside the road that I travel.  Almost daily I rested my eyes upon the lush beauty of this thick growth of evergreens which appeared to form an impenetrable wall along the road.  It was dark beneath the trees in the few places that I could [...]

Bent to the left

crates | June 22, 2007

I am left handed, my mother was left handed, and her mother was left handed; beyond that I am unsure.  Lefties have always been not only passively discriminated against but also actively.  My grandmother was forced to only use her right hand in school and ever after did so when she wrote.  A friend of mine [...]

The Y-Chromosome and another test

crates | June 21, 2007

Sometimes in an effort to understand something, I’ll read about it and make an outline for myself which helps me to grasp the main ideas. I’ve been reading about the Y chromosome, and about some of the implications of recent research about this gender determining chromosome.
You may already know that sex in humans is determined [...]

RATITES…THE FLIGHTLESS BIRDS OF GONDWANA and the Nerd Test

crates | June 18, 2007

Ever wonder why some organisms occur on all or almost all the southern continents?  Paleontologists noticed that a certain plant fossil, Glossopteris, was found in rock deposits (Permian-Triassic) of  Africa, South America, Anarctica, Australia and India.  This led some to believe that there was once a large southern land mass that was eventually named Gonwana after the district in [...]

Father’s Day and Freshwater Mussels

crates | June 17, 2007

 This (June 16) is one of my long days beginning just after 6 am and ending in a couple more hours around 2 am. 
I’m trying an experiment by not putting a heading for this entry yet.  Yesterday I tried to add to a previous entry that had a heading and got error messages about the heading when [...]

Hotel Angela…ah, Hotel Angela

crates | June 15, 2007

Why do my thoughts keep returning to Hotel Angela?  Why do I long to return to this little funky hotel on that muddy street in Bocas del Toro, Panama?
Perhaps it is because of it’s remarkable owner, Claudio, who will bend over backwards to help you in any way possible;  perhaps it was the clean and simple [...]

"Miscellaneous Information"

FOR A TABLE OF CONTENTS ARRANGED BY SUBJECT CATEGORY, CLICK ON THE SITE MAP LINK. Much of this blog is a way for me to learn more about things that interest me and then share them with others. It is also presented from my own perspective and slant which is, of course, quite idiosyncratic. Feel free to leave comments. :)


About the author

crates

Just an ordinary guy who loves: everything biological, photography, science fiction (SF), books, new ideas, interesting people, life in all its aspects. Ok, you can wake up now...