ANNA’S HUMMINGBIRD A male Anna’s Hummingbird showing his bright, irridescent gorget. This color is not contained in any pigment in the feathers, but is caused by the refraction of the light which is caused by the physical structure of the feathers. ANNA’S HUMMINGBIRD A side view of the same Anna’s Hummingbird. The gorget on his chin [...]
Central America is the site of contending crustal plates–notably the Cocos Plate in the Pacific Ocean which is being subducted beneath the Caribbean Plate right off the western coast of central america at a rate of 72-81 mm/yr. It’s this area where the Central America Volcanic Arc exists which forms the volcanoes of Guatemala, El Salvador, [...]
This is Concepcion, a volcano, forming part of an island (Ometepe) in the middle of Lake Nicarauga. It was putting forth steam and smoke just as our plane flew over. There was a heavier cloud of material that you can just see on the other side of the volcano which was proceeding [...]
I had a fantastic time in Costa Rica. It was over too soon! I added lots of new species of birds to my life list, and saw lots of wildlife and terrific scenery. I’ll try and talk about the trip in the future. It’s too much to talk about all at once, so I’ll probably [...]
My father returned home from the hospital today! He had open heart surgery last Monday (Jan 25) which went very well. I guess they said that he could have gone home yesterday (Friday), but he said he wasn’t ready to leave yet! Four days seems like a very short stay after such major surgery, [...]
Last Thursday (Jan 21) my father had some chest pain after returning from the store. It wouldn’t go away, and soon my father realized that this wasn’t the normal discomfort that he sometimes felt from the acid reflux which he sometimes has. Then he did something out of character–he asked his next door neighbor to [...]
It is Christmas Eve, 11:55 pm, and I am alone at work, getting ready to go out into the frosty night. Once again I think back on past times with my family as I have many times before. I haven’t posted much lately because I have been working so many long hours, but soon [...]
I was wondering why people were staring at me at the Mississippi visitor’s center last summer after I had pulled off Interstate 10. I checked my zipper, nope…wiped my nose, nope nothing there, then I realized that I was wearing two pairs of glasses, one low down on my nose and the other right above [...]
When I reached the beach on my walk two Sundays ago, I saw a large black body out in the water, then a great fin protruding above the surface. At first I was confused as to what I was seeing, then everything clicked into place, and I realized that I was watching a pod of [...]
I was reading the paper today, and when I got to the funny papers (comics), I found an odd thing. I kept seeing the same references to volunteerism and community service in many of the strips. Below is a summary of what I found: Garfield: “Today I volunteered to help clean up the city park.” [...]
