Buddha’s Hand in Uppercase and Lowercase

The bizarre plant of the month is called Buddha’s Hand:

Also know as fingered citron, it looks like a lemon that met a creative chief with amazing carving skills.  But reality is stranger, it actually grows this way.

They couldn’t fix my camera, so they gave me a new one to replace it!   Coolpix S8200.   This guy modeled for me on our carpet so I could test out the macro focus:

We had a great Thanksgiving visit with Mom and Dad:

We touristed Antelope Island, an Island in the Great Salt Lake that is semi-famous for one of the few places where Bison were not exterminated by hoards of white men with big guns in the 1800s.  So they called it Antelope Island.  Maybe Bison are like Antelope.  Except bigger.  And blacker.  And less jumpier.

We also had a great visit with the Tim, Sue, and Abby.  Tim plays a mean game of ping pong.  Checked out the frightened yellow ping pong ball in this shot … I think it pee-ed its pants in fear of the upcoming hit (you can see a left a trail of yellow to the left of it):

And Abbey has the rare innate ability to hula-hoop in either direction … took me a lot of practice to be able to do that:

We were all surprised to see that Abbey had a growth spurt and is now as tall as 6’ 2”Tim!  Maybe it was the hula-hooping.

We visited the new Natural History museum.  That guy about to eat Dad is a ancient sloth bear:

And here Mom and Sue are planning a rare gem heist:

Last weekend we went to the Annual Epilepsy conference, this time in Baltimore.   This is taken from an skyscraper observation deck, looking down on the historic USS Constellation.   Those tents in the corner are from “Occupy Baltimore” … I wonder what the 1800’s ship’s crew would have thought of the tent city protest.

They had a science museum with this cool 10 foot globe magically suspended in air with various movies displayed on it:

This was a 200+ tower that made ‘drop shot’ for guns by dropping molten lead from the top into water at the bottom.  Was the tallest structure in the US for 20 years:

In this museum I learned that the term UpperCase and LowerCase come from they way they stored the moveable types used in early printing presses … the big types were in the upper case, the smaller ones were in the lower case.  True story.  I think our tour guide invented it (that part probably not true, but maybe his Dad did):

I’ve been having a lot of fun with the piano.   I took out the keyboard assembly to count all the parts need to make a piano.   Helen was terrified.    

I got up to about 10,000, about 8000 in the key assembly alone, then decided to count the number of lights we can see at night in the Salt Lake City valley instead.   Seemed easier, but I’m still counting.

B

15 Minute Snowman

2 unrelated mystery photos this week.    This first one is NOT an electron microscope photo of flower pollen (I don’t have an electron microscope … yet):

The challenge on this photo is not what is in the middle of it, but rather how it was composed:

My camera is in the shop again (the 2 year $30 extended warrantee on pocket cameras is highly recommended), so only a few iphone photos this month.     We had our first snowstorm last weekend.   I constructed this 8 foot snowman in 15 minutes, likely a new world time record!  (for our backyard anyway):

Speaking of records, I broke last summer’s no shower/bath record.  This year, using our handy pool and hot tub, I got through 5 months, May –> Sept.    This hair was washed once in the last 6.5 months (our trip to Boulder last month):

Not too slimy (is wet, not dirty), but was a bit long.   Helen fixed that:

For those of you still pondering that second mystery photo and have not cheated by looking at the bottom of the post, here is a second clue (this is a ‘before’ photo):

I thought I had escorted all the mice out of our house (5 of them), but recently found this guy trapped in our food cabinet, trying to knaw his way out.  The food was on the upper shelves, a mouse's worst nightmare, trapped in a box inches away from nirvana:

A spider in our garage DID achieve nirvana … he trapped this poor guy, giving him enough food for at least a couple of big spider Thanksgivings dinners:

That first mystery photo was another exotic vegetable that Helen foraged.   Some sort of cauliflower: 

That second photo is much more exciting.   I bought myself an early xmas present … we have a new baby in the house!

Technically, at 6’ 1”, this is a parlor or boudoir grand piano, as Baby Grands are < 5.5’, but we like calling him Baby. 

I’ve been monitoring ebay, craigslist, and local showrooms for a few months, looking for bargains on used pianos, but finally decided on a new entry level brand, Story & Clark at $7.5k. 

Pretty pricy, but could have done much worse.  New brand names start at $30k and a 6’ Steinway costs $60k.   Kind of glad I’m not good enough to fully appreciate the difference.

Bugs

In this month’s mystery photo, you get to guess the purpose of this mini devils tower (end of post answer):

We celebrated Rosh Hashanah a few weeks ago, the Jewish New Year, with two other couples.  There was a lot of good food, even after our ovens ate much of it in impressive smoke belching displays (we need to learn how to use oven timers).  I managed to launch that cooked fish on the left,  off the oven, over the counter, and onto a chair, somehow landing right side up:

To further demonstrate my occasional crazy behavior, here I am  dialed into three work conference calls at the same time.   I do it for the technological challenge, not for any productive reason, as I’m not able to converse with any one of those calls, and when I try, I often un-mute the wrong one and everyone else joins me in being very confused:

I’ve been having fun touring Salt Lake on my bike, seeing what interesting things pop up.   Here is a monument to the short lived Pony Express.  For $5 (>$100 today) you could send a 0.5 oz letter, which would be carried by a < 125lb rider at 15 mph, changing horses every 15 miles, and changing riders every 10 hours, day an night, crossing the country in 8 days.  

And here is a Matterhorn replica found in the Swiss section of a very pretty and flower full Peace Garden:

Not far from there was another Pyramid, used by a group that does ‘Modern Mummification’.   Human prices start at $70k, but you can do your pet and have him live in your living room forever for $20k:

 

Last weekend we drove to Bolder to attend Noah’s Master’s concert … he did good:

We brought Irena a sampling of roses from her backyard (she and Boris have been in the UK and NH for a few months), which is flowering wonderfully:

We met up with one of Helen’s friends for a quick hike up the famous Bolder Flatirons:

Yesterday I went on a hike up the trail near here.  Even red-green colorblind me could see beautiful colors in the changing trees:

It snowed last weekend, so the mountains have prettied up:

My goal was to climb Black Mountain, which is somewhere along this ridge on the left:

I overshot it (apparently it is not marked) and hiked almost to the other end where I met up with another crazy hiker who had also underestimated his hike (supposed to be 4 hours, we ended up at 9 hours). We teamed up, keeping each other company for the long hike back. Fortunately, he had found a flashlight someone had lost … came in pretty handy as we didn’t make it back until 2 hours after sunset.

I’m goanna close with some bug photos.   Zach, close your eyes as you will not like this first one, my first tarantula:

These guys were guarding the entrance to what I imagined to be the New York City for wasps:

This guy I had never met until yesterday.   He is called a Jerusalem Cricket, which is really weird as he is not a cricket and he is not found in Jerusalem.   He is big (2-3”) and scary looking, but relatively harmless (he can bite, but no venom): 

And finally, some more photos from my new favorite bug.  Not only can they pray, but they pose well:

And they enjoy a good sunset, like we do:

Bruce

… almost forgot, the Devils Tower mystery photo.   It is a bike jump, although I think I’d call it a bike funeral home.   Those dirt bikers are insane!

Mouse in the House

Today’s mystery photo is brought to you by cholera:

We had the last of our summer visitors,  Ina and family from New York.  The standard protocol for entertaining guests in Salt Lake City is to throw them into the Great Salt Lake:

If you look closely (click to enlarge), you can see Helen way off in the distance.  She was trying to find a deeper spot, but I think that is 10 miles out (deepest spot is 30 feet).

Selly was an unstoppable swimmer.  My daily swims became more of a challenge as she would hang onto my foot for a ride, was a good workout.   After she wore me out, she would then wear down Ina, and she STILL had hours of swimming left in her.

We took a visit to the Kennecott open pit Copper mine.  2 miles across, 3/4 a mile deep:

Helen was fascinated by the big trucks with 10 foot tall tires.  At the bottom of the mine they look like ants.   Here she is trying to pick them up with her fingers:

I found this happy guy in her sunglasses:

And I found this happy guy living under our dishwasher (still negotiating a territorial treaty with him):

And this guy found us one night.  Just as we were about to go to bed, he comes galloping into our living room, via a garage door I had left open:

After checking out our house, Helen got him settled down and I found a distraught neighbor outside, looking for his dog. 

Yesterday we had a pool party for Helen’s EEG group.   Was great fun, with 30+ guests, including her dept. chair, who here is not sitting in a chair:

I’m continuing to explore the trails near here.  This is up City Creek, which feeds directly into downtown:

And on that hike I discovered the land of the dragonflies:

Some more backyard critter photos.  This is the squirrel that gets very upset when I visit our backyard when he is using it:

And this is a Magpie that is just waiting for Helen to take off her gold watch when she goes swimming.  These guys are famous for stealing shiny things:

This is a morning dove about to poop on a finch:

And here we have a hawk towering over the Salt Lake City library:

 

So that mystery photo was a close up of the beak of this dead bird, found on the shore of the Great Salt Lake:

Every few years, depending largely on weather conditions,  a bacteria wakes up and kills thousands of birds.  Called Avian Cholera, it doesn’t affect humans …. at least not yet  (dun, dun dah … that was my scary-apocalypse-could-happen-any-minute sound).

Bruce