Walking Is Good For You

This one is fun. It calculates how close you are to various helpful services:

http://walkscore.com/

HiltonHouse got a "17", although Betty & Rudy got a "37." Go figure.

Evolution Of The Flag

You must know that I'm a sucker for this stuff. Anyway, here's the history of the US Flag, with an additional guide to the state flags.

I like the Maryland state flag because it's a wonderful design. I like the Hawaii state flag because it looks somewhat British. I like the California state flag because it's so naive.

Ah, well. Go to:

http://www.usflag.org/history/historicflags.html

What A Difference . . .

36 Years Make!



Click on the image above (and scroll right) to get a preview of what you can see full-screen if you copy and paste the following:

http://pic.templetons.com/cgi-bin/imget?f=brad/pano/midpano/sf71.jpg

This is a panoramic photo from the tippy top of the San Francisco Bay Bridge in 1971, the year that our daughter was born.

Note:
All the freeways
No Sutro TV Tower
Embarcadero Center under construction
TransAmerica Pyramid 1/2 built

I find it fascinating!

Damp England

This is Tewkesbury, about an hour South of Bromsgrove, after the Great Floods of 2007.

Meanwhile, the BBC has mashed some of their current flooding information onto Google Maps. See:

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&ll=51.507033,-0.942078&spn=0.363271,0.925598&z=10&om=1&msid=110697284745114202648.000435deadb5810139523

(cut and paste)

Learning How To Drum

This is fun. (Speakers up high.)



See what I mean? Some proud father, apparently, started filming his son at age two (notice the lower left corner) and kept it up until age 11.

Fortunately, the kid had natural rhythm, great learning potential, and loved to make a lot of noise.

Cathedral of Christ The Light, Oakland

Listen up. ,This is important.




On the shores of Lake Merritt is arising the new Cathedral for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Oakland.



The Bishop's new house has been designed by Craig Hartman, with structural engineering by Bill Baker, both of SOM - San Francisco. The structure is the architecture, and it all will be highlighted by the glass skin. It's a stunner!



Forget the funny-looking eccentric stainless-steel off-balance jokes currently being designed and built around the world. They are nothing.

This Cathedral may well be the first significant building of the 21st Century.

Read all about it at: http://www.som.com/content.cfm/into_the_light

(Click the images for larger views)

Now, We'll Look For A Bandmaster

(a short one, perhaps.)



And a small band for him to master.

Where The Grass Is Greener

I have no idea of what the significance of this unusual map is. I don't even know why otherwise intelligent adults would admit to spending their time compiling the necessary data.

But, here it is. . .a map of grass lawns in the United States.



Some say that we Americans have more acreage devoted to lawn than to corn. I doubt that.

Comments are invited.

God Bless America

This one is tough. Only in America?



A Hmong couple weeding the corn field in the Midwest...July 2007.

Think about it.

The Queen Mum

A bit overly dramatic, don't you think? With her right hand halfway inside her tunic, perhaps it would be more appropriate.

(An american photographer, no less.)

Camouflage!

Can you spot the large, long-eared, rodent?



(HT: http://ninacamic.blogspot.com/)

Domination Dominates!

UPDATE! Ichiro was selected MVP for the AllStar Game. A Hybrid Suburban is his!

Well, the All-Star game is over, and the American League beat the National League (think A's beat Giants) for the 10th time in the last 11 games! And the other game was a tie!



This one was 5-4, and the ninth inning was kind of suspenseful. That's baseball. It's sometimes beautiful.

One highlight was an inside-the-park home run by Ichiro Suzuki of that Mariner team from the soggy city North of here. First inside-the-park homer in All-Star history.

Here's the ball that Ichiro hit for his homer. I just bought it on EBay:


The National League is saying "Just wait 'til next year."

Heh

Next To My Wife -

I love the fog in San Francisco Bay:



It's about 10 p.m. Friday night. Last night it was 90F at this time. Tonight it's 61F.

Speaking of Famous Paintings. . .

Here's a version of Grant Wood's "American Gothic" that you may not have seen before.

At The Creation . . .

There was coffee?

(who knew?)

Lazy, Hazy Days of Summer

It's a beautiful, unusual, midweek vacation day in California today - cloudless skies, mild westerly breeze, mid-90's temperatures. The A's lost, but otherwise, not bad. Not bad at all.

On the other side of the pond, however, the Brits have been having a go. Here's London, for instance:



Is it Global Climate Disarrangement? Who knows? The elected-but-uninaugurated President, Mr. Gore, surely thinks so, and is holding global-excess concerts all over the world, jetting from one to the other leaving carbon in his wake. Back on Earth:



But Algore's son, Algore III, got picked up in a drug-filled PRIUS for going over 100 mph! Who knew a Prius could go 100 mph? Algore III got kicked out of St. Albans School for smoking pot a few years ago, I seem to recall.



That London Lady looks chilly. It's early July. I feel confused.

Happy 4th of July!

231st

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY AMERICA !

Does Granddaughter II Have An Attitude?

d'ya think?

APOD!

It's the "Astronomy Picture of the Day" and it's from NASA, daily, compiled from vast image collections of space from sources all around the globe. Really interesting, artistically-fascinating pictures. Pick one or two and download them to your computer wallpaper...it sure beats green hills and clouds!

Go to: http://apod.nasa.gov/ (Cut and paste)