garden karyotype

it looks like a healthy garden

here is the karyotype of a human female for comparison.

or a male with trisomy 21 (downs syndrome)

lake. city. lake.

what city did legendary new york city newspaper editor horace greeley call, "the most magnificent site of any inland town he ever saw?"

watch and find out.

e.p.a. shuts down local ghost-entrapment business

they aren't afraid of any individual ghost.
read more

more genius work from the onion.

willy street #2

here is a short montage of some pictures from the willy street fair parade, set to the music of the 17 hippies (see previous post for more details). this doesn't really do the bizarrity of the parade justice, so you'll have to extrapolate out to understand how strange and fun it is.



good times.

willy street

this past weekend was the willy street fair. our sister site did a very thorough job of covering the events of sunday afternoon. rather than duplicating a lot of what was covered there, we thought we'd blog about about some additional highlights from the fair.

the headliners on the main stage saturday night were the 17 hippies, from berlin, germany. they are a very high energy, eclectic group. as best i can recall, they play 2 accordions, 2 clarinets, a stand up bass, several different guitars, mandolin, trumpet, trombone, fiddle, cello, and many other instruments i'm forgetting. it was super duper enjoyable. here's a snippet of the show.


a lot of very important people attended the fair. take these two, for example.

here's riley d. dog stretching out after a dip in the kiddie pool (and lookin' sharp).
in the background is the wonderful new (used) pogo stick that marta bought me at a neighborhood second hand sale. i had recently been talking about how i'd like a pogo stick, and she jumped at the opportunity (pun intended). here are some of the many pogo highlights from sunday.

notable manholes

the city of madison has been putting these fancy new manhole covers in as they redo the city streets. i snapped a photo of this cover down by state street and library mall. i'd say it definitely holds its own with other good ones i've seen.

no photography in the gallery

mmoca (madison museum of contemporary art) is currently hosting an exhibit of george segal's sculptures. of course, we mean this george segal, not this george segal. the exhibit is both spooky and soothing, and highlights the minutiae of everyday life.

david didn't know about the no photography in the gallery rules, so he snapped this photo.

the glass staircase in the museum is encircled by a cascade of multi-colored ribbons right now. the intention is to tie the museum and the city together in some meaningful artistic way, but i just think it looks cool.

only in santa cruz

like any good former santa cruz residents, we still read the santa cruz sentinel regularly. anyone familiar with the santa cruz sentinel knows that the quality of reporting and investigative work is poor at best, and the grammar used by the journalists is equal parts entertaining and atrocious. but even poor grammar, bad investigative journalism, and sub-par reporting cannot hide the fact that crazy things happen in santa cruz.

behold.....melee erupts at the farmers market drum circle.
yikes. david used to ride a shuttle with wesley "rico thunder" modes, the gentleman described in the story.

#3

three years of wedded bliss and counting.

looks like we're going to have to go the terrace today for a little reminiscing. no doubt this sweet tune will be stuck in our heads.....

track, trig, bristol, willow, piper, and....

if sarah palin was my mother, my name would be speck palin. had david been born to sarah palin, his name would have been trowel palin. how do we know? we consulted the sarah palin baby name generator.

what would your name be?

google searches

by analyzing our site tracker data, we have learned of a few google search terms, which yield our blog on the first page of hits. here is a sampling:

• santa barbara urban wine trail wineries
• yes there really is a kalamazoo
• wind turbines controversy
• beached ale
• mighty fine gathering
• monthly frequency
• breeding moths
• a strange organism
• krumkaka
• google street view anomaly

crystal lake

a panorama of the beautiful lake upon whose shores we camped.
(click to enlarge for maximum lake beauty/jim detail).

on the road again

we kicked off the weekend with a wonderfully restorative eveing in plymouth, wi with marta's parents. it was quite lovely.

from there we headed north to the verbosely named northern highlands american legion state forest for a day and night of camping with old friends from nmu (steve, jamie, jim, michelle, pat, and allison). the nhalsf has a dozen or so campgrounds spread out over a series of woodland lakes. we camped on the shores of crystal lake, a large, clean, clear lake ringed with a sandy beach and mixed deciduous/coniferous forest. here is the view from our campsite out to the lake.

as you may have gathered from the above photo, our weather was a little less than ideal. we spent most of the weekend under a tarp/canopy and next to a campfire, staying dry and warm.

the rain actually provided a perfect opportunity to stay in close quarters and spend the day/evening/night reconnecting with friends. we did take a break from our campsite for a brief dip in the lake. the water was incredibly clean, and not too cold. about 10 feet from shore the bottom drops off to unknown depths, as can be seen below (sort of). there is something really great about swimming in the rain.



it may have been wet out, but we didn't let that dampen our spirits.

this is ernie, jim and michelle's friend, and one of the best darn fetchers to come out of green bay in some time.

on our way out of the northwoods, marta and i stopped for a family-style breakfast at paul bunyan's cook shanty. mmm mmm good. notice marta striking her best paul bunyan pose.

iron woman

our friend gretty did the seemingly impossible last sunday.
she completed her second iron man race. that means that she swam 2.4 miles, biked 112 miles, and then ran 26.2 miles, all in one day.

here she looks positively radiant after completing the bike portion of the race and starts the marathon off with some high fives.


gretty's crew show their support with yellow t-shirts. apparently molly accidentally ordered a size youth small, which makes her yellow t-shirt very adorable, but also makes the writing very hard to read.

gretty was still smiling after mile 13 of the run.

matt, the consummate cheerleader, brought joy to runners with a sound system pumping out some eye of the tiger and chariots of fire.


we feel like these guys really exhibit the same kind of enthusiastic spirit exhibited by matt for both the eye of the tiger and elite endurance athletes.



good job to all the athletes, including tim, jon, and richard! you guys rule.
we had a lot of fun watching.

vermont valley community farm

on saturday morning we took a drive out just beyond blue mound to visit our csa farm, vermont valley.

the fine folks at vermont valley had us out for a u-pick saturday, and we made out like vegetable bandits. they had heirloom tomatoes, tomatillos, a dozen varieties of hot peppers, and basil all available for the picking. here marta beats the crowd of pickers to the best tomatillos .

the goats were a real highlight. they are very curious, and very hungry little buggers.

now we have a lot of pesto and salsa to make, so our vegetable haul doesn't go to waste.

six point

we had a very busy weekend and fell a little behind in our blogging duties. tonight we will try to catch up a bit.

on thursday night we had our friends matt and lia over to taste some six point craft ales from brooklyn, n.y.

our good friend aaron is on the team out there at six point, and believe me when i tell you that they are making some outstanding brews, but don't take our word for it, give 'em a try next time you make it out to the empire state, and you won't be disappointed.

picture-in-picture...

this has taken a while to get up on the blog because it took me a while to track down the photos from the various photographers, but here goes.

this is a photo i took of mbd and marta at the terrace several weeks ago.

here is a photo reed took of the lcd screen of my camera after i took the above photo.

then, i took a photo of reed's camera.

here is reed taking a picture of theran's phone, taking a picture of my camera, with the above picture on it.

here is a picture that mbd took, of me, jubilantly displaying my camera and reed's camera, both with the above picture displayed (although i may have missed a step somewhere).

finally, here is a picture i took, of mbd, displaying the above picture on his camera.


so there it is.

coast guard city, u.s.a.

as mentioned twice previously, we were in grand haven this past weekend with the extended staple clan. you may or may not know that grand haven is known as coast guard city; is home to michigan's busiest but 3rd smallest state park; is the county seat of ottawa county (aka the o.c.); and was a stop on the grand trunk rail road.

there was a lot of time spent at the beach, eating our favorite foods (fricano's pizza, hungarian pigs in the blanket, sloppy joes, etc.), playing games, relaxing, resting, and having a lovely time together. on saturday evening we roasted marshmallows over the fire pit and celebrated becky's birthday.

matt: "more coffee bob?"
bob: "that would be wonderful matt."

on sunday we took the opportunity to get a rare, full-family picture.

back at our homestead, i imagine there was a lot of this going on (just keeping each other clean).

high-speed artwork

over the course of the past weekend (spent with my family in grand haven), i was bombarded with works of art from my three nieces, lilly, rachel, and maggie. the art collection was produced in a high-speed process where dozens of small pieces are made in a matter of minutes. here is a sampling:

maggie hides behind a two-handled picket sign

a tracing of my flip-flop

a cat

olympics!

from lilly

the flag of a little-known nation

glorious green

advanced tic-tac-toe

maggie delivers the first copy of her new album

more shoes

beads

wonderful and fast work ladies.