Dusk on the River

I was riding home from work along Boston's Charles River around sunset this evening. I couldn't resist taking a few photos.

It's Spring -- Time to Get Out and Ride

Today spring arrived and it was time to start riding my bike to work again. The snow banks are finally gone and the bike lanes are available again.

But, yikes, am I out of shape!! Too much sitting around all winter. As I plodded along, other cyclists were passing me by. Then there's a modestly steep incline to get over the Longfellow Bridge in Boston. By the time I got there, I was out of steam and seemed to just be crawling up.

But despite the wind and chill, it was still good to get out and ride. And with daylight savings time, I could enjoy the longer scenic ride home along the Charles River (see photo at right).

Spring – I Can Feel It Coming!

When I went out this morning, I could feel it. Spring is coming! The sun was stronger, even if the air was cool. Even in the city, you can smell spring in the earth. Yep, it's only a week until the 1st day of spring!

And the crocuses are starting to shyly bloom. They stay close to the ground – never know when we’ll have another snow.

The yellow flower is in front our our home; the purples ones are next door.

The daffodils are coming up, too. It’s very sunny in the front, so spring comes a few week earlier to this front planter.

The daffidols in the planter are a couple of weeks from blooming (maybe less) .

Red buds on the maple tree in front of our place.


Besides the weather, the other sign of spring is the flipping of earth's axis. When it's winter in the northern hemisphere, the South Pole points to the sun. After the spring equinox, the North Pole points to the sun.

Some believe this flip of the poles, also shifts the gravitational field of the earth. As proof, it is said you can stand an egg on end on the spring equinox.

A quick search of the internet reveals this is true. See the various photos of eggs standing on end, not only accomplished by scientist in the lab, but also at home!

Leave a comment if you can get an egg to stand on end!

Tattoo of Mythological Bird

Sometimes the art of tattooing can produce something of exceptional beauty. This young woman’s tattoo is on display at Boston’s Museum of Science. I found it most striking and beautiful.

First Flower of Spring!

Wow! Can you believe it? A flower blooms in February in Cambridge!

It was Feb. 14th, Valentine's Day, and there it was along a side street: a crocus grows in Cambridge.

What a harbinger of spring!

It’s still cold, but the end of winter is coming (some day)!

.....

My Least Favorite Thing!

This is an easy one: it’s those telemarketing calls!!

Why do they think they can sell you something by harassing you?

You get home after a late day and sit down to relax with your favorite beverage and maybe a little snack: Ring Ring! Won’t you contribute to our fund?

Later, you sit down to a tasty diner: Ring, Ring! So what if your potatoes get cold, don’t you want a new credit card?

It's the climax of your favorite TV show: Ring, Ring! You miss the most important line of dialog.

I HATE it!

Fortunately, we have caller ID!

• “Unknown caller” – no response from us!
  
• Calls from strange area codes: let it ring, let it ring, let it ring.
  
• Strange caller ID: hey, we don’t talk to strangers.

While we still have the ring, ring, ring, but at least we know when not to answer the phone.

This post is Inspired by Bingkee’s post titled How to Get to Talk to a Human.

Yeah, We Have an Intellegent President!

The President's press conference the other night proved at least one thing: we now have an intellegent, thoughtful leader. Maybe it's being a nerd myself, but I just feel better with an A student as Pres. instead of the frat boy C student who has recently moved out of DC.

Some may find him boring. No sound bites. Long-winded. No fodder for Stewart, Colbert, Leno, Letterman and SNL.

While even intellegence alone does not guarantee a quick solution to the economic downturn or our foreign policy messes, I still feel better with an intellegent guy who actually understands policy.

I Don’t Believe in New Year’s Eve

Yep, I don’t believe in New Year’s Eve. Or New Year’s Day, for that matter.

Why?

I know the inconvenient truth in the science of astronomy: One year is 365.2424 days. One trip around the sun just doesn't add up to an even number of days.

But the time between the ball dropping in Times Square from year to year is exactly 365 days (or 366 days in leap year).

So when the ball drops, it’s NEVER exactly 1 year since the last time it dropped.

New Year’s Eve is a fraud! It's not 1 year since the last New Year's. It's either a bit more or less than a full year!

That’s the inconvenient truth of astronomy!

So, where did this fraud come from? It’s a product of government and religion that for over 2,000 years sought to impose their sense of order on something that’s not that nice and neat. Early cultures had a better sense of time. First of all, rather than start a year freezing yourself on a winter’s night, many cultures started the year in spring, fresh with the hope for the rebirth of nature. These cultures often used events in nature or astronomical observations such as the spring equinox as the start of a year.

Perhaps the most accurate early calendar was developed by the Persians who used the date of the spring equinox to start each year. This was self-correcting calendar, and did not depend on numerical rules like the Julian and Gregorian calendars developed in Europe.

The Gregorian calendar was based on 365.2425 days which created creeping error over the centuries as the difference between 365.2425 and 365.2424 eventually catches up. The current Julian calendar is based on 365.25 days and included a leap year every 4th year, with some other exceptions every 100 and 400 years. This was the beginning of the bureaucratic control of the calendar.

Thanks to the bureaucrats, the New Year has no relationship to astronomical events such as the equinoxes and solstices.

Religion’s contribution to all this is that the years are supposed to be measured from the birth of Jesus Christ. But New Year’s Day isn’t on Christmas. Instead, we have New Year’s Day on the 8th day after Jesus’ birth, the day that Jesus was named and circumcised. Add to this, the fact that Jesus was not born in December (this remembrance of his birth was moved near the winter solstice to blend in with the pagan Roman celebrations) nor was he born in the year 0 (more likely 2 BC) [see http://www.bethlehemstar.net/ to find out when Jesus was really born, based on science applied to scriptural references).

So, New Year’s Day on January 1st really relates to absolutely nothing. It’s just an arbitrary date based on the current calendar. It doesn’t relate to any reoccurring annual astronomical event. And each New Year’s at midnight is never exactly one year since the previous New Year’s.

Once again, the inconvenient truth of science tells us that New Year’s is all just a fraud!