Happy Thanksgiving!

Aurora

Aurora in the Distance
Credit & Copyright: Lance McVay
Explanation: Some auroras can only be seen with a camera. They are called sub-visual and are too faint to be seen with the unaided eye. The reason is that the human eye only accumulates light for a fraction of a second at a time, while a camera shutter can be left open indefinitely. When photographing an already picturesque scene above Juneau, Alaska, USA, a camera caught green sub-visual aurora near the horizon. Auroras are sparked by energetic particles from the Sun impacting the magnetic environment around the Earth. Resultant energetic particles such as electrons and protons rain down near the Earth's poles and impact the air. The impacted air molecules temporarily lose electrons, and when oxygen molecules among them reacquire these electrons, they emit green light. Auroras are known to have many shapes and colors.

Happy Veteran's Day, and many thanks to all Veterans!!!

I'm back!

Sorry, I'm still experimenting with this new computer....

Try this: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap071106.html


:>D

Isn't that just totally awesome????

2 Great Questions

I thought these 2 questions were interesting, but I don't remember now where I read it...

1. What do you live for?
2. What would you die for?

"Wittness" by Wittaker Chambers

I'm reading "Witness" by Whittaker Chambers, which was written in 1952 about the Alger Hiss (communist in the US State Department)trial. It's very well written, and very interesting. I thought it was particularly cute, when he was telling about certain rules his mother had with respect to manners:

" A man of 'breeding' is known not so much by what he does as by what he will not do.

1. First and foremost, he never imputes a base motive to anyone else.

2. If someone is rude to him, he assumes that the rudeness is unintentional. If he knows that it is intentional, he acts as if it were not.

3. He never meets anger with anger.

4. He never patronizes anyone because he never assumes that he knows more than anyone else or that uneducated people are unintelligent.

5. He never corrects other people's slips. Always allow people the luxury of being mistaken. They will find out for themselves soon enough. If they don't, they are the kind of people in whom it does not matter.

6. Never, under any circumstances, eat in public in front of people who are not eating."

BTW, Chamber was born in 1901 if that helps :>D

Bear Rescue

Just got this today in the email. It's pretty cute:

"A bear was walking across Rainbow Bridge (Old Hwy 40 at Donner Summit,
**Truckee**) on Saturday when two cars also crossing the bridge scared
the bear into jumping over the edge of the bridge.

Somehow the bear caught the ledge and was able to pull itself to
safety. At one point the bear tested its ability to climb down by
lowering its feet down the side but decided against that idea and
pulled itself back up!

Authorities decided that nothing could be done to help Saturday night
so they returned Sunday morning to find the bear sound asleep on the
ledge.

After securing a net under the bridge the bear was tranquilized, fell
into the net, lowered, then woke up and walked out of the net."