Musings

For this mini-essay, I’m putting 2022 in air quotes. It’s certainly been a year.

During this year we crossed the equator six times (if I’ve counted correctly). All within a two-week period. Also, we’ve lived through ups, and we’ve lived through downs.

All typical.

Yet, somehow my sense of time seems dented and distorted.

Still, I’m happy to be here on the cusp of 2023.

Saying goodbye to 2022 (please imagine air quotes).

Although you cannot tell, this is a sunset photo, the last sunset of the year.

Posted at 9:15 PM | Comments Off on Air-quote power

Working through random thoughts on my 2022 life…from the ground up. No conclusions yet.

Posted at 9:24 PM | Comments Off on Pondering

I’m still wading through the qubit article I mentioned on the 24th. I have a modest understanding of the difference between a bit and a qubit, but I do not grasp how the entanglement property of qubits can be truly useful, so I’ll keep reading.

The qubit article is “The World-Changing Race to Develop the Quantum Computer” by Stephen Witt, dated 12 December (in the 19 December issue), in The New Yorker magazine.

Photo of moss on the the roof of the structure in the Japanese garden at the BotGarden in 2015. We had a day this sunny today.

Posted at 8:59 PM | Comments Off on Matter of perspective?

Turns out the shady side of our house protected yesterday’s snowfall into the afternoon today; however, today’s temps reached the upper 50’s for long enough that, pfft, most of the dusting is now only moisture.

Lemme just point out that our lot’s dark side is in no way like the dark side of the moon. No way. None.

Posted at 9:11 PM | Comments Off on Fine point

The meteorologists were right. We got snow overnight.

Posted at 10:23 PM | Comments Off on Rhyming winter

I went out to take a couple of holly pictures, thinking I could make a clever comment using them (I dream), and found this sprig of point-less leaves. Well, thorn-less. Renegades.

I figure it took me off the hook for coming up with a witty comment.

Posted at 9:10 PM | Comments Off on Floral variants

This was yesterday morning’s prediction of wind chill for the day. None of the stations did weather this morning. I could understand except for the scary-cold aspect of conditions. I know it was worse just about everywhere north of us, but, geeze, all that stuff about public service…kinda out the window today.

Posted at 8:21 PM | Comments Off on Holiday hiatus

In honor of this cold, voila!, the Cut Bank, Montana, penguin…on a sunny day with no snow, ice, or freezing temps. [Photo from our archive.]

Learned the term qubit today. Not a cubit. A portmanteau of quantum and bit. Instead of being binary, either one or zero, a qubit can be one or zero or both. I fail to understand how that can work, so it’s a good thing that better minds than mine are working with the darned qubits. Somehow, a qubit can also hold two bits. Now my brain is fractured.

Posted at 7:58 PM | Comments Off on Eve pondering

I played ostrich today and stayed inside. This photo is from Before the Arctic Blast.

My wrist device claims single digit temps for at least four hours beginning before dawn tomorrow. On the other hand, my hand-held device (and a different app) indicates it’ll only get down to 10°F. That’s a hair-splitting difference, however.

Posted at 8:03 PM | Comments Off on Not ATL style

All plants! Pay attention! We’re to have below freezing temperatures for three days beginning in the dark hours overnight tonight. All of 45°F now should drop to 16°F by 7am, and 14° an hour later…dropping dropping brrr. Yikes!

Posted at 9:04 PM | Comments Off on Warning! Warning!