Musings

Only on rare opportunities do most of us need to spell the word “geyser.” Apparently our word comes from the name of an Icelandic geyser—Geysir—which is in the Haukadalur Valley in southern Iceland. Still, I have to think to get the spelling right, although I saw it on signs many times today!

While we were in the old caldera where Yellowstone’s geyser activity is found—apparently the greatest concentration of geysers in the world!—we saw lots of volcanic features (not cones, although the caldera is considered an active volcano), and, of course, the famous Old Faithful. Here’s what really surprised me about the old caldera: the continental divide loops into it, so that the floor of the caldera has two drainages, one to the east and one to the west. I found this counter-intuitive.

FYI: That’s the caldera rim framing the skyline to the left of the geyser.

Posted at 10:22 PM | 1 Comment »

1) …is soda.

2) …is pop.

3) …is soda pop.

Conclusion: Dorothy, you’re not in Kansas any more!

Posted at 10:22 PM | 1 Comment »

So, the big photo is from Monday, when I was downtown and basking in civic duty. There’s quite some historic controversy, apparently, about the statue of the female on top of the capitol dome.

The statue stands between 15 and 20 feet high, depending on how she is measured, weighs about 1,800 pounds, and is made of copper.

The little picture to the right is the 3-D version of Georgia’s capitol as rendered in Google Earth. I haven’t yet explored the collection in the gallery “Historic Places 3D Tour,” but it may be included. Oddly, there is no “National Registry of Historic Places,” the way it’s noted by Google. Instead it’s the National RegistER of Historic Places.

Or perhaps I’m nit-picking.

Sidenote: Finding a Notary Public (in today’s modern, digital world)—not so easy, especially if your bank is closed.

Posted at 5:39 PM | 1 Comment »

There’s no north 40 here, but we take a tour of the modest estate nevertheless. Actually, we tour the agriculturally productive plants. Fresh corn silk (doesn’t sound right to call it “maize silk” although that’s what it is), all curly and soft, seems like an improbable plant part….

Posted at 10:22 PM | Comments Off on Bloomin’ corn!

Don’t ask me how to pronounce it, but back in Old English days that’s the word that referred to the color orange, and it meant yellow-red.

Then came the fruit from distant lands to the east, and with it the name that was then, for obvious reasons, also applied to the color.

This specimen’s known as a naked orange around here, since it’s lost its zest….

Posted at 7:24 PM | 3 Comments »

Discombobulated.

Now there’s a word.

And it perfectly describes my underlying energy levels today.

Posted at 10:22 PM | Comments Off on Yawn

For this morning’s walk route, we rechecked the larger pond at the Carter Center. We didn’t visit the smaller, upper pond, as we got distracted by the American chestnut plantings in the demonstration plot.

Posted at 7:31 PM | Comments Off on We saw no old chestnuts…

Piedmont Park’s refurbished natatorium, main outdoor pool.

While we were walking, we tentatively decided that a natatorium was most likely an indoor pool—the thinking went that the suffix “-ium” referred to a place of…whatever—think auditorium, aquarium (terrarium, not so much).

Turns out that the dictionary says that a natatorium is a swimming pool, especially one that’s indoors—but that’s not a requirement.

This kind of misunderstanding is a result of learning vocabulary from listening and from written usage, and not from study of the reference materials.

Posted at 7:37 PM | 1 Comment »

I managed to stay awake and watch the moon over the lake, while a few celebratory fireworks exploded in glorious bursts high above the treeline on the far shore.

For reasons mysterious to me, the Curtis fireworks show will be tomorrow. Hello. The holiday is the Fourth of July—perhaps a rather inflexible name, but not at all the same as Weekend-of-the-Fourth Celebration.

Posted at 10:22 PM | 1 Comment »

Celebratory festivities tonight, and we got a chance to see the new Kindle 2, sold only by Amazon. Nice, tidy, little, easy-to-hold package.

Posted at 10:22 PM | Comments Off on Kindle = set afire