A rose by any other name…
Monday, 28 September 2009
1) …is soda.
2) …is pop.
3) …is soda pop.
Conclusion: Dorothy, you’re not in Kansas any more!
Musings
Standing above the trees
Tuesday, 15 September 2009
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.
Bloomin’ corn!
Tuesday, 18 August 2009
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….
Geoluhread
Wednesday, 12 August 2009
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….
Yawn
Tuesday, 4 August 2009
Discombobulated.
Now there’s a word.
And it perfectly describes my underlying energy levels today.
We saw no old chestnuts…
Sunday, 2 August 2009
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.
Visit to 1) park; 2) dictionary
Thursday, 16 July 2009
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.
Special light(s)
Saturday, 4 July 2009
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.
Kindle = set afire
Friday, 12 June 2009
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.
Cool pool!
Wednesday, 13 May 2009
As I began to compose this, my mental landscape was dominated by the word perspective. Of course, I googled it—and discovered the many aspects of the word that Google has separate pages for—here.
The picture obviously illustrates the graphical/pictoral version…. However, I think I was pondering something closer to the cognitive version, or perhaps the wisdom or accumulated knowledge, well, perspective….
And there ya go, we’ve come full circle….
Cool thing—we watched a single swallow repeatedly fly by and swoop to dip into the surface of the pool. Barn swallow perhaps (although no response to birdcall emanating from iPhone)? Enamored of Michael Phelps?