Invitations and the occasional fractal

These days are taken up with invitation madness. We are making our own, and the final fiddle-faddling with them has commenced. We hope to get them out by the weekend.

Recently, I have taken to reading a bit before sleeping. This has led to some late nights as I get caught up in a book. Right now, I am reading Lucifer's Hammer which I never read before. It is a good story with many characters whose paths are beginning to cross. Unlike the linked review, I like the book. The review complains about a slow beginning, but I thought it more like a European paced movie--enjoy the ride as it slowly builds.

I also cranked out another fractal amidst all of my curriculum development and wedding planning. It reminds me of tide pools.

Flying, Flowering, Fitness

My dear and loyal readers, my absence has been due to flying. Well, not entirely. I was not separated from the digital domain, but I was on vacation and decided not to write. We had about a week in Philly, and I am back now.

I have been marveling as spring progresses and the flowers burst forth. It always hits me anew, and I like that I never get tired of seeing life exploding out of tree branches and popping up from the ground. A faint sheen of green heralds this exuberance, and then the birds, the blue sky, and the flowers have a fiesta.

I am taking an exercise class through the Cambridge Adult Ed. program. It is fun, and it involves lots of stepping around in patterns with which I am unfamiliar. I seem to be getting the hang of it, but I still look like a fool compared to the rest of the class who have been doing these types of movements for a lot longer. Interestingly, I am the only male in the class. This seems to be a theme in my life with my classes at BMC and my career as an elementary school teacher. Good thing I got a couple good male friends out there to balance things out!

On my way back home from exercise, I used my new camera to get more familiar with it and to take picts of some of these beautiful blooms. I have a long way to go to get to the point where I know this camera as I did my last one. I did find in the dusk light conditions that I had to use the flash a lot more than I wanted to. Ah well, the learning curve commences.

The Eggs Hatched!

Here is what you get when the eggs hatch. A clutch of fire salamanders.

Clutch of Fire Salamander Eggs

This is what I imagine a clutch of fire salamander eggs might look like. The two in the middle might be ready to hatch!

Magnetic Fields

Yesterday, my students learned about magnetic fields by sprinkling iron filings on a sheet of paper under which they had placed a magnet. I still find this phenomenon fascinating and almost magical. Perhaps the preparation for this lesson led me in the direction I took on my newest fractal. It makes me think of two stars with their magnetic fields revealed.

Long Term Benefits?

What are the long term benefits of hacking? If we were all playing a game, and one of us decided that it would be fun to steal the ball and run like an idiot around the field with it (with or without clothes), that would make the game a lot less fun for the rest of us. After a while, running around the field like and idiot loses its appeal, and then the individual is confronted by a ruined game and pissed off people.

Similarly, I could go to the library, rip out page seven of every book I can, stuff the pages in my backpack, and run home chortling at the mischief I have wrought. Again, this would affect a lot of people in a negative way, I would have the temporary satisfaction of having a bunch of page sevens, but in the long run, I would not really get much out of it. In fact, if I needed a resource later on, it might be missing page seven, and I am sure I would not keep all of those around.

I only see hacking as a glorified I-can-piss-further-than-you kind of action. Bragging rights for how many people's work one can screw up.

One of my current, favorite sites appears to have been hacked. Woot is fun to check out for the wacky deals on items, the silly write ups, and the crazy competitions. I get great entertainment value from this site. This morning, the "I want one" button on the main page was chasing my cursor around, and I kept getting "server is too busy" pages. My guess-a hacker is sitting somewhere with his version of a bunch of page sevens and laughing like a possessed gibbon. It could also be Woot! just having some April Fool's day fun.

On another note, I just received my new camera, a Canon Powershot S80. I look forward to using it to take photos similar to the one on my Cafepress store. I will take it out with me today and see what I can capture. I already saw some forsythia blooming that I would like to image.