It's Steve (now in blog form)

I took the family down the third street today to walk around and return some presents (I you think it might have been something you sent us, you’re probably right). While we were down there I saw some things that I really liked.

Cauliflower is kind of scary- I don’t think we spend enough time thinking about cauliflower. Obviously, it’s more important a vegetable(?) than I had imagined. The farmers’ market down there had types that actually made me do a double take.

Fractals are awesome self-repeating sets.  They are also apparently a flavor of cauliflower.  The guy in the booth said this is a young Italian cauliflower.  I think it’s an orbital fractal. Math types, any help here? Where are you, Kunal?

The purple and orange ones are some sort of crazy hybrid from Cornell in the 70′s.  People did a lot of drugs in the 70′s.  

Who says Hanukkah isn’t fun?- I’m totally bummed that I missed this

The web is full of rabbit holes and this is one of the weirder ones I’ve come across in a while.  Here’s the process.  Try it at home!

1) Go google.com
2) Type in “Why is” but don’t hit the search button.  This will generate a set of suggested searches based on popularity of searching on google. This is where things get crazy.  The third most popular search term is “Why is my poop green”.  Seriously.  Here’s a screen shot.

3) So I had to check out what sort of magnificence waited behind the “why is my poop green” search. 

4) PoopReport.com?!?! Your one stop source for stories of unbelievable poops and, something new to me, “poop terrorism”. Behold the glory of their logo.

Thank you google for broadening horizons.

Ben is watching Bob the Builder and I’m pounding coffee.  It’s a normal Sunday.  Here are some stay bits from the week.

Moonrise from the air- I fly a lot and had never caught a moonrise from the air when it was full.  It’s crazy to see the moon come over the horizon and be at an angle above it.  The pictures don’t do the immensity of it justice at all.

It’s a good thing helium isn’t flammable- Kim and I were rolling up Sawtelle yesterday and heard a big clank followed by a persistent hiss.  Good thing it was just the helium guy that hadn’t properly secured his tanks.  It it had been the mustard gas guy, I might have had a problem.

Dr. Pacheco!- I’m not sure what the good doctor is selling in his “Official Store”, but with a sign like this I’m totally buying.

I was reading the news this morning and an interesting note on the Maldives caught my eye.  The recently elected president has begun setting aside a portion of the nation’s tourism revenue to start buying land.  Specifically, land to be a new Maldivian homeland.

It seems that most of the islands comprising the country sit no more than 4 feet above sea level.  Rising oceans as a result of global warming threaten to swamp the island nation entirely.

I would like to offer my own humble suggestion as to where the Maldivians might relocate: the Hawaiian island of Molokai. This actually makes a lot of sense if you think about it.

- Fishing is a primary industry of the Maldives so an island is in order

- The Maldives only have a land area of 115 square miles. Molokai is 260 square miles. It would be nice for the Maldivians to be able to stretch their legs.

- If you’ve ever been to Molokai, you know how sparsely populated it is.  The entire resident population is only 7000 versus the 300,000 in the Maldives.

- Molokai just can’t seem to make a go of tourism despite it’s natural beauty and proximity to Honolulu.  The last major tourist draw, Molokai Ranch, recently closed leaving most of Molokai’s population on government assistance.  The Maldivians clearly understand solid tourism marketing and service fundamentals given their booming tourist industry.

So that’s my thought.  President Nasheed, consider Molokai as the warm waters of the Indian Ocean lap menacingly at your shores.  At this point, you could probably pick it up on the cheap.

I’m going to get a couple of netbooks to play with.  What do you all think?  Solid state or normal hard drives?  XP or Linux?  Come on, tech dorks, give me some tips.

I think you are all aware of my deep and abiding love of gadgets at this point. I just ordered a terabyte of external storage for my house, and, I have to admit, that even I’m surprised at how happy it’s making me. I mean, look at it!

Isn’t it beautiful?!? I remember being in high school talking about how cool it would be to have a terabyte of storage all to myself (note: my friends and I should have spent more time focused on girls in retrospect). Of course, I had an 80 meg hard drive at the time. Anyway, this sweet baby is going right into the wifi and we’re off to the races. Sooo cool.

Now I just need to talk the wife into letting me get a fancy new linux netbook. Any suggestions on which one?