A knife in the dark

If you ever take a travel to the sub zero climate zones, such as Scandinavia, Norway, Finland, Russia, Sweden etc. then be sure to take a tour of the "Ice Hotel's"! One of the most famous of the these   is situated in the village Jukkasjärvi, Sweden, 12 km from Kiruna Airport. Every year seasonally they build it by the river, carving massive blocks of ice and snow, turning it into walls and and windows and ceiling... they even make the tables and beds and  chandeliers out of ICE!!!        They give tours and rent some of the spacious rooms for a night, up to 2,400 SEK for one night and one adult! They have different living situations  an Ice "suite" an Ice "room"  and a "snow room" all furnished with high thermal sleeping bags and reindeer skins, chairs and other fascinating objects. Below is an Ice "Suite",Ice "room", and their "Snow Room".                   Below are different pic...

The simple things in life can bring the greatest joy, a sense of fulfillment in the rat race of the world. Sometimes it can be the satisfaction of unnecessary labor, carving spoons and forks out of tree branches or maybe even putting stone slabs into the earth for a path instead of pouring concrete. But yesterday in particular I had one of the most memorable times in my life... being crazy with a group of friends, with everyone owning the dance floor and waving cheap light sticks around... no dance style judgments just be yourself dancing! :) We didn't need a fancy dance floor, we didn't need fancy food, we didn't need glamour or fancy clothing, we were just there, happy and content with the simplest thing, a good group of friends who shared similar interests.       From playing a simple Celtic tune on a funky plastic recorder, to rock hopping down at the creek, or watching a wood pecking boring a hole in a tree,  even the smallest hint of...

 Hello people round the globe!          I know that many of you might not be interested in drawing 2d and 3d objects, but believe me- its a great help when your taking math classes!!     We'll start with 2d squares and rectangles.          Before you start, making realistic squares takes a good ruler and getting the angle right! Squares drawn with a curvy angle can be funny to draw as well.        

So I was wrong in my recent post "electrolysis of water"  ( which sounds pretty bad to me). The reaction is actually called Hydrolysis!!! Wow, pretty bad mistake... Anyways I am changing the Post's name to "Hydrolysis Reaction". So don't be fooled, it's not a new post! :)     Sometimes when your writing posts you lose the inspirational charisma and it becomes a dead end for a while... then you make a new post and manage to finish off the old one. This is called "Writers Block!" and some stories can be the "point of no return" if you can't return to the story later and actually write something! If you are very adept at word fluency, and your mind creates sentencing much like talking to a really good friend, then you are on the right track! For me, it's all too easy to come up with an amazing story and a crazy plot, and just be unable to continue halfway through. A friend of mine suggests a very excellent idea! "Bridging t...

                Hello Everyone!                Today I decided to pick up that forgotten moth eaten rug of improv story writing, and give it a better go. My first post on that didn't go so well, and I have greater expectations!      Instead, the improvisation will be a beginner paragraph... don't have to finish a story or even write one! Just simply put together a paragraph of intrigue and suspense.          I will be more vague, and hopefully my thought will form a lot better around the idea... AND NO TIME LIMIT! If you want good writing, you want time.       The general line : Midnight, somewhere on earth ( you pick) , and some form of unimaginable danger awaiting.             You noticed that I put "writing contest" in the title bar.        Here is where that comes into play! If any of you ...

    I know that many believe that the majority of the atmosphere's oxygen comes from plants. I do not deny that plants make oxygen, but I do question whether they make enough to keep the world alive.      I want to make a very blazing point across the page! Plants making enough oxygen for the whole world is just ONE of MANY THEORIES!!!! It's not a proven fact...           The only thing proven is that plants make oxygen... but in turn they also use oxygen.       I am going to quickly analyze how plants make oxygen.    Plants are able to synthesize food directly from carbon dioxide,water, and using energy from light. In certain plants  (algae and cyanobacteria) photosynthesis releases oxygen. This is called oxygenic photosynthesis.   There is only one problem.... Plants create equal amounts of oxygen and co2!! But if we look at the percentage of co2 and oxygen in the atmospher...

Hey everyone!     I know that Cold fronts and such things aren't usually eery or anything, but I have to admit that the one we just had was set in a minor key. For starters we had a beautiful sunny winter and a full three weeks of warm 70 degree temperatures... Whereas last year we had a massive rain squall that flooded Capitola Village and undermined lots of railroad.     Right after all the nice weather this winter came a freak cold spell going into the 20's and a bitter cold wind. Down the coast a little in Big Sir it was raining  icicles colder than snow! Four or five days ago in Santa Cruz there were lots of flourishing banana trees. And then we drove by all of them and they were not even green.... just plain dried up like they had been in a desert or something. I was just looking out my window and then I was like " Wait a minute, weren't those banana tree's green yesterday??!"  And then we drove by a ton of annual flowers that had ...

It can be very difficult trying to find things to do! Question: Do you plan and have it fall through with friends or do you ten minute arrange when you think about it?    Some people schedule their life, and say "no room for you on such and such a day!" Others have a general idea of how the week goes.        What I have found to be true, is that organizing through email is a nice slow paced way to make some plans.You organize a nice even keel day some two weeks away with maybe four or five friends. All  you have to do is just email all your friends! In other words no awkward messages no dozen phone calls and not as much obligation. Then after some email input you send out another message, perhaps with the chosen day and the time.. and then where... and then what happens next. You may have to call friends that you know don't email very much.             Some easy things to plan are Bonfires, day hikes, and maybe ...

    Hello everyone!     Yes, I am actually going to put some pictures up!   These are all from various Sailing trips I have embarked on.                 Well everyone, Safe voyages!                        cheers!

What do most people look forward to in an average day to day life? Some work at least four to five days a week, at a job or school or maybe even their own business ( when you have your own business its twice as hard to only work four days a week and not seven!). For many, the only thing to look forward to is the weekend when perhaps they can get plenty of things done or actually enjoy themselves for once!      There are a few very important days of the working week. Monday is the start of a new week and some people really plow through that day with a yoke. Tuesday isn't as bad knowing that there is a day behind you and now the count is down to three days. Wednesday is so so. But Thursday is the anticipation of Friday which is the anticipation of an unexplored weekend.            And here we are at Friday, perhaps the most exciting day of the week. Friday is the day of "anticipation and hope" that maybe this particular weekend will stand ou...

        Many times during passage plunks heading south to Mexico we ran into dolphins. At night when the water was full of phosphorescence and glinted like some kind of elvish brew the fish would be a bunch of streaks of light and dolphins would be a massive blur as they streaked behind them. Every now and then the flying fish ( fish with gliding appendages) would flop onto the deck and every morning there would be squid plastered to the deck in their fateful flight from the enemy. Sometimes right before my morning watch would begin someone would call out "Dolphins off the starboard and port bow!" I would hop on deck and rush to the bow and watch the dolphins as they played with the vessel, jumping and diving underneath. Then I would go as close to the hull as I could get inside the forward cabin and listen to them give their high pitched wails. It sounded like a bunch of Meeps... It was quite impressive and it gave one a very happy feeling considering the sque...

Seeing a beautiful sailing vessel rounding the point with all her sails hoisted and billowing out as she heels sideways can be a surreal sight. Better yet is to be on the vessel feeling the joy of the thrilling ride and the spray flying off the bow.      But how does sailing work? How does the ship actually go forward? How is it possible to just have a keel and some sails to make it go?                Have you ever tried to squeeze the life out of a slippery bar of soap? You'll notice right away that as soon as you apply pressure to both sides the bar shoots out from your hands!           So just imagine that the sails and the wind is your right hand, and the keel of the vessel is your left hand. The bar of soap is the vessel in the middle. When the sails fill they try to push the boat over but the keel is there to prevent it, creating a standstill and so the boat can't go sideways! The only other optio...

If anyone is interested in running a few "math" miles today, here is a nice word problem that I am going to attempt to explain in full!      h= -16t^2 + 80t + 64   where t= time in seconds & h= height    This formula is a "quadratic equation" for finding the curve of an object as it falls, when it hits the ground etc.         This ^ means that anything after the symbol, means that the number or variable is a power.               What time will the ball obtain maximum height?                                      SPOILER  First, not knowing the math levels of my audience ( but I am assuming some or most of you have taken algebra 1)  I must explain a few things. For this question we will be using part of the "Quadratic Formula". -b/2a. By now you are probably extremely lost and ...

When people see their first Alaskan moose it's more than just "Oh look a large dumb deer". They are extremely large, reaching seven feet at the shoulder and three feet or more above that! In other words, waist high bushes would just barely reach their knees! They have a hefty headdress as well, that can span a good six feet, and massive over sized deer hoof's that can total a car into a crumpled soda can resemblance. A bull moose can weigh between eight hundred-fifty lb's to one thousand five hundred-eighty lb's of pure muscle and bone! Alaskan moose in particular are the largest specie of deer on earth!     They say that if you're in a car and a large moose is in front of you and won't get out of the road, that you should not provoke by honking, nor should you try to go around it. Moose don't like cars, and some deliberately destroy cars for the destructive yearning. So it's better to just simply wait even if it takes two hours for the...

What kind of New Years traditions are out there?     People from Denmark jump off chairs at the strike of midnight, others blow on kazoo's and shoot fireworks....And some just sleep right through new years eve.       A very fascinating tradition is the Christmas  tree burning. On New Years eve they stand the tree upright on the beach pour on the gasoline and watch it shoot a 8 ft flame into the sky ( depending on the height of the tree).        And then there's the nuts in Alaska and back east.... they sit in a hot spa for an hour and then jump into a hole in the ice! I don't know how that works but I'm guessing the cold water shock keeps them from feeling anything... or many they had some kind of vodka stash next to that spa of theirs! If your fascinated with this idea you should enter into you tube "Moose Riding" it should come up. Somewhere back in Finland or Sweden a man manages to get drunk and decides " I'm goin...