interesting things along the road

On my way from friend Barry's near cleveland on Christmas eve,
saw this cool place near Chardon, Ohio.

A-1 Bed & Biscuit Pet Boarding Kennel Resort & Grooming Salons

Looks like a nice place!

foosball

here's a crazy thing.
foosball, or table-top soccer, has been a part of my life since college.
we even gave our family table away to my son's fraternity a few years ago.
probably eventually firewood. ;+)

a normal foosball table is for 4 players, 2 per side.
the wikipedia page on "foosball" has this image
of an amazing table built in germany for 11 players per side.

optic blind spot experiment

I thought most people knew about this. but lately found it not so.
Cover your right eye & focus on the orange on the right.
move your face toward the monitor until the apple on the left seemingly disappears.
as you move closer or farther, you'll see the apple appear & disappear again.
this illustrates the human optic "blind spot". that is the area of the retina where the optic nerve connects & there is a lack of visual input from that area. with 2 eyes, the human brain normally compensates.

i've always credited this to the fact there are normally 2+ stoplights at almost every US intersection (used to be one at many) & US automobiles went to a third taillight in the 1980's from just 2 prior.

human optic anatomy is truly amazing. from the single lens element eyeball that naturally focuses on images upside-down (brain decodes an upright image) to the optic chiasm that partially criss-crosses sensory nerve cell image information to opposite sides of the brain. something of a day-to-day miracle.

earth science picture of the day

one of the sites i try to check daily
is "earth science picture of the day".

they usually display cloud, atmospheric
or geological images. one of my favorite
was back on march 17 2004. it was
"Microscopic View of Frost on Blade of Grass"
by Eric Erbe at Scanning Electron Microscopy Laboratory
in Beltsville, Maryland.

interesting how the ice crystals form & stack
at a right angle to the blade of grass.

experiment

just a try at inserting a youtube element . . .
the Vince Guaraldi performance of "Christmastime is Here"
from the "a charlie brown Christmas" soundtrack.