I am going to try something a little different for MikeDiDonato.com

I’d like to put together a big game of GUESS THAT SKYLINE!

on my recent trip through the south of the US, I was a little bit wowed by the variety of skylines that mankind has constructed.

So here’s my plea.
I would very much love it if you would take a picture of a city skyline that’s close to you and e-mail it to me along with your name, the direction the picture was taken (ex. “From the south” “From the East”) and the name of the city. my email address is:
mikedidonato AT gmail DOT com

It’ll be all sorts of fun. The pictures can be night or day photographs. If you’re feeling gutsy, you can even take paint to paper and do your own artsy rendition of your skyline.

Once collected, I will make some sort of Guess the Skyline game and not only will we have fun, we may even learn a bit about our world’s architecture!

I will remind you regularly of this. Ideally, I’d love all skylines by the end of March. but we’ll see how many I get.

hello!

I’m back from my whirlwind tour of the south. I actually got back this past Friday, but work’s been tough and I’m trying out a new schedule what with it being Spring and all.

I usually modify my goals with the seasons and this spring is no different.
here they are!

Music!
2006 has been deemed the year of music, so I really must push for 30-40 minutes of guitar a day. This will involve 10-20 minutes of scales, and 15-20 minutes on that week’s lesson. By June 21st (first day of summer), I hope to have 4 new songs performance ready.

Fitness!
I will consistently log 3 days of kung fu and 3 days of climbing for the entire spring season. I may be able to move up a belt level and perhaps conquer that 5.12+ that’s been taunting me at the gym. The only exception to this rule is if Business Travel is required.

Financial!
Spring = save. I will save half of my income each month of this season.

Social!
Get 35 people to attend Double Dutch v3.0 Date to be announced soon!

Rock!
Continuous and unrelentless rocking.

yeah, that sounds pretty decent for starters. If anyone has any unique goals that they think I should add to this list, throw it in the comments!

The Question

Becky asks:

Follow-up question.

Given:
-Life on Earth is Carbon based.
-The second most common element in the earth’s crust is Silicon (28% by weight, Oxygen is first).
-Silicon Dioxide is the most common compound (42% by weight).
-Carbon and Silicon both have room for 4 electrons on their outer orbitals, so their affinity for electrons should be equal.

Question:
Why is life on Earth Carbon based instead of Silicon based?

(figures taken from http://education.jlab.org/glossary/abund_ele.html)

The Answer

Another question from the elegant, intelligent Becky. I relish the challenge.

The answer lies in the fact that carbon knows how to party and get along with others of its kind. Silicon is a poor partier and an angry drunk, so it gets left out of the life-shindig. Carbon is very comfortable hanging out in multiple configurations with other carbon molecules (chains, links, etc) - silicon, when put in the same configuration, tends to either fall apart or EXPLODE. While an exploding life form might be interesting, it’s likely to be short-lived.

Carbon likes to hang out in molecules of tens of thousands of atoms. Silicon, being kind of lame and boring, only hangs out at most with 6 other atoms of the same kind, and that’s only in the lab - being such big dorks and all, parties are beyond silicon’s ken.

Finally, carbon has chirility, or handedness. Most organic molecules form in left or right “handed” configurations - and silicon is a big ambidextrous loser. The chirility is what allows carbon molecules to form chains, which are required in organic compounds.

I hope this answers your question, Becky. Carbon likes to get out and party, and silicon stays at home and smells like rotten eggs.