Congratulations to Tom, Shamus, and Roland! Tom successfully identified the last Skyline as the Freedom Tower in Kuwait. Well done! Shamus was the first to notice the space needle in seattle, and Roland once again brought it home with his announcement that the skyline picture was from somewhere in the middle east. Special thanks to Ryan Schenk who got that photograph for me and Patrick who sent me the satellite image.

I think we’re all ready for the next one, so let’s go ahead and start round three.

First, check on the third skyline here.

Then, check out the Satellite image here!

Your tasks:

a) What is the skyline shown?
b) Is the satellite image of the same location?
c) If not, where is the location of the satellite image?

WARNING: ANSWERS MAY BE IN THE COMMENTS, SO MAKE SURE YOU’RE READY FOR RUIN WHEN YOU SCROLL DOWN

As usual, the skyline photographer can not participate in the challenge.

Good luck!

This one’s for you, Kurt.

The Song of the Llama

Whenever I spell my name over the phone it goes a little something like this:

mike d: The name is Mike DiDonato
operator: can you spell that for me?
mike d: sure. D - i - Capital D - o - n as in Nancy - a - t - o.
operator: thanks

Every single time I say “N as in Nancy.” I must be able to think of a more manly thing to say. As soon as I say it, I can hear the person on the other line think “heh. what a pansy.” Occasionally I include “D as in Dog”… pathetic. Really, I think the whole spell by associated word could be way better. That’s why I’m proposing the real man’s list of associated words. Learn it. Learn it well. Enough of this Nancy trash.

The Real Man’s List of Words.

A as in Apocalypse
B as in Barbeque
C as in Cocaine
D as in Demolition
E as in Excrement
F as in Fighting
G as in Guns
H as in He-man
I as in Incinerate
J as in Junkyards
K as in Kill
L as in Laceration
M as in Meat
N as in Nuke
O as in Orthodontists Ozzy
P as in Pac-man
Q as in Quest
R as in Rock
S as in Sin
T as in Tyrannosaurus
U as in Uranium
V as in Vin Diesel
W as in Waco
X as in X-men
Y as in Yacht
Z as in Zombie

I will start using this from now on.

With no disrespect to the person who spoke the words, a fellow co-worker used the following phrase at a meeting today.

coworker: okay guys, let’s get right into the meat of the potato.

Perfect.

We have Uppercase and Lowercase letters… why not numbers? How come all numbers are uppercase?

Yesterday I had a great chat with the head of finance at my workplace. We talked a lot about house renovations and it got me geared up for this summer at the House of Rock.

There are so many things I’d like to do!

Some of the jobs are standard house improvement jobs:
Kitchen cabinets
New windows
Painting

Some of the jobs are tough, but do-able:
put a hard floor into the garage
replace a plaster ceiling
make the basement functional
renovate the garage

Some of them would be useless but extremely fun:
Creating a monitoring control room complete with an excessive amount of monitors and LEDs
Building secret passageways between rooms
An armoire that transforms into a weapons cache
Busting a hole in the roof for an observatory

Perhaps this weekend we will start planning. Adventure is in order.

something’s wrong. I’m not hungry.

have I… filled?

Let’s suppose you owned a little puppy named Donald. Donald’s cute. Donald’s loveable. Donald’s comfortable. And Donald has been with you faithfully for 10 years and many miles.

One day, you find Donald suffering in the garage. You take him to the vet and find out he probably needs some transmission work. Replacing his filter and giving him lots of fluids doesn’t seem to help.

1) Do you take your favorite little dog to the vet and get an expensive surgery?
2) Do you agree that there’s probably just a bunch of illnesses down the road so you count your pennies and decide to let him rest in peace.
3) Or do you whip out your wrenches and your Haynes “How to repair Donald” book and trade punches with the Grim Reaper.

Comments/suggestions are welcome.

My bologna has no first name.

I don’t name my meat.
I think that’s messed up.

When Sander rents a car, there’s really no guarantee that he won’t go offroading with it.

Here’s a video. While the video may only seem like mild adventure to the seasoned offroader, the fact that he’s doing it with a rental car really verifies his mild-severe insanity.

Dear Jesse’s Mom,

Your son Jesse does an excellent job of finding those things that his roommates are proud of, and then destroying them… thus dashing our hopes and dreams. Not two weeks ago your son asked me about my minesweeper scores. I proudly talked Minesweeper and I know he saw the glimmer in my eye. A glimmer of passion. A glimmer of joy.

Little did any of us know, he was training to extinguish that glimmer. Yes, last night at 12:02am, Jesse beat my proudest minesweeping moment.

There’s a little part of me that wants to tell your son “Great job Jesse! What an awesome score!” but that little part of me is far overshadowed by the saddness and hatred for his superiority at meaningless accomplishments. Sure, it might just be a minesweeping record for now, but who’s to say that he won’t beat my counter jumping score next? Then perhaps he’ll top my highest climbing grade? Is anything safe from his heart-crushing ways?

Jesse’s mom? Your son took a little part of me last night. He took it. He put it on the ground. And he jumped on it while wearing cleats of eternal hurt. So if I happen to spill hot boiling water all over his face tonight, please know that he probably deserved it.

Best regards,
mike d.

10 things I appreciate:

8+ hours of sleep
Really delicious dinners
Sincerity
Active Lifestyles
Orange Juice
Organization
People who don’t own cell phones
Breakfast
Honesty
Frugality

Guns, Guitars, and Steel.

The Question

Where do we get the helium to put in tanks and balloons and such? If it’s lighter than air, wouldn’t all of the helium on earth just float to the top of the atmosphere?

Roland says:
According to Wikipedia, “On Earth it is created by the radioactive decay of much heavier elements (alpha particles are helium-4 nuclei produced by alpha-decay). After its creation, part of it is trapped with natural gas in concentrations up to 7% by volume.”

The Answer

Roland’s data is, it seems, technically correct. But it’s only half the story!

Helium is the second-most-abundant element in the universe. Most of the helium on Earth is helium-4 (which, as Roland states, is produced by radioactive decay). However, most of the helium in the universe is helium-3, which is produced by nuclear fusion in the heart of a star.

(interesting aside: if we take the long view, eventually (trillions and quadrillions of years from now) there won’t be any hydrogen left in the universe to form stars and burn. Helium will be the new hydrogen. Of course, trillions of years later the lowest element around will be something like iron, and iron can’t fuse, so the stars will go out. Huh.)

Like Roland says, most of the helium that we harvest (the United States is, in fact, the top helium producing country in the world) comes from natural gas deposits. The helium is removed via the liquification of all the other gasses in the mix. Helium has an extremely high boiling point, so, as the temperature drops, all the other gasses in the mix liquify before the helium and can be simply poured away.

But what happens to the helium that isn’t stored in the crust of the planet? Well, some of it gets stuck in the very top of the atmosphere. But the rest of it “escapes into space”.

Now, if I escaped into space, I’d do more than just lolligag around, enjoying the emptiness. Helium feels the same way.

Helium goes to Mars!

That’s right, all the helium that escapes the Earth goes to Mars and visits the city it was named for; Helium. Helium (the city) is the main bastion of civilization on Mars, and is the home city of John Carter from the Edgar Rice Burroughs stories. Helium (the element) likes to visit Helium (the city) and wreak havoc in serious conversations by slipping in to people’s lungs and making them sound silly.

(another aside: There is another non-poisonous gas called sulfur hexafluoride that has the opposite effect; when you inhale it, your voice gets really LOW. Weird, eh?)

In any case, that’s the story on helium. Remember, don’t inhale helium from pressurized cylinders, because that could explode you. Also, don’t inhale too much helium, because the breathing mechanism is triggered by too much carbon dioxide, not missing oxygen, so it’s easy to asphyxiate. Cheers!

I’m having a tough day. I keep messing up.

Those around me have full right to be frustrated.

First off, congratulations to Shamus who correctly identified the location of the last skyline as Philidelphia from the steps of the Philidelphia Museum of Art… and to Roland who successfully pointed out that the picture was from the United States. That skyline was made super popular from the Rocky films when rocky runs up the steps of that museum and appears all sorts of victorious.

this week’s challenge is much harder.

WARNING: the answer may be in the comments, so don’t scroll down until you’ve given up.

First? the skyline. Enjoy it here.

Now, the Satellite Image. Enjoy it here.

Your tasks:
1) identify the skyline shown in the photograph
2) determine if the satellite image is of the same location
3) if not, determine the location of the satellite image

This one’s pretty tough. In the world of rockclimbing, I would rate it as a healthy 5.10c

Good luck!

(side note: if you took the picture… you’re not allowed to guess.)

Last night I had a dream that I was going to this ski paintball invasion event. We all wore mini-skis and we had to travel to this remote snow-filled barren place via metal pull tabs and elevators.

And Tom Morello, one of my favorite guitarists, was in one of the elevators. I got his autograph.

Then in the waiting room a cute girl came up and informed me that I should try a new hair style.

and finally, I got to the house and was given a paintball gun. It was my job to defend against 5 invaders. I ended up getting overwhelmed early on, so I ran upstairs, jumped out the window, and flanked my opponents. It worked perfectly.

I woke up wondering who the cute girl was.

mike d: what’d you do for Earth day?
Jesse: We actually did something earth related.
mike d: oh?
Jesse: yeah, Alicia and I went to see a movie that was basically about the guy who wrote cradle to cradle.
mike d: neat.
Jesse: what’d you do?
mike d: I worked on Fixing the acclaim. Because the Earth is happier when that car is working properly.

I (I being Shaun M. here) have a water bottle that I fill with filtered tap water from work and drink from throughout the day. I purchased the bottle at a local Marks & Spencer during my last trip to London, drank it on the plane, and brought it to work.

Somehow, drinking tap water from a European bottle adds class to my work day.

It’s time for another: FUN vs FUNK!

This time, let’s look at my near-future business trip to China which is now expected to be 3-4 weeks long. and what better time for this FUN vs. FUNK than right now! Especially since China’s president is hanging out a mere stones throw from my company this morning as he gives a presentation to Yale.

fun: I’ve never been to china. I hear its got some walls
funk: 24+ hours in a plane qualifies as ‘cruel and unusual punishment’ in most civilized societies
fun: a month in china means that I will surely have at least one or two days off to explore the eastern world
funk: all scheduled events: kung fu, rockclimbing, guitar lessons, graduate classes, jam sessions will have to be canceled
fun: no gas bills for a month!
funk: there’s a good possibility that plumbing will not be existant.
fun: china is kind of magical
funk: I’m not going to “cool place” China. I’m going to the South Dakota equivilent of China.
fun: If there’s internet, my website will be exciting
funk: there may not be internet

So I guess the entire balance of this trip is tipping on whether the destination has internet access.

Last night an individual started at Kung Fu whose biceps were at least as large as medium sized cantaloupes. This is not an exaggeration, if we were to take a caste of his arms we could easily fit various sized melons and gourds inside with room to spare. It was clearly not just a bicep thing either, his form in its entirety was substantial. His chest was about the size of a Buick*.

But while his size impressed me, it was instead his response to a little kid’s comment that deserves mentioning.

A young boy walked up to him as he prepared for class and with mouth slightly agape said

“wooooow. you’re really strong. How’d you do it?”
Colossus pointed to his bicep and said
“it has nothing to do with this,” and then pointing to his head “it’s all about whats in here. You could do it too if you wanted”

what a great thing to say! rock on Kung Fu dude

*this is an exaggeration. though not by much.

I have been promoted to Orange Belt in Kung Fu.

it’s that time of the year again

Is it possible to get Poison Ivy in your eyes?