summer's almost here...

Everyone likes a nice golden tan. In today's society it's a sign of health and beauty. But long term exposure to the UVA and UVB rays can cause wrinkles, age spots, change in texture and thickness due to the drying out of skin, and even skin cancer.
But sunlight exposure also gives us an important element-Vitamin D. Vitamin D helps keep bones, teeth, and joints healthy by giving you a higher bone mineral density. It also protects against heart disease, depression, cancer, strokes, and osteoporis.
Tanning beds seem to be very popular these days. They provide a beautiful tan in only minutes, and they've also been shown to make people feel better. However, when in the bed, your eyes are exposed to radiation levels of up to 100 times more than the sun.
Doctors say that "no tan is a good tan" and "any amount of exposure to the sun can lead to skin cancer". But this doesn't mean we should lock ourselves inside and fear the sun. It simply means to be smart. Here's a few tips:

1. use a bronzing cream or self-tanning spray
2. if you go to a tanning salon, do not go longer than the recommended time.
3. if you tan outside, use sunscreen-frequently.
4. it is best to avoid tanning in the sun between noon and 3pm when rays are strongest.
5. Protect your eyes! Wear sunglasses outside and goggles when tanning inside.
6. use an after-tan lotion to moisturize your skin.

Chickadees heart peanut butter

After getting an expensive bird bath and setting up a fancy feeder on a shepherd's hook to make my back yard amenable to birds, I have had no action attendant to either of these additions. However, the corny little pine cone feeders Ramona and I made together as a mommy and me project (smear peanut butter into a pine cone, roll it in bird seed, tie a piece of yarn on it, and hang it from the telephone wire) are attracting crowds of black capped chickadees, a lovely little bird. I love hearing their pips and "dee-dee-dee"s. So much for investing in infrastructure.

lock your doors....

for my second review i have decided to jump to a horror film that, to me at least, looks absolutely terrifying. "The Strangers", written and directed by Bryan Bertino, is a film about a couple who just got back from a friends wedding reception to a nice quiet vacation home. what they thought would be a night of romance soon turns into a terrifying struggle for survival after they become terrorized by three strangers. the film uses classic horror elements of lighting, sound, and a very creepy setting that makes you think anything can happen in an isolated area. The film is based on a true story that happened on February 11th, 2005, but no one really knows the true story of the violet murder that took place there. this film's experience is made possible by the two very good actors, Love Tyler, and Scott Speedman, who bring the terrifying feeling of being terrorized to life. if you are looking for a new terrifyingly good movie to see, i recommend seeing this film, for you should not be disappointed. it is not for the faint of heart though, if you don't like being scared, this movie may not be for you.

"The Strangers" opends everywhere may 30th 2008, be sure to see it!

Hen with Spurs!

While trimming my hens beak I noticed she had begun growing spurs. It’s very unusual for a hen to develop spurs but not unheard of. So I decided to look into it. I discovered that it depends on the breed of chicken. I also learned its also possible that females will develop male characteristics like spurs, crowing, and a large comb. When there isn’t a rooster around the dominate hen begins developing male characteristics. Once a rooster is put in with the flock of hens, she will loose the male characteristics and act like a normal hen again. I don’t think this what’s going on since I already have I rooster. I really don’t want to deal with anymore crowing. I guess just have to wait and see what happens.

If you're going to grow corn, go Native American

Well, I finally started pulling many of the weeds in my garden last week, and boy, there were ALOT of them! Once I had a small patch of earth to work with, I began thinking about what to plant in my garden. Hmmm...well I know that I want to try to go all organic this year, using only natural fertilizer, and compost materials. My garden is about a 20x15 spot...so it's not too big, nor too small. I was thinking about planting "Indian corn" which is some what similar to regular corn, only it has dark kernels that are a little hard...they're mostly used for decoration on tables for Thanksgiving and harvest time. Indian corn is my favorite type of corn because it is colorful, and is one of the easiest to grow. Many people ask why it is different colored? Actually nature intended corn to be those colors, to ward off certain fungi, and bugs, and also so it can be camouflaged too. The old wise tale is "Your corn should be knee-high at fourth of July." So I guess I'd better get to planting!

Bird week

This was an amazing week for a recent convert to bird watching. I saw a striking bird in a cherry tree in North Portland that I thought was a Western Tanager--checked with the Dean of Humanities, birding guru, and learned they're migrating through the region and are everywhere, and so plausible to see even in the city. Rechecked the picture in my bird guide, felt sure, then spotted two more on campus. Now I'll know it when I see it. Checked a Spotted Towhee on the ground near the daycare center at Clark. Black top, white spots on the wings, orange sides just under, and white belly. Also, we replaced our furnace with a new one and our old chimney is now non-functional, and a big family of swifts is living in it for the third summer in a row. One can sit at the back of our yard and watch them circle and swoop into the chimney; once they have babies, ca. early June, the cheeping of the young is audible from my pantry (behind which is the chimney) whenever the adults come home to feed the babies. It is pretty great to have a habitat house--and the swifts live on airborne insects, so we can barbecue without fear of mosquitoes.

Six Sea Lion Deaths Still a Mystery.

Here is an update upon the sea lion story. The sea lions were found Sunday in two traps. Each held three animals, and the doors to both were somehow closed. They were all dead. The traps are intended to confine them until they are relocated. At first the main cause of death was thought to have been from gunshot, however analysts are not to sure. They went and examined the bodies and found no metal slugs in the bodies. The next thought was that maybe they were poisoned. Here is an excerpt from The Seattle Times describing it in detail.

"An examination of the heads of six sea lions who died in traps at Bonneville Dam on the Columbia River hasn't given federal investigators reason to pursue toxicology tests to see whether the animals were poisoned, an official of the National Marine Fisheries Service said today.

Beyond that, however, federal officials revealed little about the mystery surrounding the deaths of the six animals trapped in cages as part of an effort to keep them from feeding on endangered salmon.

Fisheries officials have ruled out their initial assumption the six sea lions were shot to death and say they are still puzzled about how the animals came to be trapped in the cages. The trap doors had been left open, so the sea lions would grow accustomed to them until it was time to send them to aquariums."

They have studied the heads of the sea lions but have not released anything to the public as of yet.

In Flames: Subterranean

Shortly after the release of Lunar Strain, In Flames started working Subterranean. The band though didn't have a committed singer because Mikael Stanne decided to leave and join Dark Tranquility. The band decided to "borrow" Henke Forss. When Subterranean was released, it helped In Flames to break from the underground scene and sign a deal with the record label, Nuclear Blast. In Flames finally got tired of not having committed members in the band, so Jesper asked Bjorn Gelotte to be the band's official drummer to which he agreed. 6 months later they asked Anders Friden to join the band and become the full tie vocalist. He is the current vocalist today. The band then started to produce their first album under Nuclear Blast; this album is known as The Jester Race. This would be the bands most popular album until their next release, Whoracle.

I think I saw a Western Tanager

I am pretty sure, but wonder if it's possible--I saw it in a North Portland cherry tree, right on a city street. Might one have been there?

REAL Online Dating Advice: The Intro

I've never done a blog before, so here it goes... I'm going to give my opinion on what I think about online dating coaches and how they're advice to either out dated or just not good at all. Granted, when you're in the world of being single(or single-ish...You know what I'm talking about!) and decide to start dating in hopes of meeting that special someone, there are risks and precautions that you have to take. This also pertains to 99.9% of other things that are going on in your life. The thing is, there's a lof of us out there who just have more of an understanding about things in life due to the fact that we've been through many different experiences, and we've experienced things at an earlier stage in life. In other words, WE GET IT. I find it funny that when I read the articles online, they never speak to the person that gets it already and just needs more advice. Well fear not, smart dater! I am that person, and over the next few weeks, I'll provide you with knowledge and insight that you'll need to reach the next level. How can I give dating advice, you ask? Simple. I'm a proven vet, and my track record speaks for its self(and to those willing to listen...). Thank you taking time to read my introduction, I'll get started for real on my next post. Stay tuned....

How to Fudge the Data: Shrinking the Sample

An important part of any study is in its ability to be applied on a large scale. Nobody can argue that it is thus important to take as large of a sample as possible in order to give any kind of accurate representation. The hype regarding global warming fails on this simple, yet important, aspect in their cries about global climate change.

Al Gore, the poster child for global warming, claimed in his movie "The Inconvenient Truth" that,

"If you look at the ten hottest years ever measured, they all occurred in the last fourteen years, and the hottest of all was 2005."

Although 2005 was a very hot year (this was the year Sin City came out after all), in terms of global temperature over all of measured history, Gore is sorely mistaken. In fact, the ten hottest years ever measured happened thousands of years ago and 2005 was not one of them, according to Professor Richard A. Muller and Gordon J. Macdonald in their book Ice Ages and Astronomical Causes. So how is Gore able to make such a ridiculous claim? Simple, he shrunk the sample.

It's true that in the last 125 years temperatures have been slowly wandering upwards, but 125 years is insignificantly small in comparison to the history of Earth or even in comparison to human history. In reality there have been several periods of time where the Earth has been significantly hotter than it is now, and in the past 11 thousand years there have been at least 5 spikes where temperatures got hotter than they are now or were in 2005. I'd say that eleven thousand years is a pretty significant sample size, wouldn't you?

For more information, visit this site. Chill out!