Back to the Blocks

Yesterday

Some shots of David's birthday in Old Town 

view from lunch 

birthday boy

King St (restaurant at left)

Riverside Park

 

Torpedo Factory Art Center

(cleverly so called because they used to build torpedoes there) 

O Most Joyous of Days!!!

 Today is My Sweet Poopsie's Birthday!!!

Flowers

This time, they didn't quite do what I wanted them to. Among other things, the stems were too spindly (hard to tell in a wrapped bouquet).  But after a couple days, they improved.

 

Driver's License (or would that be Drivers License?)

I received my renewed driver's license today, good till 2033! Once again it has a star in its upper right corner,* which I take to mean the state government thinks I'm doing an excellent job being a Virginian.  Woohoo!

*For those dwelling in exotic foreign lands, the star simply indicates that the license card is compliant with federal secure ID regulations. Our licenses these days have more security measures on them than the currency.  

 

On Memory

(I was going to write a post yesterday, but noted that my blog template had somehow gone a bit haywire. Blogger's settings were of no help; they've become quite useless these days, so I had to contact the Spirits--i.e., Google. The mystical oracles of all knowledge informed me that an unacceptable piece of code unknowingly posted in a post could cause this. So I deleted the offe3nding post and reposted it. Voilà! Problem solved, but the process was so grueling I was left with no energy to write a new post. Fervent apologies.)

The following appeared in the blog of a friend who happens to by a psychiatrist--some of you will know him. I thought it worthy to repost here:  

Our brains are not hard drives, they are more like deletion devices. We have what neurologists call ‘episodic memory” viz. we organize memories into sequences that we use reference points tied to other happenings. My memory of when things happened up to 2005 is pretty good, because they happened in sequences of levels of schooling and where I lived. In 2005 I moved to Arizona, Since then I have been in the same house, with the same job day, in and day out. Even the vacations and trips have been kind of repetitious. As a consequences, the last twenty years are a blur, one long time period. This isn’t an attribute of age but an lack of remarkable experiences to mark memory. To remember what happened when I have to consult my journals.

Hamster's Anecdotes from American History

In 1987, the governor of Utah removed all but 31 officers from the Utah State Guard, after a probe revealed that its ranks were "peppered with neo-Nazis, felons and mental patients."¹ Meanwhile, in 1990, the Virginia General Assembly launched an investigation and subsequent overhaul of its state's force after receiving tips that the volunteers were "saving money to buy a tank."²

 

 

¹Anderson, Jack (21 November 1991). "Independent state defense forces costly, without purpose". Kentucky New Era. Retrieved 11 January 2014. 

²Kelderman, Eric (31 December 2003). "State Defense Forces Grow, Project New Image". Pew Center on the States. Archived from the original on 12 July 2012.

Grocery Curiosities

At the new international market down the road

very fresh fish

barks???

And at the local supermarket…

GAY ICE CREAM!!!

Hamster Does Science!!!

 I've been meaning to post this for a while, and am finally getting to it.

 

As you may perhaps know, I have a certain fascination with cosmology and astrophysics. There is much I simply can't get my head around, but it's fun to read about it and listen to it, e.g. https://www.youtube.com/@SabineHossenfelder. As a result, I now have 2 (count 'em 2!) theories about why we've never been visited by, or even seen evidence of, intelligent alien life. The second one is a bit morose, but at least displays my confidence in the intelligence of the cosmos as a whole.

 

theory 1: Despite decades of science fiction writing, faster than light travel really is impossible. Yeah, there is the whole warp idea, but no one's yet demonstrated it is possible to make one work in reality.

 

theory 2: The universe is clever enough to arrange things so that intelligent species die out--either from natural causes, cosmic disasters, or their own stupidity--before they are capable of interstellar travel. That would prevent all sorts of untidiness that would result from two intelligent species encountering one another.

 

Hey, I never claimed to be Einstein...

 

Trivia

I've been such a slug lately... I missed announcing the birthdays of Karl I, the most recent (I will NEVER say "last") emperor of Austria-Hungary on Aug 17, 1887, or of his predecessor and great-uncle Franz-Josef on Aug 18, 1830. Felicitations to their All-Highest & Apostolic Majesties!

 In cheerier news, David brought back a new NA from Aldi, Bellini - so peachy!

 

 

And, once again, Welcome to Northern Virginia...

Occoquan

Last week, on the way to an IKEA run, we stopped at a village called Occoquan.  It's an artists' colony type of place with little shops and restaurants, right on the banks of the Occoquan river, where it flows into the Potomac.  Cute place, even though it was overcast and drizzling.  One of it's curiosities is that I-95 (the main north-south expressway along the east coast of the US) literally goes over it.  The river flows in a deep valley, and I-95 crosses the river on a tall bridge.  So this sleepy little town sits below one of the busiest highways in the country.  It bears revisiting in better weather.  

Hiatus

 Please excuse my recent paucity of posts. I went up to the mountains for a bit to escape the heat:

I will resume presently...

 

A Yummy N/A Drink

This is a wonderful non-alcoholic drink we found at Aldi. It mimics an Aperol spritzer, which is right up there in summer popularity with Compari & Soda in Italy. It has a sophisticated tartness to it, but it's also slightly sweet. I love it! Try some if you're so inclined and have an Aldi nearby...

Flowers (LOTS of flowers)

Bright colors at bargain prices, uh-oh I'm in trouble.  I overdid, but the outcome was lovely... and large.  At first I couldn't get the lighting right at the usual location, bouquet was too big.  So I went out to the conservatory.*  Later I got the lighting right inside and took even more pictures.  Overdid the pix too.  Enjoy!

*We have an enclosed terrace/balcony thingy, and we've never known what to call it. It's not really a balcony, or a terrace, or a porch, etc., and we kept on calling it different things. We finally settled on the British "conservatory" which we decided was the most apt term (even though it's 3 stories above ground).