This is a really cool site. These people travel around and also take pictures of things that might be ordinary where they are from, but are out of the ordinary to us and look REALLY cool. There are lots more pics, and they are not all of food. There is some great landscapes, etc. as well.
I don't care for pink but I love these nails! They are classy, interesting, and a little bit radical (at least for me). Maybe I am really conservative at heart. But then again, I do like to try out funky things.
Get ready to see the cutest thing you've ever seen. Especially keep your eyes out for the baby kitten's paws, and the mom yawning and stretching. But if you're like me, you'll watch it over and over and over again. And over again. No wonder it already has almost 7 million views!
Homemade kettle corn. Yum! It is so good, you just can't imagine it until you try it. I never liked the microwave versions, which tasted so artificial it made me sick. I pop mine on the stove in a big pot and no one can resist it. It just requires popcorn kernels, oil, sugar and then salt at the end of popping. I found my recipe on you tube. Now I make it about weekly and our whole family of 8 just digs right in. So yummy!
Sweet potato casserole using canned sweet potatoes. That is so handy and so quick! Well when I was growing up I really didn't like anything to do with squash, yams or sweet potatoes.
Now I love all of them! And I could even eat them every day.
Some, not all, of my kids like them too.
I want one of those...It's so cute! And it looks so soft. And sleepy. Look at the little wrinkles around its' tummy. And that cute little pink nosey-nose! Oh my gosh. I want one right now! I would carry it around all the time and go to bed with it and let it cuddle on my pillow right by my head and let it wind me all the way around it's little finger...errrr...hoof.
Oh these little guys are so cute. In fact just irresistable! They are like little baby kittens. I wonder if that's why the babies are called kits. I don't think a fox would try to attack a human because I don't think they can kill and eat us like wolves could. But they probably would scratch and bite.
Foxes don't get that big either. About the size of a small dog. I think they mostly eat gophers and ground squirrels, field mice, etc.
I love trees. I love everything about trees. I just can't get over it or around it. One of my favorite ways to look at trees is to see their dark silhouette against a lighter colored sky.
Even at night when the sky is relatively dark, the tree silhouettes are darker. For my eyes, it is pure magic. I just cannot quit looking. It's kind of like I am compelled to study each leaf or each frond. Wow. Isn't this picture magnificent?
These truck paintings are so cool. I have seen many that are just amazing. It's kind of like those sidewalk chalk drawings that are unbelievable. I wonder if these are drawn in that elongated style that the sidewalk ones are where the picture only looks three dimensional if you view it from a certain angle?
These sidewalk chalk images are amazing and I am just astounded at how they can be drawn to look so real. Man, I would be scared of falling in to this hole, even though it is just drawn flat on a sidewalk. It is unbelievable!
There are several artists worldwide doing this, but these are done by Julian Beever, an English artist. He has been creating them since the middle 1990's. I wonder how an artist like this makes money? Do passers-by give him money? Or do stores hire him to do this in front of their store to attract traffic? I don't know.
I sure am curious. Not that I would ever be this good. And I don't really want to travel around everywhere either. I can enjoy them from afar.
This creature is absolutely beautiful. A giant king crab, the largest species of king crab, kown as the Varanger king crab. Sometimes it is referred to as the "red king crab."
A doctoral student studying crab skeletons at the museum of natural history has discovered 4 new, previously unidentified species of king crab. From a scientific perspective, that is an absolutely fascinating and exciting piece of news.
And yes, I do like eating crab. I haven't really had it much since a child. Sometimes when I was younger I remember my mom bringing home crab and splitting it with everybody.
Of course I found out when I was older that crabs belong to the arachnid family. They are actually giant sea spiders. By that time I was already hooked on their delectable taste. They are crustaceans, so they have an exo-skeleton. Their skeleton is on their outsides unlike ours, which is on our insides.
I had never heard of Kawasaki disease (KD) before reading this article, but apparently Filipino children are at a higher risk for this disease than other ethnicities. The symptoms are fever and rash, red eyes and swollen glands in the neck, the hands and feet become red and swollen, and red, cracked lips. If left untreated, it could develop into damaged blood vessels and heart damage.
So, it is quite serious. It is something that parents of Filipino descent should be aware of.
Is there any way you can honestly look at this picture and stop your mouth from watering? No. Is there any way you can not imagine that luscious soft chewy cookie going into your mouth? No. In fact, I am on my way into the kitchen right this second to make up a big double batch of chewy oatmeal raisin cookies. They are going to smell so heavenly. They are going to taste even better! When was the last time you made oatmeal raisin cookies?
Nothing beats a good warm taco soup. Comfort food at it's best. I have made many types of chilies and bean soups and everything in between but personally I have always preferred the taste of taco soup. It's the cumin I love. I find chili powder too overpowering sometimes.
Some mornings I just throw cooked beans, tomatoes, cooked meat, onion, garlic, taco seasoning, corn, and whatever strikes my fancy into the crockpot and then it just simmers all day.
To make things as cheap and easy as possible, I cook up large batches of ground meat with onions and garlic and then freeze in 1 or 2 cup quantities. I also cook up large batches of dry beans (I use a pressure cooker; no soaking required) and freeze in bags.
Then on days I have run out of time and need food fast, it's easy to pull those out of the freezer and they are ready to use almost more quickly than cooking them from raw.
Eating Snow Can Be a Problem Unless Your Name is Chinook
Winds that flow over the top of mountains will often come down the leeward side the range. When the airflow moves from the higher elevation to lower, there is compressional warming. If you compress air, it heats up and when it expands it cools. That is why oxygen under pressure comes out cold when released. In the American West, such a downslope wind is referred to a Chinook Wind. The word Chinook means “Snow Eater” because Native Americans had noticed that when a warm wind blew down the mountains, the snow would disappear. That would be from rapid sublimation, or the snow turning directly to vapor as a result of the influx of warm, dry air. It is said that in places on the Eastern Slope of the Rockies, Chinook Winds are so common that houses have sliding wooden shutters to protect windows from flying debris. Flying debris? Are the winds that strong? Yes…sometimes they are that strong.
Chinook Arch
On this date in 1972, The National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado recorded a wind gust of 144 mph. That is nearly category 5 hurricane strength. South of Boulder at Rocky Flats, winds gusted to 105 mph and 90 mph gusts greeted downtown Boulder. Stapleton Airport in Denver reported gusts to 53 mph on January 11, 1972 and 47 mph the following day. In Boulder, more than 25 mobile homes were destroyed…some by wind and others by fire that erupted after they were overturned.
Chinook Arch
Buildings suffered major damage, car windows were blown out, traffic lights blown away and trees, power lines and utility poles were down. Some 75 families had to leave their apartment building due to severe structural damage. Flying debris caused much of the damage, much as one might expect in severe weather or a hurricane. Industrial complexes, government and private offices were evacuted out of fear of the results of flying matter and broken glass. 15 airplanes were damaged and hanger damage reported at Jefferson County Airport. In Boulder, the damage added up to 2 million dollars and total reports for damage in the area came to about $25 million.
Wild Pac NW Temp Swings-Daily Swings Jan 1972 Ft. Nelson BC
So, what about the “snow eater” part. In Denver, temperatures climbed to the mid 50′s. It is not unusual for temperatures to rise 20 to 40 degrees in a matter of minutes. The winds typically come from the northwest or west with the mountain crest sporting the “chinook arch.” At the outset of a chinook, temperatures can vary wildly as warm air mixes with cold. So, one spot may feel a 30 degree temperature rise in 15 minutes only to feel the rush of much colder air before the warming begins again. In the Black Hills of South Dakota, the town of Spearfish in 1943 experienced a 49 degree rise in temperature in just 2 minutes. 90 minutes after that, the mercury dropped 58 degrees in less than a half hour. The low for the time frame was -4 F and a high of 54 F. The system in 1972 was not isolated as on January 15, 1972 there was a 103 degree rise in temperature in 24 hours in Loma, Montana where the mercury went from 54 below zero to 49 degrees above zero. Here are some other significant temperature rises: Granville, ND on Feb. 21,1918 went from -33F to 50F in 12 hours, Fort Assiniboine, MT rose from -5 F to 37F in 15 minutes, Dec. 1 1896 folks in Kipp, MT felt the mercury rise of 34 degrees in just two minutes and a total daily rise of 80 degrees and 30 inches of snow disappeared in half a day.
The United States is not the only place to get this type of phenomena, but North America is the only place where they are called Chinook. Elsewhere, they are known as Foehn Winds, but Chinook is much more fun. There is some notion that the term Chinook derived from people of a region in the Columbia River Valley, the Chinooks, who first reported the winds to the white settlers. But I like the Snow Eater story better.
National Snow Cover Still 59% of USA
Weather Bottom Line: The Monday snow was pretty lame. Not enough moisture. Now, some folks may get above freezing on Tuesday afternoon as the clouds break but I suspect that the official end of the below freezing temperatures will be on Wednesday afternoon or maybe even midday. The long wave pattern is finally changing and the cold air will retreat back into Canada. That will mark about 12.5 days since we were above freezing in Louisville, one of the longest stretches on record, though I believe the longest such freezing streak runs to 17 days. It’s going to be short of my early prognastication in late 2009 that we wouldn’t get above freezing until the 15th, but the 13th is close enough…or long enough. Now, we get to the 40′s Wed through Friday. There is still that big low that will develop in the Gulf. The southern branch of the jet stream will swing down out of the southwest into Texas and a low will form. It will then eject into the SE US. The jury is still out but at this time, most modeling data does not drag down cold air sufficiently to give us snow…but we’ll see.
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Beware...don't eat the yellow snow. Very funny but I'm sure we can all figure out what it means. Kinda gross actually. I'm not really sure how that's related to Chinook winds, though, and that's why I wanted to bookmark this site. Chinook winds are a common phenomenon in Southern Alberta and some States as well. Very interesting to read up on them.
I think I could lift that pizza right off the screen and start chowing down. How can a mere photo look good enough to eat. What's on this pizza? Looks like black olives, green peppers, mushrooms and fresh tomatoes, topped with mozzarella cheese. Can't tell if there's onions hiding under there or not. This would definitely be one of my favorites. Dinner everyone! Come and get it! Darn. I shouldn't have said anything. Now I have to share :(
What a cuddle-cakes!! This adorable little guy with bright yellow daffodils all around; how irresistible. The misleading part about this cute little muffin is that he will grow up into a big strong work-horse. He may stay cute but he certainly won't be little. I wonder what country this picture is taken in? The daffodils sure don't grow that tall around here...
Red imported fire ants, or RIFA, does not sound like a good problem to have. Some States in the US have to attempt to eradicate these pests, who viciously defend their claimed territory. (Hopefully that's not your backyard!)
There are many pests which have been imported which otherwise would not have been a problem on this continent.
This beautiful animal is extinct. Indigenous to Australia, the last one died in 1936 in a zoo. It is believed that it was led to extinction by the introduction of the dingo. It's last place of refuge was Tasmania. It is often called the Tasmanian Tiger. It had a cat-like body and a dog-like head and mouth. It's jaws opened up gaping-wide like a crocodile's. It was a marsupial, with a backward-facing pouch that held usually 2 kits at a time. It hunted small kangaroos and wallabies.
Take a look at this beautiful girl. Someone sure takes a lot of time to take good care of this beautiful hair. It's not easy to keep long hair clean when guinea pigs run around in their wood chips (and poop for that matter) all day.
I know on our long-hair guinea pig, we have to wash and comb her hair often- and she doesn't like it too much- but she's quite a cuddler so she dows enjoy the attention!
Beautiful hardwood floors, done to perfection! Nothing beats the natural beauty and durability of properly chosen and installed hardwood flooring. There are so many things you can do with a room decked out in beautiful hardwood floors!
Wow! Such an explosion of beautiful flowers rocketing up from the earth at the 2011 Chinese horticultural exposition. Over 100,000 tourists flocked there in one day to see the beautiful display.
I remember my Grandmother growing flowers like this in her yard. I think they are a type of lupin but I may be mistaken; it's been a long time and I haven't had much experience flower planting since then, except for the marigolds that I plant every year to fill up the two flower spots in the front of my house.
The marigolds give me a burst of bright red, orange and yellow, and they also ward off bugs. (Marigolds stink.)
These bat-eared foxes are so cute! Their faces are so fox-like and yet the ears seem to be just plopped on the top of their heads, almost like they don't belong there. It makes one think that the little fellows would be extremely good at hearing. They live in families and family groups, with a high level of socialization. How sweet!
I’ve heard of Chinook winds but didn’t really understand what they were. Very neat. The power of nature of staggering. Just think of the energy it would take to heat up even one little town 50 degrees just in 30 minutes!
I hope the cold holds off for another couple of weeks (revival at our church). Your buddy Jay Cardosi said no bitter cold air was on the horizon until at least the end of January (according to the models). We’ll see!
He is correct.