Wordle - Beautiful Word Clouds

Wordle - Beautiful Word Clouds: "Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends."

Play around with this; it's fun!

Books + Recession = Cash for me

Okay, I admit it ... I have too many books.  I also have not enough money (a problem afflicting all too many of us these days).  Put these two difficulties together and the solution is simple: sell some books.  Easier said than done, you may say, but through the wonder of the Internet I have, with very little effort, just sold about $20 worth of books online.  

Abebooks and Powell's Books with both buy books from you online and pay the shipping.  Abe pays by check or PayPal; Powell's gives you credit or pays (slightly less) via PayPal.  Just type in the ISBNs of your books, see what they will offer, print out the shipping label, pack up the box and send it on its way.  Nice and easy, and no waiting in line at the post office to have your package weighed.  

Now I just have to find some more boxes so I can do this again ....

Love to Laugh

In honor of Valentine's Day, here is a link to Cap'n Wacky's Gallery of Unfortunate Valentine's Cards.  Laugh, but remember to breathe.  And don't look at this site with other people around, unless you want to explain why you are giggling like crazy over a picture of an old Valentine.

If, for any reason, you don't find this website absolutely hilarious, I am very, very sorry for you.  You must be missing the wacky humor gene and your world must be very, very dull.  Or else I'm just crazy, in which case, if you DO find the site hilarious, welcome to the nut house!

The Beauty of Turkey Vultures

Yes, I said "beauty."  Because these big, red-headed carrion-eating creatures really are beautiful.  I live near dairy country, so I see lots of vultures.  I know that sounds creepy, but stillborn calves, afterbirth and, unfortunately, animal carcasses dumped on the side of the road (saves on knacker's fee, I suppose) are facts of life in dairy country.  Anyway, back to the birds ...

Although they look ungainly up close, when they are in the air, turkey vultures are magnificent.  They are expert soarers and very good at finding thermal updrafts.  I often see large groups of them "kettling" (spiraling upwards on an updraft).  Vultures can be mistaken for crows or hawks from a distance but only turkey vultures hold their wings in that distinctive shallow V-shape and teeter (or rock) on the wind.  

There are three kinds of vultures in North America: the turkey vulture, with a red head; the black vulture, with a grey head; and the famous California condor.  Oddly enough, unlike the vultures of the Old World, which are related to hawks and eagles, the New World vultures are most closely related to .... storks.  Which actually does make sense if you look at stork's head and compare it to a black vulture's.  

And now for the most beautiful thing about vultures: they clean up carrion and help prevent the spread of diseases and bacteria.  Their iron-clad stomachs can handle food that would do in most other animals, which means that after the coyotes and raccoons and all the other predators and scavengers have eaten what they can, the vultures can finish off what's left.  All part of the great "circle of life."  

My New Year's Resolution

I has been more than a month since my last post, so here is my resolution for 2009: to write more.  I used to write all the time -- letters, stories, journal entries, etc. -- but that was when I could still write by hand.  Well, I can still write by hand but not for very long before my thumb and wrist begin to ache and I have to quit.  So, some of the joy has been lost from writing and most of the spontaneity, since I now have to power up the laptop any time I want to write more than a short letter.  So here's to 2009, the year I reclaim my writing self!  

I'm not overly optimistic about my chances of sticking to my goal, but at least I will start off with good intentions.  And maybe I won't spend so much time playing Mahjong Towers Eternity ...

And away they go!

Gaze upon this photo.  Study it closely.  It is a magic photo, for it has turned itself into a VIP ticket package for next year's Breeders' Cup World Championships.  

I entered the Breeders' Cup Facebook photo contest and this is the winning photo.  It was actually good luck that got me the shot.  The spot that I had staked out on the rail turned out to be right in front of the starting gate for the Dirt Mile.  Right before the horses loaded into the gate, a professional photographer (on the other side of the fence) took up position directly in front of me.  I remember thinking, "Oh, great, there goes my shot," and just then he got down on the ground to shoot up at the gate.  The horses loading into the gate, I locked focus on the doors and when the bell rang I pressed down the shutter release, snapping off 4 or 5 shots.  This one was the best of the lot.

So, next year, instead of standing at the rail in the hot sun for two days, I will have seats (my sister was very pleased to hear that) and even get to attend a VIP party.  I might even run down to the rail and snap a few photos during the day --- a picture may be worth a thousand words, but this one was priceless.

A Surfeit of Horses

I am still trying to absorb the banquet of magnicent horseflesh that I reveled in on Friday and Saturday at the Breeders' Cup World Thoroughbred Championships, held this year at "my track," Santa Anita.  Over the two days, 14 stakes races were run under the Breeders' Cup banner, all but one of them with a purse of at least $1 million.  Eight of them are rated Grade One, the highest level of racing in the world.  

I shot over 1500 photos (thank goodness for digital!) and am still going through them, deciding which ones need to be uploaded to the lab for printing.  After a while, my eyes start to glaze over from staring at the screen too long.  

All of the races were exciting but my favorites were: the $2 million Juvenile Filles for 2-year-old fillies at 1 1/16 miles, won by the lanky grey Stardom Bound in her typical come-from-behind style; the $2 million Ladies Classic (which used to be called the Distaff, a much better name IMHO) for fillies and mares aged 3 and up at 1 1/8 miles, won by the great undefeated 4-year-old filly Zenyatta, a huge bay with a quirky personality and talent to spare; the $5 million Classic for colts, geldings and horses (race-speak for stallions; in the Thoroughbred industry, older male racers are called "horses" and only those retired to stud are called "stallions") aged 3 and up at 1 1/4 miles, won by the 3-year-old chestnut colt Raven's Pass in a upset over the heavy favorite Curlin (the first horse to earn over $10 million in purse money and last year's Horse of the Year).