Mikan are my favorite fall treat (actually my favorite treat anytime) with a long history going back to the 16th century. I found this really cool history of the mikan at the Arida mikan database. Here is a crummy Google translation of the page for those that only read non-Japanese languages. Cursed machine translation!
Image Credit: Creative Commons Image uploaded to http://www.flickr.com/photos/95268887@N00/3146404259/ on December 22, 2008 by Austin Keys (Ozchin)
I stumbled across a comment on a baking blog about free sourdough starters from The New York Bakers. On offer is a choice of 1 each of any three from a long list of different starters that includes a San Fransisco sourdough starter, and a starter that came across the pioneer trail on a wagon train in 1847. Don’t know how good these are, but free sounds like a pretty good deal, and I have requested a few. More when/if they arrive.
I wish I could find the page that I found out about the free starter from, to give them credit, but I closed it and cannot find it again.
Image Credit: Creative Commons image uploaded to http://www.flickr.com/photos/treehouse1977/4589351117/ on May 8, 2010 by Jim Champion (treehouse1947).
We did this in High School – turning copper/zinc pennies into “gold” and “silver” pennies using zinc powder and sodium hydroxide. So much fun! Makes me want to immediately expose my children to the joy and dangers of the chemical sciences. They need to hurry up the growing up. Chemistry.about.com has a tutorial.
I pulled into the Fred Meyer parking lot this afternoon and parked next to this security truck. I couldn’t help but find it both amusing and somewhat disturbing to notice that the door of the empty truck (its passengers probably finishing up their shopping?) had been left open. I don’t know anything about this company, and am sure that its customers are very safe and well protected. Just a funny first impression to make. [Although, on further thought, maybe the impression being sent here is that their security systems are so good that you not only don't have to lock your door, you don't even have to close it.]
A longtime fan of Ultraman, and Kaiju in general, I was really happy to find these anatomical illustrations at Pink Tentacle. The illustrations are just hilarious – the illustration of Gamera, above, includes separate stomachs for the digestion of magma, petroleum, and uranium. I just love these. Check them out at Pink Tentacle, by way of MakeZine.
Working today on building bridges between my Japanese brain and my scientist brain. Just figured out that Adaptive Management = 順応的管理（じゅんのうてきかんり）. I think I have talked about Adaptive Management here before – a management practice that allows for action in spite uncertainty by setting management actions up as experiments that will be used to guide future management.
Hatsuhinode (初日の出), the first sunrise of the new year, is an important Japanese tradition. People climb mountains or drive to the coast so that they can see the first rays of light. Last year a bunch of airlines even offered special flights so that people could view the first sunrise from the air, and really be the first ones touched by the new year sun.
Becky and I have wanted to view hatsuhinode since we have been married. It’s a tradition that we would like to have. But every year, in spite of our best intentions the night before, we wake up on January 1st too late to make it to high ground. This year, finally, we made it out the door, into the car with four sleepy kids (still in their jammies), and up onto a high ridge to watch the sun rise. Here is a time lapse movie of the photos I took with my phone. They are pretty shaky and of poor quality (I wasn’t really planning on taking the photos, but it was something to do while I was waiting), but it was such a beautiful sunrise.
Happy New Year, 新年あけましておめでとう, etc.
