My apologies to you esteemed readers for the long layoff…17 days without a post…but with Easter and Connie’s self proclaimed ‘choir week from hell’…combined with her operatic rehearsals…combined with first a UTI infection which made her miserable for a week…and combined with a now sinus infection which while it sucks won’t keep her miserable as long…things just got away from us.

We originally had a trip down to Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary scheduled for this past Wednesday…but with her Easter over she was deep into Tosca rehearsals and costume fittings and we decided it was just 5 pounds in a 2 pound bag and moved that trip to next Wednesday.

So…let me introduce you to the new woman in Neil’s life…Sister Mary Constance…all nuns are named Sister Mary Something-or-other you know.

Yeah…I know she looks funny…but once she donned the black opaque tights and black ballet flat shoes she woulda totally fit the part. 

However…as previously noted…the sinus infection has intervened. She started feeling poorly on Monday along with Neil and we thought it was just allergies after checking the various pollen levels. Unfortunately…she got significantly worse on Wednesday (good thing we cancelled the Corkscrew trip) and then really…did I mention really…worse on Thursday AM so in the early afternoon he took her down to the walk in clinic. She had already done 2 at home covid tests (negative) but they did another 2 of them there as well as flu and a chest X-ray (all negative) so the PA decided it was sinus infection…gave her steroids and antibiotics and more for the symptoms. Luckily she’s feeling a lot better today (Friday)…not good but way better than yesterday. However…she can’t sing and the dress rehearsal was scheduled for tonight and then the first performance on Saturday night…so her operatic debut and her operatic swan song have both happened. At least she got as far as the costume fitting…and Neil thinks she would have made a good nun after looking at her picture above. He thought she would upset about it…but on further review as the replay official always says…she’s turned out to be really not as enamored of opera as she thought she would be. She’s fine with the music…a little less fine with the having to memorize the songs in Italian as they can’t carry scores on stage…and really not fine at all with the acting required as she’s just not all that interested in it. 

Neil had a ticket for the opening night but we’ll just punt that as he was mostly going to support her…trying to follow a plot in Italian is just way, way too hard even with subtitles.

The good news is that she (and he) now have 3 more evenings and 2 afternoons free than we thought we would.

Neil’s new Mac Studio came in yesterday and he got it all set up…except for the new Studio Display monitor which is…according to Apple and his credit card…preparing to ship…which is much better than the processing it was previously in. The monitor was originally supposed to be here this week and the Mac late May…dunno why the computer shipped first but it is what it is.

He also ordered a new Nikon Z9 body and 800mm lens to go along with it…you don’t want to know how much that cost…but they decided they can’t take it with them and they can afford it so why not. No word when they will ship though.

Yeah…we really ain’t done much the past 17 days…but I promise to make Neil process photos ASAP after next Wednesday and I’ll put some up.

Let’s see…what else interesting is happening.

Strange facts to consider.

As you all know…an atom is composed of a nucleus and then an outer area where the electrons orbit…but the size is a lot different than you think. For a nucleus the size of a softball a hydrogen atom would be the size of the Louisiana SuperDome. So following up on this…somebody figured out how much space a human body would take if you were able to squeeze out all the empty space and only need to have space for the protons, neutrons, electrons, and various other subatomic particles…and the answer turns out to be the size of a sugar cube. Only that sugar cube would be able to contain not only the components of an individual body but for a few more…actually the components for the entire human species would fit in a single sugar cube. Not sure whether that’s currently alive humans or all time…but something like 75% of all the humans ever are alive today so there’s not all that much difference. Apparently 99.9999999999% of your body is this empty space inside the various atoms composing you.

So…DNA. As you probably all know…or should know…every cell in your body has a complete copy of the DNA that makes you…you. Your DNA contains 23 chromosomes…which is really a pretty small number all things considered. The Adders Tongue plant has 1260, the Atlas Blue Butterfly (or maybe moth) has 450, and the Northern Lamprey 174…and nobody at our house has enough genetic knowledge to know why some much less complex organisms have more chromosomes than humans do or even how do scientists tell where one chromosome stops and the next one starts…but I digress. Back to DNA. 

So…if you denatured an entire human and unrolled the DNA in every one of his/her cells…and stretched it out…just how long would it be. Turns out the answer is 34 billion miles…or 6 round trips to Pluto and back.

And apparently…if you took two pieces of the same metal out into space and touched them together…they would instantly weld themselves together into a single piece.

One year on the planet Venus (the time it takes to revolve around the sun) is 224 earth days. One day on the planet Venus (the time it takes to revolve around its axis through the poles) is 243 earth days. So a year on Venus is actually shorter than a day on Venus. And…Venus is the only planet in our solar system that rotates on its axis backwards (assuming you believe all the others rotate forwards).

You could fit 1.3 million earths inside the sun…and if you ignored the gravitational effects you could fit every planet in the solar system between the earth and the moon.

Scientists think there might be about 3 sextillion starts in the entire universe…that’s 3 followed by 23 zeroes. This is more than the entire number of grains of sand on the earth.

Over in Copenhagen Denmark…they have this power plant that takes garbage and burns it to produce power…apparently this is a common thing over in Europe. Whatever. However…once they build this huge power plant in the middle of town they thought it might be a bit of an eyesore…so they did something about it. Essentially they build a thing called Copen Hill…which incorporates a ski run (including one with gates for practicing your slalom) that is usable in both winter with it’s snow covered and in summer when it’s covered with silicon and you put some silicon goo on the bottom of your skis to use it…as well as a hiking trail up to the top which is about 400 or 500 feet high.

And oh yeah…let’s not forget the world’s tallest climbing wall located on the right side far end as you look at this…Ima guessing they don’t let you climb it without a safety rope attached.

This snake is named the Green Tree Python…don’t ask me why it’s yellow ‘cuz I don’t know.

You know what this is?

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It’s a square root of course.

Over in Japan…on the road between Tateyama and  Kurobe prefectures (sort of like counties in the US) there is a road called the Alpine Route. Being up in the mountains…it gets some snow during the winters of course…and the Japanese being really interested in tourist things…well they plow it early in the spring and let folks take tour buses up there to see it.

That’s some serious snow piles.

Neil needs this T shirt.

And this one too…he’s got very, very, very little patience.

And finally…how blondes think cows work.

Cyas.