Attention Time Travelers

I read here that sometime next week the Large Hadron Collider - the most powerful atom-smasher to date - will be turned on near Geneva, Switzerland. Some researchers speculate that the collisions may generate enough energy to affect the dimension of time. They muse that the interactions may be enough to initiate a worm hole in space-time. Further, if worm holes are indeed possible, this might be the gateway toward which travelers from the future may venture. It would be, in essence, the beginning of time travel, and if any of this is by any chance possible, it will be a landmark worth noting.

Mardi Gras

The day for Pancakes and Paczki (a traditional Polish jelly doughnut that is unpronounceable).
Eat and celebrate for you still have the whole month of February to get through. Punxatawney Phil had the right idea - I'm going back to bed.

Tuesday Haiku

Shadow on the stair.
Velvet nudge soft as snowflakes.
Tiger in the house.

Again with the science . . .

These are some of the most impressive photos I have seen in a long time. In addition to the other science sites/blogs I visit, this one is new to me and terrific. High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment based at the University of Arizona.

Saturday Haiku

A sniff is a kiss,
But a bat is only that
in cat sign language.

The Winter Sky

I went downstairs the other morning. My thoughts were occupied by the things I needed to do to get ready for work, feed the cats, pack a lunch, etc. My attention was suddenly arrested by the view from my dining room windows. From those windows I can see across my neighbors' lawns, across the street, and over the high school's baseball fields. The bare tree trunks on the tree lawns were black silhouettes. The sky was a vibrant raspberry. Over the next few minutes, the dynamics of the sunrise ran through colors from raspberry, to strawberry, to mango, then paled to apricot. I fed the cats and when I looked again steel gray clouds on a faded pale sky had replaced all of those amazing colors. Fleeting, but spectacular.

Welcome New Year

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light:
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
For those that here we see no more;
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care, the sin,
The faithless coldness of the times;
Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes,
But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease;
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson