thekurths.com

Tropical Bird Sighting!

Today I took a break from work to walk down to the corner and stretch my legs. Imagine my surprise when, right outside the business next to ours, I saw two bright green tropical birds standing amidst a crowd of crows and grackles!

Alas, I did not have a camera, so I stood there and stared wide-eyed for a minute (they were really pretty birds, and I'm easily impressed). I poked my head in the door of Regal Plastics to say "hey, come check out these cool birds!", but the people in there looked busy so I didn't say anything. Then a lady drove up and stopped her car to stare out the window at the birds. We exchanged a few words about how cool they were, and then she left.

I hoofed it back to the office, picked up my camera phone, and grabbed Colin and Joshua, who instantly began making fun of me for being so excited. As the three of us walked back outside, I scanned the trees and spotted the birds across the street. Like a crazy man, I then ran across the road (yes, Mom, I looked both ways first) pointing at the birds and shouting, "There they are!"

So we all got to see them. I busted out my (exceedingly crappy) camera phone to take a picture, but somebody scared them away. I tried to take a pic of one of the birds while it was still in the air, so here it is:

Colin compared this photo to a picture of Sasquatch... I think there are a few blurry green pixels there. Anyway, here's a picture I found online of what the bird looks like up close. I think this is some kind of parrot. It was pretty big, about the same size as a crow.

It was surprisingly exciting to see a bird like this! I've sometimes wondered, "What's the big deal about bird watching?" But now I can sort of imagine how it could be fun.

***UPDATE 12/19/05*** Barry says these are Mexican parrots that sometimes migrate this far north. We then speculated on who would win in a fight between the parrots and the bats that live under the Congress bridge. Consensus: the parrot would win, but it would later die after contracting some weird bat disease.

Why is Christmas on December 25?

"According to conventional wisdom, Christmas had its origin in a pagan winter solstice festival, which the church co-opted to promote the new religion. In doing so, many of the old pagan customs crept into the Christian celebration. But this view is apparently a historical myth-like the stories of a church council debating how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, or that medieval folks believed the earth is flat-often repeated, even in classrooms, but not true."

Get the rest of the story here.
*Update* Here is a more scholarly article about this.

Kaeta's Baptism Photos

You can see photos from Kaeta's baptism by clicking the Photos link at the top of this page, or by clicking this link.

Starting with this gallery, I'm using a new tool to generate web albums called, appropriately, Web Album Generator. Most web gallery programs I've seen are WAY more complicated than I need, so up to now I've been generating albums using a Perl script of my own devising. But this tool is simple, free, and does exactly what I wanted, no more or less, so I'm switching. Just thought you'd want to know.

Also, astute readers will notice that there is now a "Books" link at the top of this page. Click it sometime and see what all the fuss is about.

Baby Cam

Blogs only a mother could love:
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Amazing Bible Software: