Similar Posts

  • Perseoids

    Every summer at early-mid August, we enter a portion of the solar system rife with meteors, and ever year around this time, many of those chunks of rock and debris hit our atmosphere and burn up, giving us the Perseoid meteor shower. This year, the shower did not occur during a full moon, and so the skies were dark and the stars were bright. Some of the photo club folks wanted to have a camping trip this weekend, and that devolved into a fire and star photography night at our place. The meteor shower was pretty good Saturday night. There…

  • |

    My Research: What I have been up to

    Last week, the fruits of my last three year’s work has finally come to fruition in the journal PLoS One. The premise is that the personality behavior we call boldness, or the bold-shy continuum, is not only heritable, but a genetically correlated multivariate trait. The research is essentially a continuation of a project Mary Oswald completed for her dissertation, however upon first submission, reviewers criticized the study for its lack of replication. So, in the Summer of 2010, she set up a second selection experiment which I took over and have been maintaining since. Boldness is an interesting behavior to…

  • Smoke in the Air

    Where have I been the last three weeks? To put it lightly, I have been choking on smoke. Since returning from the Seven Devils trip over Labor Day Weekend, the wildfires in the northwest, particularly in Idaho, have flared up. A fire south of the Devils appeared as well as a large fire just outside of Riggins. There have been some smaller fires near Grangeville and Lewiston to add to the mess. Winds from the south have blown all that smoke into the Lewiston-Clarkston valley and onto the Palouse where the smoke has been so thick at times, you could…

  • |

    Storms

    Last night, we had the storm of storms come across the Palouse. It was a quick, but powerful cell the big lightning strikes every few seconds that produced enough power to disrupt phone service (land line) each time a bolt struck the ground. Luckily, we had no major power surges and all of the electronics in the house work just fine. But the ligntning and thunder show was both awesome and a bit frightening. I stood outside with the camera as the storm approached, but quickly retreated into the house as the storm came atop of me. Winds picked up…

  • A Spiritual Moment

    My trip to the Redwoods had a profound effect on me. I can’t really explain what it was or why. I’ve been to many amazing and beautiful places never come back as humbled and rejuvenated as I had on this last trip. But everything about it just put me at ease and at awe. It was a combination of spending time with the kids while experiencing a mature old-growth forest among some of the oldest and tallest trees on the planet. I came back to Williston ready to take on the world and maybe inspired to leave in search of…

  • Kittens

    I can hidez., originally uploaded by Matthew Singer. We’ve been in and out of the Altoona area to pack up belongings in preparation for the big move later this summer. We usually stay with Erin’s grandfather who lives on a farm off of Rt. 22 near Williamsburg. He has some “stray” cats that he feeds, but won’t get spayed or neutered, so every so often we find a litter of kittens. Two weeks ago, we were visiting and the kittens were out playing. I couldn’t resist a photo shoot. As cute as they are, we are not keeping any of…