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	User:	dosboof
	Date:	2009-12-28 17:35
	Subject:
	Security:	Public

MY NEW SCIENCE BLOG

Let me show you it:

Fun with Liquid Nitrogen

Daily content. Feel free to RSS that sucker up.

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	User:	mythrana
	Date:	2009-12-26 03:13
	Subject:	Decorating for the Holidays...
	Security:	Public
	Mood:	chipper

( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. )

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	User:	robertainnc
	Date:	2009-12-24 09:00
	Subject:	Happy Holidays folks
	Security:	Public

My all time favorite Christmas song...short, simple, and to the point.

"Have yourself a merry little Christmas
Let your heart be light
Next year all our troubles will be
out of sight
Have yourself a merry little Christmas
Make the yule-tide gay
Next year all our troubles will be
miles away
Once again as in olden days
Happy golden days of yore
Faithful friends who were dear to us
Will be near to us once more
Someday soon, we all will be together
If the Fates allow
Until then, we'll have to muddle through somehow
So have yourself a merry little Christmas now."

We'll return to your regularly scheduled kvetching about the Senate's health care bill, our Copenhagen global warming wrap up, the state of women and maternal health care the world over, and the general state of the world itself after our fudge and ham induced coma has passed.

In the meantime, let your heart be light. The first decade of this century is over. For all that it was...at least we won't have to live through it again (right?).

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	User:	lilhlfpint
	Date:	2009-12-22 21:09
	Subject:	(it's beginning to look a lot like christmas...)
	Security:	Public
	Mood:	cheerful

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	User:	robertainnc
	Date:	2009-12-21 09:54
	Subject:	Something for the Durham/Chapel Hill peeps
	Security:	Public

Hey Locals! Free Xmas Trees! As of 8:45 this am, there were about 40-50 Xmas trees, and about 30-40 Xmas wreaths, in the parking lot of 806 Claredon St, in the Asbury Methodist Church Parking Lot (on Markham, between Broad St. and Buchanan).

The church runs an annual Xmas tree sale, and when they close up shop, they leave the unsold trees etc out and up for grabs. There were more this year than any year I've seen in the past...sign of the times, perhaps. Whatever man--Free tree! Yippee!

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	User:	robertainnc
	Date:	2009-12-18 10:19
	Subject:	I'm dreaming of a White Christmas...
	Security:	Public

That actually happened--once--when I was a child. Actual snow, on Christmas morning. It was magical.

It's going to snow today and tomorrow. Down here in Heat Miser Country. Before Christmas, even. Unbelievable.

I've got many many many overdue posts. And thoughts. About Copenhagen (including the last two days of posts I haven't had a chance to write), wrapping up today, with Obama arriving. About the watered down to useless healthcare bill, with the public option removed, the 55 year old medicare option buy in removed, and the WTF Democrats where in the hell did you learn to negotiate anything? Seriously. About the Santa Train last night and watching my daughter's eyes full of wonder as we chug chug chug through the wintery woods to the North Pole, and about picking them up from school and putting them in the car as she belts out: "SANTA CLAUS IS COMING TO TOWN WHOA WHOA SANTA CLAUS ISSSS COOOMING TO TOWN"...Noah prefers Feliz Navidad, himself...and both have been getting down to Jingle Bells.

I keep looking out the window, watching for snowflakes. I've been blessed with an abundunce of friends, on top of an amazing family. I still get grumpy and frustrated and stressed out all the same, but I'm managing it. I'm learning to ask for help. That helps. I''ve been working on letting go. It's not perfect. But like many things...it's a work in progress.

Now if it would just start snowing and I could go home already.

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	User:	robertainnc
	Date:	2009-12-18 09:45
	Subject:	I just really like Christmas, too.
	Security:	Public

To clarify...it's white wine in the sun because the singer's from Australia...southern hemisphere and all that, Christmastime being in the summer. My favorite bit though is when he talks about bringing his daughter into this group of people, his family, and how "these are the people that make you feel safe in this world"...

I really liked this song because it resonates with what I love about Christmas myself. Seeing my family. Returning, time and time again to the warm, safe, familiar embrace of my family or origin, my family of choice, making it anew for this family of mine I've created. Christmas for me is all about time spent with those people who taught me, from the moment I took my first breath, through scraped knees on the playground, through failed relationships and failed puddings and new loves and new fears, through all my stumblings and fumblings towards what it is I may eventually one day become--that no matter what, I was loved. Absolutely, unconditionally, no holds barred loved by every single person in my family. And every single one of them would be there for me at a moment's notice. And in fact there even have been those moments, on occasion, where I've needed that. And they have, indeed, been there.

And they are there again, every Christmas. Waiting by the fire with a glass of red wine. And year by year there's more of us, more partners and kids and grandkids coming into the fold that is our family, and I wish I could tell them just how lucky they are...but I think they have to live it to understand, to go away and come back and find us all waiting for them each Christmas.

So, like the singer in the song, yeah, I guess I'm just sentimental about Christmas like that too. And for just that reason. Because to me, Christmas is all about family. And as far as family goes, I got blessed by the luck of the draw. I wish everyone I love, heck I wish everyone in the world were so fortunate to have been born into such a boisterous, hilarious, wisecracking, caring, tight-knit, deeply and truly loving family as the one I somehow lucked into.

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	User:	mandy_moon
	Date:	2009-12-15 21:20
	Subject:
	Security:	Public

We put up our tree this weekend!

While we were doing boring errands, Jon asked if we should get a tree while we were out. This put me in a bad mood. Running boring errands always makes me a little grouchy, but suddenly the idea of going to the tree-store, picking out a tree, paying for it, trying to locate the tree-stand we bought two years ago, then properly securing the tree in said tree stand all seemed overwhelmingly unfun and made me even grouchier than usual.

Yet I didn't want to be a total grinch, an "Oh, I don't celebrate Christmas because it's too commercial and it's just a meaningless excuse to force people to buy presents." kind of person. That's just zero fun. Of course we needed a tree.

So I made a tree that took up very little space and didn't require an extension of the "boring errands" portion of the day.

Then we decorated it with all our standard tree ornaments and crooned "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" when we were done.

Look at all the presents! Now it looks great- and when we're done we can just flip it back to the big mural of various gods of the world that's on the other side.

This is a much nicer post than the one I wrote in my head today about the tail-ectomy at work that didn't end up actually happening. Maybe more on that tomorrow but tonight I just want to look at 2D Christmas trees and 3D presents. Happy things.

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	User:	robertainnc
	Date:	2009-12-15 10:13
	Subject:	Yesterday's News
	Security:	Public

The news from Copenhagen on Monday, day 8 of the world's climate talks:

Climate talks were suspended yesterday as 130 developing nations making up the G-77 banded together to insist that the details on carbon emissions and costs move forward in the negotiations, rather than waiting until the end of the meeting for these details to be "worked out". The G-77 includes China, India, Brazil and South Korea, who put their weight behind this move (and who incidentally in recent years have been putting out increasingly more carbon themselves, especially the first three). Talks were expected to resume by the afternoon.

There are just under 200 "countries" or "states" on the planet (192 recognized/members of the UN--the actual total number varies some, upwards to 195 and such, because some states are in flux, as well as because you've got things like the Vatican, which are these weird pseudo-state-principality type deals)...there are representatives from every single nation on the planet in Copenhagen right now.

Isn't that--just that--in and of itself absolutely fascinating? A week and a half before Christmas--most people I know are stressed out, over tired, trying to figure out when they are going to bake or shop or do those Christmas cards...and over a hundred thousand of our fellow human beings from all over the planet just packed it up and went to Copenhagen to hash out whether or not we're going to have air to breath and water to drink a century from now.

These are indeed interesting times in which we live.

I've been contemplating some the role of the big giants noted above in the G-77--China especially, but also the up and comers of India, Brazil and South Korea...and what their role is, and will be in this coming century.

There is an interesting article on Salon I came across this morning I'll close with: Copenhagen: The Industrial Revolution on Trial:

"Even if the fate of the world did not hang on the outcome of climate change negotiations between 192 nations in Copenhagen, Denmark, the spectacle would be fascinating solely from the vantage point of history. The Industrial Revolution isn't just responsible for pumping vast amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere; the countries in which technological progress, fueled by cheap energy, originally took off ending up using their new powers to dominate the entire globe over the last 200 years.

The processes that caused climate change are therefore inextricable from a history of imperialism and colonialism and uneven economic development. When developing nations ask for cash and technology to help them adapt to a clean energy future, they aren't just trying to guilt-trip the rich countries for all the tons of greenhouse gases they have alread emitted -- the so-called "carbon debt." In a very real way they're also asking for reparations to compensate for the creation of the rift that has divided the world into "developed" and "developing" nations."

Hey Locals! Free Xmas Trees! As of 8:45 this am, there were about 40-50 Xmas trees, and about 30-40 Xmas wreaths, in the parking lot of 806 Claredon St, in the Asbury Methodist Church Parking Lot (on Markham, between Broad St. and Buchanan).

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