Evolution is not a four letter word.

  65 million years ago, a mass extinction event ended the reign of the dinosaurs. A little less than 65 million years ago, mammals could stay out in the sun and gorge themselves with less fear of predators. I guess you would stick around and eat a little more knowing this meal won't be your last.
  Evolution is easier to fathom when we think of anything other than man, so we won't go there...yet. When you think in the terms of millions of years, it is easy to imagine why a herbivore would develop a long neck. Everyone knows giraffes' necks are long so they can reach the leaves far from the reach of their competition. How about an aardvark, his snout grew to accommodate his diet. Marine mammals are one of the most amazing examples of evolution around.
  The hardest thing to grasp is the length of time needed for a species to evolve. I've been around forty nine years. How much of a slice is that out of a 65 million year old pie? My preferred slice of pie is about 15 million years big, unless its pumpkin with whipped cream on top, then only a 25 million year sized piece will do.
  There was another extinction event that some people might not know about. When was the last time you saw a giant sloth, woolly mammoth or a woolly rhino? Those animals no longer walk the earth, and they weren't dinosaurs. Fact is, some were around when we lived in caves, the drawings are on the wall.
  Take a look at the link 

http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20101125/sc_livescience/dinodemiseledtoevolutionaryexplosionofhugemammals
  Follow my blog. Thanks.

  

Does size matter, or does it antimatter?

  Before you read this post, look at the link at the bottom of the page. The scale of the universe will open your mind to what you take for granted, or what you've never thought of before.
  Now remember that both ends of the scale are from theory. Physicist can predict these things with mathematics. Their work is precise, and scrutinized by their colleagues.
  In between both ends are facts proven by the Hubble telescope and other land and space based observatories, as well as the CERN supercollider and other smaller colliders, (the later deals with sub-atomic particles).
  Science has discovered so much since I was in high school. Back then there were nine planets in our solar system, now there are eight. Planets orbiting other stars number 500 and climbing. Black holes are a fact and not just theory. The atom is more than just a proton, neutron and electrons. Electrons don't orbit the nucleus anymore, they flit in and out of existence giving the parallel universes theory its backbone.
  This is all nature. How can an observer not wonder about what we still haven't discovered? I want them to keep looking. Don't you? I'll try to keep you updated. Thanks for reading.

Blogging is a lot more exposier than a recluse wants.

  As a writer, naturally I would rather be alone than in the spotlight; but I guess that goes along with the job. My first realization as an aggressive blogger, was that I needed to draw as many friends, relatives and strangers to my site as I could; to prove to a literary agent or publisher that I could draw a following. In doing so, I have put my passion on the line for all to see. As a writer, I open my thoughts to the public. Think about that. When was the last time you have stood in front of a crowd, and spewed your guts out?
  What is written, is set in stone, No Takebacks!
  I like to tell stories, and I use science in most of them. Future post will involve something more interesting than me campaigning for your following. Hope you enjoy. Thank you.

  PS  Follow both my blogs... PLEASE, TELL YOUR FRIENDS. does this sound like begging? Am I permitted to beg?...WELL,... I'M BEGGING ...I'M NEW!

Disclaimer: "I'm not an expert, I just like science."

My new Foundations

  This weekend I helped my carpenter lay the concrete pad for the garage floor at my camp,(new home). Two small blemishes can be seen. One was caused by me, when the bull-float broke. (Not my fault, I swear.) The second was caused by the neighbor's cat. Its prints could be traced from one end to the other. I felt like a paleontologist looking at dinosaur footprints, trying to figure out if the cat ran or walked; and from where it came. My friend Chuck said I should tell everyone they were bobcat tracks. I determined the prints came from the black and white kitty that lived next door. It was the smaller of the neighbor's two pets. The other one was a calico cat twice the size of the kitten who made the pussy tracks in my garage floor.
  Funny story about the calico: one of the guys working at the camp left his driver's side window down. The cat climbed in to enjoy the warmth of the Sun. The van made it a mile down the road when both the cat and the driver discovered each other. He brought the vehicle to an abrupt stop, opened the door to throw the cat out, but the cat was three steps ahead of him. The look on his face as he described the incident can not yet be described by my ever developing writing skills, but trust me, I believed his story, even though I refused to see the scars on his inner thighs.
  "Oh that cat hates vehicles, she freaks out," my neighbor claimed, when I asked him if he had seen the calico cat recently.
  The cat came back, but now my carpenter's helper rolls up his windows no matter how hot it is.
  The moral of the story which has very little to do with cats is: Just because the top of the foundation may look a little skeptical, as long as you know the base is strong, those little imperfections can be worked out.
  Please follow my blog, I have some cool ideas, and if you'll let me, I'd love to entertain you. Thanks.

Expanding my Platform

  Speculating what the future might be like or could be like due to certain possible events, is basically what I did with my first two novels. You can read about my first novel "The Second Intelligent Species" by clicking the link.
  My second novel deals with a possible food source needed to feed an overpopulated planet in the next couple of hundred years. "Frozen Harvest" has been in the works since October 09. An example of how committed I am to the story, is the fact that on 12/5/09 I accidentally lost all 7000 words. I started from scratch and am now past where I was; the story seems better.
  Another project is a non fiction about the success of my son Christopher. "Call me Chris" is a true story about the life of a young man with Downs Syndrome. With the help of everyone who knows him, I will try to take the reader from his birth to present day where he lives independently with his sidekick Carlos, (a Mexican Chihuahua). This spring Chris played Amazing Grace on the piano at his grandfather's final services; his performance was flawless.
  Some say writers shouldn't jump genres, but this is a story that needs to be told. I want to answer some of those questions I had when Chris was born, for new parents who are asking the same questions themselves with the birth of their own new special needs child. I know I was looking for answers, and I bet they are too.
  I may set up a separate blog for each project in the future, for now my goal is to pick up followers on these two. Pass the word. Thanks.

 

Timeing is Everything!

           "Soon technology will prevent this from occurring, until then don't think it couldn't."
  Please answer a question before you check out the link that inspired this post.
  If a "Mass Extinction" sized comet or asteroid were discovered tomorrow, and we had a week to prepare for the inevitable impact, could we stop it? How about if we had a six month notice?
  There are several ideas on how to divert a threatening space rock. Let me rephrase that. Threatening space MOUNTAIN. Rocks just make pretty streaks of light in the night sky and are not threats. The comet or meteoroid that air-burst over Tunguska in 1908, leveling  2150 square kilometers of forest, now THAT was a rock.
  I'm talking about something about six to ten miles across. "Surely we know about everything that big floating around out there," you might say.
  Everything is such a big number. There are observatories (both Earth based and in orbit) detecting asteroids, finding new ones every day. There's a very large area to look at, and it will take a long time to find them all.
  I will step out on a limb to predict an object will be found within the next five years, which will impact the Earth in the future, and plans to deal with the threat will make headlines. I'm sure it will be a small one and not difficult to deal with. May be it will land in the ocean and won't cause any damage, but we'll have a ringside seat.
  I think small impacts happen more often than most people believe. If a small impact occurred twenty years ago in some remote area, it would not have been noticed. Now with the new technology, small threats will be forecast and observed.
  The odds we have missed an asteroid the size of the one that helped wipe out the dinosaurs are extremely high. The majority of those have been found and are being tracked.
  Now comets are another thing all together. Some of them orbit the Sun every few thousand years or longer. We might not have time to divert something we notice a year before it's due to hit. I wonder, if it was deemed to be something we couldn't avoid, would the authorities even notify us.
  Now check out the links below and see if we're as prepared as you thought we were.
  Don't forget to check out my other blog too, this is what my book is about.
  Also I am doing this to build my Platform, I need lots of followers. Thanks.


 



   
  

Lets all have a Star Party

When was the last time you went outside in the dark and looked up? If you follow this blog, one thing I insist on, is that you look up more than you did before you started to follow my work. It's not a high price to pay. Now if you live in an area flooded with artificial lights, your going to need to get out to the country a few times to get a good view of what nature has to offer.
Dig your binoculars out and look at the moon, see if you can find Jupiter or watch a meteor shower. Learn a constellation or two. I know several people who have telescopes to look at mountains, or binoculars to observe the occasional wild animal that ventures out of cover, but how many of them have pointed their optics up to the heavens? Those of us who love nature shouldn't limit our experiences to those below the upper atmosphere.
It's amazing to see the look on the face of somebody who's never seen the moon through a pair of binoculars. Its always been there, so why haven't they looked before?
What I'm trying to do is plant the seeds of science, tap into your natural curiosities.
November is when the Leonids make their annual appearance. Your best chance to see a falling star (meteors) can be at this short time. From what I can find, around November 17th is the night to be looking up. Although the best time is early in the morning on the 18th, I'm sure some will be observable the night of the 17th. Many will be faint, but at least you can say you participated and were successful.
One of my favorite memories of my youth is of a night when my whole family slept out in the front lawn without a tent. We lived in the country and the view was spectacular. It was one of those evenings that are rare in the summer: clear and warm. Other than the view, the two things I remember the most are: the conversations we had before we went to sleep, and the awe that swept over me as I remained awake while my family slept.
Teach your kids to look up.
To find out more about the Leonids, check out the link below.