Storm

Sometime back in the summer of 2010, I was at work. Given that where I work is outdoors, which I love, and overlooks a large horse pasture, I get fantastic views of weather phenomena. This was a powerful thunderstorm that passed by and I couldn't resist taking a couple pictures.

Double Rainbow

Where I work, the retail floor is wide open to the outdoors and I get awesome views of weather phenomena and such. Last Saturday I got to see a double rainbow! It started as one, but became two and disappeared spontaneously. The second one is more faint, and can only be seen on the right as loosely defined color. What is peculiar is that the colors on the outside rainbow are reversed. They are not ROYGBIV, but VIBGYOR. YouTube and Google images further confirm this... See for yourself!

Shrimp

I've had a cleaner shrimp in my 200g aquarium for about 6 months. I see it maybe once a month, and that's pushing it. This morning, it was out ready to clean the denizens of the tank. The eel (Fimbriated Moray (Gymnothorax fimbriatus)), which I've had for four and a half years, was what received most of the attention. I never managed to get a shot of the shrimp actually inside the mouth of the eel, just some good shots of the eel.

 Notice the shrimp's antennae in the hole...

Washington Oaks State Park II

Went to Washington Oaks State Park a couple weeks ago with a friend and took some more awesome pictures... Also included at the bottom are a couple pictures I took while meandering through the woods...

 

Photo credit: Breanna Brown

 Photo credit: Breanna Brown

Poison Ivy

The End

The end.

The end has many meanings but there is only one. The end is finite and infinite. Nothing ever ends, but everything has an end. The end is the beginning, with each beginning being the end. If the end is the beginning, then there is never a beginning or end. Therefore, if there is neither a beginning nor an end, then there can never be anything, because for there to be something, it must start. A start is a beginning, which doesn’t exist because it is also an end.

Therefore, it is impossible for you to read this. I never wrote this, but imagined writing it and imagined you reading it. I couldn’t have done that either, because I need to exist to be able to imagine or write. I never came into existence because that would have been a beginning, which never existed because it was an end, which also was a beginning…

Reality is a paradox unto itself.

Solar iPhone Charger

The Pelican Case came yesterday: model 1060. It's quite durable, as I was able to stand on it without issue. The MintyBoost is fixed in place and the solar panel is read to be set. All that remains, which should be here by Saturday, is the battery and the battery charger board. Preliminary mock-up tests show that all works as planned.

Red General Starfish

There really is beauty to be found in the oceans still... This is just an example of that - a Red General starfish. It's a neat echinoderm that particularly loves to feast on corals.

Solar iPhone Charger

MintyBoost has been assembled and the 6v 2w solar panel arrived today! Tested the panel under a metal halide and got 6.2v so that's a good sign! Battery and battery charger are supposed to be here by Friday and the case for all this is arriving tomorrow.

The MintyBoost is the small thing with a female USB port and the solar panel is the large rectangular thing...

Park

I was traveling today while trying to locate the effluent outfall from a local wastewater treatment facility. What I found, ironically enough, was a park. Yes. A park. Complete with a bench and fishing line disposal receptacle. At this location, there are two sources of wastewater; one, an enormous stormwater drain pipe which drains directly onto the surface of the Halifax and the other, the outfall from the nearby 6.0mgd (million gallon per day) WWTF. This line runs underground by about 5 feet and empties off a few hundred feet into the Halifax.

I was going to do a nice, informative post today, but since it has turned into an enormous multi-page rant. Possibly even a book.

The Humble and the Creator

A good friend of mine, a fellow blogger and writer alike, is very adept at the art of writing. She writes like she has done it for years on end, a decade or two even, yet she is but two decades of age. I, the Humble, am thoroughly impressed, and look to her work for inspiration. She, the Creator of this work, sees it in a manner contradictory to I. A number of writings have had the Creator to define her work as “stupid” or “suckish”. Anyone who reads it would wager otherwise; would argue its eloquence and splendor. It is this inexplicable opposition that I question. The Creator consistently debases the caliber of her work as the Humble maintains its grandeur. The Creator then declares my work to be of greater caliber than her work, and I, now the Creator, consistently debase the caliber of my own work as she, now the Humble, maintains its grandeur. Why? We are brought back to square one. External endorsement plus internal insult equals zero benefit. Both the Creator and the Humble are left dissatisfied, knowing as their compliments fell upon deaf ears. Now, suppose this Creator is humble…

The Humble Creator adulated by the Humble Being has created an equality expressed through inequality.

Solar iPhone Charger

The latest update to this project comes as the first item of interest has arrived: The MintyBoost v3.0! This part of the project is what allows the charger to actually charge the iPhone. It contains the circuitry necessary for it to be "compatible" and not return that dreadful "Charging is not supported with this accessory" error. It also gives me a convenient way to supply power from the battery (charged with solar panel) using the solder points on the printed circuit board (PCB). I have some soldering ahead of me...

The AA battery holder will not be used. It came as part of the kit. In its place will be a much larger, solar-charged battery. I'll post again once I've soldered it all together....

Questions and Answers

Confusion. It’s not something I like. It’s often there, but I can never make sense of it. I don’t know why, in fact I’m confused about that. I don’t think I will ever know why I don’t know why I won’t know why I don’t know why I can never make sense of my confusion.

Perhaps there’s simply too much of it? Nullifying the confusion would be great. That nagging voice…

Why this? Why that? Why anything? I ask these questions endlessly and the response is always the same: I don’t know.

If I knew, I wouldn’t have to ask, but then what’s the fun in that? Life would be un-interesting, drab even. All questions would be answered, leaving no questions; and without questions there are no answers. Ergo, if all questions are answered, then there are no answers.

Does that make any sense? Not really. It’s confusing at the very least. My questions have answers, I’m sure of that, albeit, the answers are forbidden, unable to be told.

I can’t help but ask, why are they unable to be told? Why are they forbidden? It’s an endless confusing loop; if it even is a loop.

I can’t have the answers, but always have the questions. Maybe the answers lay within the questions? Can I ask a question to a question?

Why?

Together

Here, in captivity, two seemingly unrelated creatures have come together to live and provide for each other. The fish, a Lawnmower blenny, uses the clam (Tridacna derasa; aquacultured) as a perch to overlook the aquarium and keep an eye out for the non-existant predators. In return, the blenny chases off any fish that get near the clam, allowing the clam to remain completely open, without disturbance, during the 12 hour photoperiod and perform photosynthesis for a maximum amount of time.

I have witnessed my female clownfish lately taking interest in the clam. She is gravid and is likely hoping to use the clan as a home, similar to the blenny. However, the blenny hasn't been too happy with this, and the two have gone through many quarrels lately. I'm working on getting a picture of the clownfish laying in the clam, albeit, it does not lay in the clam for long because of the ever-oppressive blenny.

The Rocks

Florida. Gorgeous sandy beaches line the peninsula. Interestingly enough, on the side of the Atlantic Ocean near St. Augustine, the beach turns to rock. Mounds of rock. Broken, holes, pillars, shelfs, every shape and combination and size. An ancient continental shelf is being reclaimed by the sea... While on a trip to this curious piece of the shoreline, I took pictures. Lots. Therefore, I selected my six favorites that I felt showed how unique this part of Florida really is. More pictures can be provided upon request.

Washington Oaks State Park

Note: None of these formations are as enormous as they appear. Look at the shells in the rocks and sand for scale.

The solar iPhone charger project

I use my iPad charger to charge my iPhone 4. Simple enough, right? Charging is a breeze; it takes just a couple hours since it's being fed 10w of 5.1 DCV electricity! On the AC end though, the charger sucks up 54w of electricity, continuously, until it is unplugged. This becomes a hassle if one is trying to be environmentally friendly since you constantly have to plug and unplug the charger... If you're like me, you're plug isn't in a convenient location and are lazy, so it doesn't get unplugged. When the power goes out, I'm left without my phone if it's for more than a day because I use it to the point of draining the battery on a daily basis. All this is to be solved with my latest project: the solar iPhone charger.


Materials:
2w Solar Panel - http://tinyurl.com/5rzua8u
Lithium Ion/LiPo battery charger board - http://tinyurl.com/25cnpou
Lithium Ion/LiPo battery - http://tinyurl.com/5v3ofoq
MintyBoost iPhone charger - http://tinyurl.com/mcthu
Pelican 10-60 Micro Case - no link for this one, sorry!
A little bit of low-guage wire
Soldering Gun


That's the list... I've ordered most everything, but am waiting on the charger board and battery to come back in stock. That's what currently is holding up this project. 


Using a different battery, I can have over 5 days of reserve power even if the sun doesn't shine. If the sun is shining (here in Florida it generally does), then I have almost unlimited power. Thus, my phone is about to get that much greener. I can also say good-bye to the iPad charger and use it only when necessary exclusively for the iPad!

<- Charger board!

Origins

esse quam videri

Not American, nor French, nor German, but Latin. "To be, rather than to seem to be." Think about it. The lives of many focuses on the latter; which in itself is sad. We need to be, not seem to be what we are not. In today's society, it's all about the life we portray. I go against that. I walk into a place or meet someone and they get me as I am full on, not that which I seem to be.