The doorbell rings...   Who could it be?  It's 6:30 pm, and almost time for me to get ready for bed.  Who would call on me at this hou...

Barn: second story shaping up...   The builders have been busy today!  Nearly all the joists are in place, the framing for the stairway and ...

Rope swing optimization...   Let's say you had a rope swing, and you wanted to use it to go as far as possible horizontally.  How would ...

Mann's “Hide the Decline” ruthlessly exposed...   Jean S., posting at Climate Audit , has posted a carefully researched chronology of ev...

Paving: it's time for “road base”...   The paving guys are now doing the last step before the actual asphalt goes on: they're laying...

Barn: the second floor progresses...  Yesterday the builders put up the last of the glulam beams (that's one being sawed in the middle p...

The great water adventure...   Last night as I was just getting ready to head for bed, my phone rang.  It was my neighbor, Tim D., calling t...

Mantle: it's finished!   Yesterday I got the mantle, with its two corbels, mounted to the living room wall over where the fireplace will...

Antarctic ice level is at an all-time record high right now...   Global warming, don't you know ?

Mantle mounting...   I spent most of this weekend (when I wasn't goofing off) working on mounting our new mantle to the living room wall...

Paving progress...   The first photo shows the crew “taking elevations” to determine the grade along the driveway.  This is how they make su...

Portrait of a tractor...   My new Kubota B26, to be precise.  This is at the request of Bob K.  The big orange thing to the left of the tr...

All in the family...   My brother sent this to my mom, who then sent it to all of the family, saying that there may be a message for her in ...

Morning smile...

2014 Ig Nobel awards...   From the Journal of Improbable Research ...

Maven in orbit around Mars...   Another little robotic explorer is about to do some serious science work for about the same cost as the u...

Heavenly Sunday lunch...   Wash and chop into a bowl a large, ripe Cache Valley  tomato (two if small).  Sprinkle a teaspoon or so of dried ...

Snailgate...   When politics intersects with science, the results are usually bad.  Delingpole explains ...

Ohio teachers are threatening to strike...   Why?  Because they're being threatened with ObamaCare !

English is so weird!   Consider this sentence: I don't have to leave now. Then this one: I don't have a reason to leave now. D...