worms into bread...

We sold some of our surplus composting worms (the aptly named red wigglers) to a nice older guy off of Craig's list, who drove like an hour to get them.  Then we took the money and bought challah at the Dutch oven bakery...or challah bread as they call it there.  Those Dutch...

Science Friday, creationism Thursday...or

... Darwin was wrong.

This is what happens when I forget that the NPR station here is located too close to the religious station.  And the religious station is 91.3, which in Pittsburgh was an actual  radio station.  I happened to be listening to the radio in the car the other day, right around noon (thanks again, City of Ames for NOT having curb-side recycling programs...which is why I was driving back from the non-free recycling facility...although I did make
$0.60 from returning wine bottles).  But I digress... I don't listen to the radio too much here, besides for news, somewhat because I haven't found a good music station or a station that plays things I like anyways.
I turned on the radio and heard something about Creation Moment...now yes, that is probably a dead giveaway that what is about to follow is not of a scientific nature.  But for some reason, in my mind, I thought, oh hey, maybe this is like Science Friday and it is some science type thing at noon.  In retrospect, that wouldn't really work, since noon here would be 1 pm Eastern.  Okay...

But I was intrigued... I wanted to know about 100 ft- ferns... anyway, creation moments explained to me that our buddy Darwin got it all wrong... apparently what we call "evolution" has really been the opposite- survival of the WEAKEST not the strongest... there used to be way better species out there, like the previously mentioned 100 ft-ferns, as well as dragon flies with 6 ft-wingspans...Who knew.  Well turns out, due to natural deselection, all the really cool, strong species didn't make it, and the lamer, weak ones survived.
"They were bigger and stronger than creatures are today. Ferns grew over 100 feet high, and dragonflies had wingspans of six feet."
Crazy... apparently all the good stuff got corrupted by SIN and RUNNING DOWN.

follow that bouncing ball...

This afternoon I looked out my window (I was sitting at my desk) and saw one of those big red stability balls
rolling down the street, on its own steam.  No one came after it and it continued to go down the street, til
it turned the corner, out of my view.
How odd...

I don't get it

Earlier today I saw a guy wearing a t-shirt which said on the front: "Where the hell is Grinnell?"
On the back, it simply said: "Who the hell cares?"

Is this shirt supposed to be for promoting Grinnell College? Is it satire? I don't quite get it.

Ames 2.0

or.."if you build it..."

Apparently Ames has made some upgrades in the last several months. One of the sketchy aka
"stabbin cabins" bars downtown closed and one of the others was totally renovated & looks pretty respectable now. The crappy, claustrophobic antique store closed. Another store is expanding and remodeling. And amazingly, Ames now has a wine bar! Apparently (and oddly enough) it is also
the ONLY one in the state. We stopped to check it out and talk with the owners the other day.
So maybe things are looking up for our fair city...