The above video is of Swiss pilot Yves Rossy’s 2011 eight-minute flight over the Grand Canyon. According to his website, Jetman, Rossy is the first, and only man, in the history of aviation to fly with a jet-propelled wing. How exciting! I was introduced to Rossy this past week by a April 19th post on Galicia Futura titled Jetman: el sueño de volar hecho realidad (the dream of flying come true). The post features a breath-taking 4 minute documentary, directed by Evert Cloetens, of Rossy flying over the mountains of Switzerland. If you’re as blown away by Rossy and his jet-propelled wing as I am…check it out! Exciting!
On the subject of EXCITING, there was also no shortage of excitement in the blogosphere this past week! One of the most exciting happenings was Michael Housewright, The Blissful Adventurer, being Freshly Pressed for his April 18th post Hong Kong – Hipstamatic Tour. Congratulations Michael!! It’s always wonderful when one of the nice guys wins, and they come no nicer than Michael. If you haven’t as yet, stop by Michael’s to say hello and check out his work!
Also generating excitement this past week were a few posts I place in the ‘Not only do I LIKE you, I freaking want to BE you!’ category. On Sunday, April 22nd, Spiritual World Traveler helped me to pleasantly close out the week with an amazing photo-essay of her visit to Bran Castle in Romania. Her post, The Enchanting Windows of Count Dracula’s Castle, is indeed enchanting and features some STUNNING window photography taken on an eerily overcast Romanian day. Grab a cup of coffee and join her!
Also, in the ‘I Want To Be You’ category is William Allen of Long Time Spent. William opened the week with China – Part 1 – with supporting holiday snaps in which, through the use of his excellent photography and words, William relates his adventures in China along with his friend Shane. William has the gift with his photography of making one feel as though they are right there along with him. He then closes out the week, along with Shane, in Tian Shan, China. This may seriously be my favorite post of the week. And yes William…I am very, very, envious!
If it weren’t known before that I want to be El Guapo, of Guapola, then let it be known now! Though, technically, Guapo’s adventure began the previous week with his April 15th post titled An Adventure – Learning To Skydive , we all had to wait till his April 18th post, An Adventure – Learning To Skydive Part 2, before learning if Guapo actually survived the adventure! He definitely left us hanging! As always with Guapo…it’s fun, it’s exciting…and it’s hilarious. Of course you don’t have to wait, you can check out both parts of his adventure NOW!
Refusing to be outdone by the travelers and adventures a couple of my favorite writers added to the excitement of the week. White Lady In The Hood easily gets the nod as ‘Most Hilarious Post Of The Week’ with her April 22nd post titled My Skipper. Through her words she completely illustrates the insanity which takes place anytime a man begins a sentence with the words ‘Hold my……’ And no, of course I wont finish it! Go there and find out for yourself!
Another writer which I admire greatly, Richard of The Last Song I Heard, helped to supply me with excellent weekend reading with his April 21st post titled Band Of Brothers Requiem – Michael Kamen. While it’s true I enjoy all of Richard’s work, I liked this one in particular. It contains all of the honesty, elegance, and courage in writing which Richard is building a reputation towards. Check out this post…or really, any of his posts. You’ll be glad you did.
I’ll close out another exciting week with my favorite song of the week…from World Music, of course! This one titled Malaniña from Havana Mambo, an Italian salsa band formed by members from Cuba in 1994. Enjoy!!
Versatile: changeable, able to move easily from one subject, skill, or task to another, able or meant to be used in many different ways.
The Versatile Blogger Award is, in itself, an example of versatility. I’ve been presented this award by a variety of fellow bloggers, and with each nomination it seems the rules of the award changes. Change is good. Being mentioned is good…so why haven’t I, up until now, formally acknowledged this award? I’ll explain, it’s…
…mathematics.
I’ll explain further…
When originally presented this award the rules involved writing 15 things about myself, then passing the award to 15 fellow bloggers. 15? Really? 15 things about me? Are you sure? While I consider myself to be as interesting as the next person, I’ve no doubt even my own mother would not care to read 15 things about me.
Nominate 15 fellow bloggers? Again…really? 15? I’ve no problem in supporting and promoting other bloggers, in fact it’s something which I enjoy, however the math involved here doesn’t quite add up and rather quickly would lead to the demise of the award itself. I’m thinking whomever originated this award might not have been, dare I say, mathematically inclined, or went with the number 15 out of some bizarre award-death-wish.
I’ll explain…
If I were to pass this award to 15 bloggers today and each of those 15 were, in turn, to pass it to 15 bloggers tomorrow, in less then 24 hours this award would have been presented to 225 bloggers.
If on the third day these 225 bloggers were to then pass this award forward, the number would then reach 3,375.
Assuming all 3,375 would be good sports and continue the chain, on the fourth day we would have 50,625 Versatile Blogger Award recipients.
And on the fifth day; 759,375.
The sixth day the number would reach ‘oh, for fuck’s sake’ proportions and the Versatile Blogger Award would blink out of existence as quickly as green-curry exits the host body of someone who’s recently consumed gross amounts of tequila. If you’ve never experienced the green-curry-tequila effect on the human bowels…I urge you to take my word as to it’s unique unpleasantness.
Mathematical ignorance and bowel movements aside, I’ll get on with this award…
I’ve been presented this award by the following gracious, and talented, bloggers:
I gratefully thank my peers in their mentioning of …things I LOVE, and congratulate them on the recognition of their own individual work. It was Richard, however, who brought some mathematical sanity to this award by, in a moment of great versatility, changing the rules a bit and limiting his mentions to a much more rational number of 3 fellow bloggers. I will take his lead, not only on the number of nominees but also as to the number of ‘random facts’ about myself.
Random Alex Facts:
1 – As a child I was terrified of Santa Claus. To this day I remain dubious towards any being who not only watches everything I do, but also makes judgmental notations as to my activities. I am not at all comforted by the notion of some weirdly dressed man sneaking into my home in the middle of the night…unless I know this man intimately and he is dressed as Robin Hood (long story). As for Santa Claus…just leave the shit and go, seriously.
2 – I’ve been passionately kissed by a Portuguese Naval Commander, and no, I will not go into details. (Ladies, if you haven’t experienced this…do so asap!)
3 – I’ve been bitten by a brown recluse spider (more than once), stung by a scorpion (once). I’ve experienced hurricanes, tornadoes, and earthquakes. I’ve been mugged, stalked, and attacked in a taxi. I’ve been in a plane which blew an engine over the Gulf of Mexico. I’ve eaten Nicaraguan food. I’ve been to Georgia. And yet I still live. Fear me!
Now for my three (3!) nominations:
1 – Mathematical Mischief
Not only do I greatly admire the work being done by Josh and the staff at Mathematical Mischief…but this award itself speaks volumes as to why education in Math is so very needed. Thank you Josh! (I also trust Josh to correct any math errors I may have made in presenting this award.)
2 – Wrong Hands
Brilliantly clever cartoons by John Atkinson. John’s unique and twisted look at everyday life never ceases to put a smile on my face, and sometimes, even hours later, just thinking about his cartoons causes me to actually laugh out load.
3 – FASAB (Fight Against Stupidity and Bureaucracy)
He may be mad as hell and not going to take it anymore, but he’s also a talented writer who’s amazingly readable, amazingly funny, and amazingly nice…despite being amazingly ‘mad’.
I pass this Versatile Blogger Award to these bloggers purely in appreciation, and enjoyment, of their work. As always, this mention requires no action what so ever on their part. If they would like to participate and pay it forward, here are the RULES:
1 – Thank the person who presented you with the award. (This would be me, guys! )
2 – Post the incredibly versatile Versatile Blogger Award logo on your blog.
3 – Post 3, 7, 15, or 42 interesting facts about YOU!
4 – Nominate 3, 7, 15, or 42 blogs you consider to be ‘versatile’.
5 – Notify your 3, 7, 15, or 42 nominees as to their award.
6 – Fin!
Thanks again to the wonderful bloggers who’ve mentioned …things I LOVE. Cheers!
This image was ‘borrowed’ from Google Images, but it was ‘borrowed’ with love, so yeah…
Silly ‘love’ images aside, including the one attached above, here are some of the posts which I loved most during the week of February 27th through March 4th. It was a VERY busy week for me. After my run-in with the flu the previous week, this past week had me returning to work as well as trying to play catch-up with my email in-box. There are many posts from last week which I still haven’t managed to get to even despite spending the better part of yesterday in an attempt to do so. There are some people, such as Brian Westbye, who’s work I refuse to rush through.
Having posted an ‘Award’ post last week I’ve already mentioned some of the bloggers I enjoy most…this does not mean I won’t mention them again! I also would like to once again thank the ever gracious George Weaver for having nominated me for this award. I do, at some point this week, have to respond to another award mention…so everyone out there who I read…be afraid, be very, very afraid!
One of the absolutely most beautiful images I was privileged to view all week, and in quite some time actually, was an image of ‘Bob’. Bob appeared in a post titled AND THERE WAS MAGIC and posted by the incredible photographer Suzanne J. Rogers on her awindowintothewoods blog. If Bob doesn’t completely steal your heart, you simply may no longer be among the living.
In music, the ever likable Xandi at World Music posted my favorite music video of the week. The song is titled ‘Levels’, by the Swedish DJ and re-mixer Avicii. The music is entirely infectious and the video is just plain weird…and I like weird! Thanks for posting Xandi!
In the Science is Cool area, Kyle Hill at Science-Based Life, in addition to posting the very amazing Scale of the Universe 2, which I shamelessly indulged in yesterday (and I hope you did too!), also posted last week a very clever and quite hilarious The Periodic Table of Irrational Nonsense. This is a well warranted double mention for Kyle because his blog, and science, are both so damn interesting.
Never having enough of science in general and the awe of astronomy in particular, I was once again blown away by a post presented this week on Jason Major’s Lights In The Dark. The post is titled How Many Stars Can Astronauts See, and as Jason explains; The short answer: a lot. The long answer: a real lot! And…he has some video evidence captured from the ISS to back this up! Completely amazing!
Though admittedly I didn’t have nearly as much time this week as I’d like to catch up on reading some of my favorite writers here on wordpress, I was fortunate to find some time to visit The Last Song I Heard and was completely melted early on in the week by a post titled Take On Me – A-ha. The writing is good, very good. The subject is honest, very honest. And this just happens to be one of my most loved songs. It is indeed no better to be safe than sorry.
There was much adventure to be found this week, as there usually is!, at Eric Murtaugh’s blog. Eric ran a series of excellent posts this week all designed to get us off our collective butts and into some much needed adventure. He kicked the week off on Feb 27 with Thrill seeking: crazy, or a transcendental pursuit? He followed this up on Feb 28 with his post featuring NatGeo’s Adventurers of the Year, Sano Babu Sunuwar and Lakpa Tsheri Sherpa. Loved this one Eric! By the way, all these awesomely adventurous guys did to earn this title was to climb Mount Everest, para-glide down, then kayak the Ganges River all the way to the Indian Ocean…I mean, who hasn’t done this!? But Eric wasn’t quite done for the week, on March 1st he challenged his readers by asking What prevents you from having more adventures…..and on March 2nd he posted the results in a posting titled Adventure poll results show $$$ holds us back the most. But no Eric, it’s not a lack of money….it’s the lack of a bad-ass adventure hat!
Lady G: Alex, I’ve nominated you for the ABC Award.
Me: Bad ass! But what is it? Can you explain?
Lady G: Certainly! It’s the Awesome Blog Content Award. Cute, huh?
Me: Don’t know yet. Do I have to actually do anything?
Lady G: Entirely up to you…
Me: For fuck‘s sake…
Lady G: Good luck!
Me: How’s it work then?
Lady G: I’m glad you asked…you have to do something clever with the alphabet.
Me: Jesus! Clever?! And you’re sure you want to give this to me?
Lady G: Kinda. You write, yes? Well…write something.
Me: Let me guess…I probably have to do more than just write, yes?
Lady G: More? Umm…nooooo….
Me: No? There’s no more to it? Come on…
Lady G: Oh! Well, yes, you have to then nominate others.
Me: Pay it forward, you mean?
Lady G: Quasars are cool.
Me: Really?! Quasars?! Couldn’t come up with a ‘Q’, could you?
Lady G: Smart ass… are you going to do it?
Me: Thinking about it. It’s the whole ‘nominating others’ thing that’s difficult.
Lady G: Understandable. The mention is flattering, but it’s also an obligation.
Me: Very much so. Would it be shitty to just accept, write something, then leave it at that?
Lady G: Wow! What a bitch. Just for that…let me point out that X is next.
Me: X-box!
Lady G: You suck, and there’s no doubt where you’re going with Z….
Me: Zanzibar? Noooo……ZOMBIE!!!!
_____________________________
About a week ago Ms George Weaver over at She Kept A Parrot nominated my blog for the ABC Award (Awesome Blog Content). Because of a run-in with the flu and other pesky obligations its taken me a bit of time to respond to this. However, believing it completely unacceptable to not graciously accept kindness when it’s presented I do humbly, and with gratitude, accept Lady G’s acknowledgement. (There is also another mention I’ve received lately which I also fully intend to recognize…I’m working on it!)
One of the most difficult thing about receiving these awards is, of course, the paying it forwards. I’ve decided to pass this particular award forward solely to WRITERS. I’ve encountered many different types of blogs in my short time with Word Press; photo-blogs, humor-blogs, political-blogs, music-blogs. I enjoy them all. However…ironically, I’ve noticed my neglect of my own writing since I’ve began blogging. This is something I wish to rectify by giving mention to the writers who are currently inspiring me to do something the fuck about this! I’m aware that some bloggers, mostly those who’ve been around awhile, for whatever reason do not wish to play along with this good-natured camaraderie among peers. No problem. While I prefer to play along using humor and sarcasm, I WILL play along. This all said, I wish the following writers to know that how you choose to deal with this is entirely up to you. I’ve chosen you simply because I admire your work.
As with all awards there are rules….and here they are:
1. Thank the person who gave you the award. (This goes without saying!) Lady G…consider yourself thanked!
2. Nominate others to receive the award for their own awesome blog content, and notify them of their nomination. (Notice there is no number of others you need to nominate, it’s entirely up to you.)
3. Use the ABCs to describe something about yourself or your philosophy in a word, a sentence or a short paragraph. (This I’ve modified somewhat. Have fun with the ABCs in any way you wish.)
Cutting-edge solar-electric propulsion thruster in development at NASA‘s JPL which uses xenon ions for propulsion. This engine is being considered as part of the Asteroid Initiative, a proposal to capture a small near-Earth asteroid and redirect it to a stable orbit in the Earth-moon system where astronauts can explore it. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
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