International Observe the Moon Night (InOMN) 2011 is on Saturday, October 8! The goal of InOMN is to engage lunar science and education communities, amateur astronomers, space enthusiasts, and the general public in annual lunar observation campaigns that share the excitement of lunar science and exploration. Join an event near you, or create your ( Read more... )

I traveled to the Phoenix area to help facilitate a teacher workshop about the Moon last month. I stayed with a couple of awesome friends of mine from grad school (hi Beck and Thijs!) for a few days before the workshop. They have a fabulous pool that we spent the hot summer nights relaxing in, and a bunch of different cacti and succulents. These ( Read more... )

One of the things I really wanted to show Sam when I took her to Austin for the 4th of July was the bats.  Austin has the largest urban population of Mexican free-tailed bats in the world; the boat tour guide said there were 800,000 bats this year!  They live under the Congress Avenue bridge over Ladybird Lake downtown.  They fly out in swarms at ( Read more... )

When my friend Sam and I were in Austin, she wanted to go on a bat boat tour on the lake. We got there early to make sure to get a good seat and had some time to kill, so we wandered around on the hike and bike trail. It’s a nice trail right by the water with lots of plants and birds to watch. We saw a mama cardinal feeding a baby in the bushes!
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The State Capitol Building in Austin is an impressive building made of pink granite from the Texas Hill Country.  I took Sam there to wander around at sunset one of the nights we were in town for the 4th of July.


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A friend of mine, Sam, was in Houston from Canada for work right before the 4th of July. I took her with me when I headed to Austin for the holiday weekend. One of our stops was The Oasis, a restaurant built into the side of the limestone cliffs overlooking Lake Travis.  Sam, Sara, and I had dinner and watched the sun set over the lake. It was ( Read more... )

When I went to Austin for the 4th of July, we stopped in at County Line BBQ on Lake Austin.  It’s fantastic BBQ and has a deck out on the lake where you can feed the turtles!  Below are a few that were especially friendly.  They were adorable!


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Sometimes it’s fun to play with focus to see what you can get when things aren’t perfectly sharp.  This one is of sunrise in Galveston.  I like the warm colors and the softness of the shapes.


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I love Galveston in the early morning.  An hour or so before sunrise, everything is still, and then slowly all the birds wake up and the wind picks up and the waves get stronger.  The seagulls start flying around aimlessly and squawking, the little sand birds scurry around on the ground, and the pelicans fly in groups of 5-10 rarely flapping their ( Read more... )

A couple of months ago, a cat outside my apartment had four kittens.  One of them refused to eat and didn’t make it past a couple of weeks.  The other three grew and played with each other.  Mama cat stayed with them.  Two of the kittens didn’t want anything to do with people and ran whenever I got near them.  One kitten, however, loved people and ( Read more... )