sunday babble
Aug. 23rd, 2009 06:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
salixbabylonToday I decided to take my man and beast for a drive up the coast, to just get the hell out of the house. We had a good time, together, as we do. Man is still my best friend, the person I want to hang out with when I've got nothing better to do. The dog is always good company, as it's his raison d'etre.
Unfortunately, we realized we are now both *completely* addicted to Wikipedia and Google. Remember way back when there was no internet? We used to just have to wonder and live in ignorance, or go and *grab a book* and *look stuff up*. I kid you not, we came back with the following list of things to look up:
1. What is the marine layer?
2. When you look out at the horizon on the sea, how far away is it?
3. Why is the sky blue? (Note: I get massive points for knowing why the sky has color [sun's rays water droplets in atmosphere or something] but not why it's blue instead of red or purple.)
4. When do the elephant seals mate (Ano Nueovo)? Newts (Butano)? Butterflies (Pebble beach)? What will happen is the state parks close? Can we still go there?
5. Why do I never understand how the economy works and where all the money has gone, even when my husband explains it over and over again in simple terms?
6. What is the Bahai Bosch school?
7. Is the straw maze by Pescadero actually the setting of a real life horror movie? Why were there no other patrons there? WHy is this creepy instead of good?
8. Why, after 20 years of living on the coast, do we still put on sunscreen when we go to the beach and forget that summer coast = fog & wind, not sunshine. Sunshine at the beach is for spring, autumn, and winter.
Wikipedia to the rescue:
1. "In the case of coastal California, the offshore marine layer is typically propelled inland by a pressure gradient which develops as a result of intense heating inland, blanketing coastal communities in cooler air which, if saturated, also contains fog. The fog can last until midday when the heat of the sun is frequently strong enough to evaporate it. An approaching frontal system or trough can also drive the marine layer onshore."
2. 10 miles is a safe guesstimate.
3. "As light moves through the atmosphere, most of the longer wavelengths pass straight through. Little of the red, orange and yellow light is affected by the air. However, much of the shorter wavelength light is absorbed by the gas molecules. The absorbed blue light is then radiated in different directions. It gets scattered all around the sky. Whichever direction you look, some of this scattered blue light reaches you. Since you see the blue light from everywhere overhead, the sky looks blue."
4. March, Spring, October, no idea, and probably not.
5. Because I have some kind of mental block and don't want to understand money.
6. It's apparently one of the 3 major school in the USA for the Bahai faith, a Persian religion which "emphasize[s] the underlying unity of the major world religions".
It's also right down the road from where my husband lived for three years. Weird.
7. TBD. Maybe I will take small army of brave friends to visit for Halloween weekend.
8. Fear of skin cancer is not a rational thing. Also fog =/= protection from UVA or UVB rays.
Of course, now I have to go look up UVA and UVB rays...
ETA:
Pie ranch
View of the horizon at lunch, near Pescadero.
Unfortunately, we realized we are now both *completely* addicted to Wikipedia and Google. Remember way back when there was no internet? We used to just have to wonder and live in ignorance, or go and *grab a book* and *look stuff up*. I kid you not, we came back with the following list of things to look up:
1. What is the marine layer?
2. When you look out at the horizon on the sea, how far away is it?
3. Why is the sky blue? (Note: I get massive points for knowing why the sky has color [sun's rays water droplets in atmosphere or something] but not why it's blue instead of red or purple.)
4. When do the elephant seals mate (Ano Nueovo)? Newts (Butano)? Butterflies (Pebble beach)? What will happen is the state parks close? Can we still go there?
5. Why do I never understand how the economy works and where all the money has gone, even when my husband explains it over and over again in simple terms?
6. What is the Bahai Bosch school?
7. Is the straw maze by Pescadero actually the setting of a real life horror movie? Why were there no other patrons there? WHy is this creepy instead of good?
8. Why, after 20 years of living on the coast, do we still put on sunscreen when we go to the beach and forget that summer coast = fog & wind, not sunshine. Sunshine at the beach is for spring, autumn, and winter.
Wikipedia to the rescue:
1. "In the case of coastal California, the offshore marine layer is typically propelled inland by a pressure gradient which develops as a result of intense heating inland, blanketing coastal communities in cooler air which, if saturated, also contains fog. The fog can last until midday when the heat of the sun is frequently strong enough to evaporate it. An approaching frontal system or trough can also drive the marine layer onshore."
2. 10 miles is a safe guesstimate.
3. "As light moves through the atmosphere, most of the longer wavelengths pass straight through. Little of the red, orange and yellow light is affected by the air. However, much of the shorter wavelength light is absorbed by the gas molecules. The absorbed blue light is then radiated in different directions. It gets scattered all around the sky. Whichever direction you look, some of this scattered blue light reaches you. Since you see the blue light from everywhere overhead, the sky looks blue."
4. March, Spring, October, no idea, and probably not.
5. Because I have some kind of mental block and don't want to understand money.
6. It's apparently one of the 3 major school in the USA for the Bahai faith, a Persian religion which "emphasize[s] the underlying unity of the major world religions".
It's also right down the road from where my husband lived for three years. Weird.
7. TBD. Maybe I will take small army of brave friends to visit for Halloween weekend.
8. Fear of skin cancer is not a rational thing. Also fog =/= protection from UVA or UVB rays.
Of course, now I have to go look up UVA and UVB rays...
ETA:
Pie ranch
View of the horizon at lunch, near Pescadero.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-08-25 02:28 am (UTC)like i went in looking for something about electromagnetism (yeah that's a little odd) and came out on a link about the 'original' name of austin (TX).. waterloo and how and why it was renamed.
-km-
no subject
Date: 2009-08-27 12:14 am (UTC)