Flooding Predicted

It has been raining heavily. Usually, this is not a problem for us. We live by a creek that flows rapidly and can normally handle heavy runoff. The Tennessee River is cresting near us on Thursday. Again, this is usually not a problem for us. Our sturdy creek, which feeds directly into the river, comes to a standstill when that happens. (This photo is a picture of a near flood last year.)

BUT, when the Tennessee Rivers crests at the same time as more heavy rain is expected, our creek can not handle it. The local weather office is warning us of floods on Thursday. We were flooded out of our house in 1999 so we have lived through one before. It was not a pleasant experience. I hope we don't have to do this again, but as of right now, it looks very possible.

Here's a link for anyone who wants to watch the creek level near our home. Look at the third white chart down the page to see the depth. When it reaches 4 feet high, it is flooded in spots along the trail that I like to walk. It is higher than that right now.

If possible, I'll let you know whether or not we flood by posting a picture from my cell cam to BamaPhotos.com, my photo blog.

Science Cartoons, This & That

Here's a page of science cartoons from several different cartoonists. My husband is working on the space shuttle - I got a chuckle from this one.

Right now, I am sitting here watching Regis and Kelly. Does Kelly Ripa look too thin? I used to think she was the most beautiful woman on TV, but now she's looking a tad starved.

I finally installed the newest free version of Ad-Aware. It took FOREVER to complete a scan. This is much, much slower than it used to be. On the other hand, it found 181 objects that the previous version had missed.

I am running the free McAfee virus-scan that AOL just gave us. I started getting a virus alert everytime I received e-mail from Outlook Express. After much googling, I learn that it clashes with Outlook Express in Windows 2000. The solution was to turn off the incoming mail scan and just let the background scan do its job since it will catch a mail virus sooner or later.

The mall was beautiful yesterday. My daughter and I spent some time among the gorgeous Christmas decorations. I was happy to discover a See's Candy booth again this year. Their almond royals are so-o-o-o-o good. The Hickory Farms booth has great candy-covered pretzels, too.

Then, I made the mistake of stepping into a Hallmark store with the cutest holiday decorations in the world. I was lost. I wanted half the stuff there. I couldn't leave without this statue of Santa. It is sitting here right by my mousepad for the rest of the season.

Colorized Images from Electron Microscopes

Whenever construction work is going on nearby, we see an increase in critters. The last time something was being built nearby, I saw more chipmunks and jumping spiders. This colorized picture of a jumping spider is just plain fascinating. There's more critters and things at the Electron Microscope Image Gallery. The world is ceaselessly fascinating.

66.3 Million Domain Names in Use

Inspite of that, all the good ones are not yet gone. Since GoDaddy.com offers them so cheaply, I loaded up on a bunch myself. Here's a list of most of mine. If nothing else, its an easy way to direct others to your site. For me, it was also an excuse to create different web pages. Once the name is registered from GoDaddy, they will provide redirection.

I tried typing in words that just came to mind and sticking a .com at the end of them to see where they lead. Any word that comes to mind like Christmas.com, chocolatechip.com, or frogs.com. (Okay, so most, if not all, of the single words are taken and, yes, I had some time to kill today. I also surfed around using the Firefox "Stumble-Upon" plug-in. Firefox does ten kazillion more things than IE and is safer, too.)

Amazing Pictures from Hubble

It's almost hard to believe that these stunning, suitable-for-wallpaper images are from actual photos. May mankind never stop exploring space.

Quoteland.com

Love this site -- need a quote for anything? Maybe it would be here. You can even rate quotes that others find or invent. I got a chuckle from this one:

The Cell Phone I Want

I want the Motorola Razr ... ::drool:: The only problem is that I have T-Mobile and only Cingular carries it (so far). Here's more about this ultra-cool phone. ::sigh::

Cold Weather

Now that it is dipping below 30 in the mornings, there are fewer people out walking the greenway. As for myself, I am out there with a few other dedicated folks. As long as I dress correctly, the cold is not bothersome. In fact, it is MUCH better than the sweltering heat we get around here.

I like winter. Bring on the comfortable sweatshirts, hot cocoa, soup, fires in the fireplace and weather cool enough to snuggle in.

Crescent Roll Recipe

Here is Deborah's fabulous crescent roll recipe. These were tender and rich. Thanks to olegraymare for reminding me to post the recipe. (I also posted a photo of these little treasures of goodness.)

Secret Santa Name

I don't know why, just that I get a kick out of funny name translators. Thanks to del.icio.us, here's a site that reveals your secret Santa name. Mine is Tumbleflump Dancing-Tummy. My husband is Smiley Dancing-Cheeks. H-m-m-m-m ....

Tech TV's The Screen Savers

I used to love this show with Leo Laporte and Patrick. TechTV had many good shows and was finally producing a profit when Paul Allen sold it to Comcast. Comcast kept the show, but fired many of the staff and moved the rest out of town.

Ok, I thought. I will see how it does. I liked Kevin and Alex, the newest host, but the show made drastic changes for the worst. (Who runs things over there? Are they living on a different planet?)

Two months later, they fired almost all the rest of the staff, did away with the studio audience and changed the format so much that they alienated their older viewers. Watching it that first day was like eating cardboard -- hard to swallow.

Oh well, I hope Leo's Canadian Call for Help TV show comes into the U.S. soon. I hope Alex does well. He is very talented.

Here's Leo's take on all the changes from Joey The Intern (at G4). It's good listening.

Worst Jobs in Science-Sequel

From Popular Science comes this new list of the worst jobs in science. Ugh!