random: February 2008 Archives

Top Midnight Sun Pictures in Northern Norway from 2007

This is my favorite of all of his or her pictures:

The explanation, for those who've never heard of it: the Earth's axis is tilted (~23%), so while we orbit in our ellipse around the sun, parts of the Earth are tilted towards the sun and the opposite parts are tilted away. In the northern hemisphere's winter, the earth is closer to the sun than in summer, but the northern hemisphere is tilted away, meaning that it receives less (amount) and less (downtoner) direct sunlight than the southern hemisphere. This makes days shorter in lower latitudes and causes the polar night event in higher latitudes that there recently was a crazy vampire movie involving that I wanted to see (30 Days of Night). But that would mean that the picture should be dark, no, because Norway is in the high latitudes of the northern hemisphere, yes? So then the only alternative: these pictures were taken in summer, when the northern hemisphere tilts towards the sun.

Yeah, that's not the best explanation, so here's a link: axial tilt

A quicker way of figuring this out would've been just to read the photographer's description.

Barking and baying up a storm, Uno lived up to his name Tuesday night by becoming the first beagle to win best in show at the Westminster Kennel Club.

The nation's new top dog was clearly the fan favorite and drew a standing ovation from the sold-out crowd at Madison Square Garden when he was picked.

... The only dog consistently listed among America's most popular breeds for nearly 100 years, a beagle had never won in the 100 times Westminster picked a winner.

Look at that cute face!

My family has a pure-bred Beagle that we rescued from the pound, it's actually a rather interesting story:

My brother found her wondering around outside in the street with no tags, so my family took her in. Thinking she might be a lost dog, my family took her to the authorities, where they found out she was heavily infected with heart worms.

The vet also commented that she was pure-bred, no more than 2 years old, and had already had a littler of puppies.

This immediately led us to believe she had been part of a puppy mill operation and had escaped; you see, these puppy mill operations set up shops along the highway near my house, which would explain her wondering around nearby.

However, because we were not her registered owners, and because she was infected with heart worms, they would not release her to us, and told us she would be put down!

We promised to treat the heartworms, we showed them we were already dog owners (we also have a chocolate pure-bred lab) with a large house and yard, and still they refused because of her medical condition.

Obviously, we didn't want her put down, so eventually we found an organisation called Houston Beagle Rescue that was able to get the pound to release her to them, and Beagle Rescue then turned around and released her to us as her new owners.

Since then, she's become a wonderful (and cute!) member of the family. The only minus: as a side effect of the heartworm infection she had (she is now completely heartworm free), she now has a sinus topography that makes her the loudest snorer in the whole house. You can hear her in every room of my family's two story house!