Eye.

This is going to be my new Twitter photo.

Indiana Jones and The Ignorant Immigrant.

Last night, as part of my 35th birthday celebration festivities, my wife and I went to see Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. This movie was as good as The Last Crusade and Raiders of the Lost Ark, leaving me to wonder what were Spielberg and Lucas thinking when they made The Temple of Doom.

I was particularly impressed with the Russian spoken by the KGB agents and the Soviet soldiers in this movie. As a native speaker, I see a lot of movies where the Russian spoken by the characters is far from anything I even remotely recognize as Russian. In most cases, what supposed to be Russian turns out to be gibberish that happens to sound Russian without making any grammatical sense.

On the other hand, I found a few things a little unbelievable. My friend Carl warned me about two things that made him roll his eyes while watching this movie. They were the refrigerator and the monkeys. I had to agree with him about the refrigerator, but the monkeys I thought were just a cutesy break from the action. They were completely unnecessary, but not entirely awful.

My own list of things that made me roll my eyes is a little bit longer than Carl's. First, the English spoken by the KGB agents was quite bad, in reality these people were highly trained and spoke excellent English. Second, the sword worn by the female villain, Soviet officers did not wear swords, let alone rapiers, unless they were cavalry officers especially in 1957. Finally, the vehicles used by the Soviet soldiers did not remind me of those I was familiar with while growing up in the Soviet Union.

I was looking forward to seeing this movie since I didn't get a chance to see any other Indiana Jones movies in theaters. It was worth the price of admission and then some, the price of popcorn, on the other hand, was ridiculous. If you haven't seen the movie yet, I haven't given anything crucial away. And if you have seen it, you know exactly what I mean.

City slicker.

Cars like this, even though perfectly normal in places like Philly and New York, seem completely bizarre in rural Pennsylvania. Here, trucks and SUVs dominate the roads. That's because in Winter it's almost impossible to get around without a front wheel drive at the very least.

Since the snow removal crews do not believe in plowing every street, sometimes the snow you shovel off of your vehicle is the only snow removal that takes places. Out here, you and your car have to fend for yourselves and it helps if your car can get you through the snow.

Bag.

Lili got a hold of my phone and took this picture earlier today.

Twilight sky.

At the circus.

Future alpinist.

Lili and I went for a walk prescribed to us by my wife. However, Lili is far more interested in climbing the porch steps.

On the beach.

This is the Canoe Island Lodge beach. It is flanked on all sides by trees and buildings. We spent several hours there on Sunday splashing in the lake and watching the passing boats.

Low rider.

I took this as we were crawling along Canada Street in Lake George. We saw a lot of interesting cars this weekend.

Canoe Island Lodge.

This is the Edelweiss building that sits right on the lake. The deck in front of it is the top of the boat house.

Lake George.

We are spending Memorial Day weekend with family and friends at the Canoe Island Lodge on Lake George in Upstate New York. Lili, who is 17 months old today, isn't enthused about the breakfast offered this morning and prefers to eat her bib instead.

Favorite physicist.

People frequently ask each other about a favorite singer, or a favorite actor, or a favorite athlete. Sometimes these discussions become heated arguments, especially when the topic is sports. But very seldom, in fact almost never, does the conversation about favorites turns to the topic of physics and physicists.

This may seem like a strange topic at first, but if you think about it for a while you will discover that it's a topic worth considering. For starters, physicists are cooler than various other scientists because they study things that vary in size from a single atom to an entire galaxy. You have to admit that covers a pretty sizable chunk of what we call the known universe.

So after all that you're probably wondering who might be my favorite physicist. The answer is Richard Feinman. Who's yours?

The test, part 2.

The text in my previous post, made from my Gmail account, did not look like it does when I post right on blogger. It wasn't formatted at all and it also included my signature. So I wanted to see if posting from my Yahoo e-mail will be any different. It turns out that the mobile Yahoo e-mail works with Blogger better than the mobile Gmail. This is kind of funny since both Gmail and Blogger are Google products.

This is a test.

This is a test of an e-mail posting system. I have added an e-mail posting feature to my blog so I can write and e-mail posts right from my cell phone since I can't log in to Blogger via mobile web. This should allow me to post more often than I do know. Let's see if this experiment works. This has been a test of an e-mail posting system.

Sunrise.

Politicians say the darndest things.

First, Barack Obama said that rural Pennsylvanians were ignorant, racist, and clung to God and guns for comfort. This statement pissed off a lot of people and resonated in the area like a church bell in the Grand Canyon.

Then the Mayor of Tunkhannock, a nearby small town, Norm Ball wrote a letter to his local paper which was reprinted by The Washington Post. In this letter Ball wrote that Obama isn't good for America and that Obama's upbringing in the Muslim world remains a mystery, thereby proving that rural Pennsylvanians are indeed ignorant and racist.

Finally, since these things seem to come in threes, The Artist Almost Formerly Known as The President visited Israel on the 60th anniversary of that country's founding and in a speech before the Israeli Senate compared Obama's desire to open dialog with the president of Iran to British Prime Minister Chamberlain's appeasing Hitler prior to the break out of World War II, thereby proving that ignorance and racism extend far beyond the borders of Pennsylvania.

Flakes.

This is Lili's favorite stuffed animal. His name is Flakes and he is a Christmas bear. Inside, Flakes has a tiny bell which jingles every time Lili shakes him. She does this a lot since Flakes is her constant companion wherever she goes.

Happy birthday, Israel.

The State of Israel is 60. In 1948, in the wake of World War II, a country was craved out of a British colony and populated with Holocaust survivors. These people, having lost everything, were brave and daring enough to live in a desert surrounded by countries who wish nothing less than to finish what the Nazis began. They did not only live in the desert, they made it bloom. In the process, they experienced the greatest of triumphs and the greatest of losses. Despite these losses, the country and its people flourished demonstrating an eduring spirit similar to that demonstrated by the immigrants who carved the United States out of the North American wildreness. So, here is to many more anniverssaries and to piece in the Middle East.

Fog field.

This morning when I left my house I stepped into what can only be described as equal parts soup and equal parts blanket. The world as I knew it vanished and I found myself in Brigadoon. OK, so maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration, but the fog was pretty thick and it was hard to see anything.

Stroller.