A giant passes

Stephen Jay Gould died today. To call him just a paleontologist doesn’t do him justice. And despite the fact that he was a Yankees fan, he was probably my favorite science writer. He was one of the first to really bring science alive for me (and countless other lay people). Had I not gotten side-tracked, I would have likely gone into science as a profession mainly because of his influence. You should read at least one of his books before you pass.

Lawyers in Love

Now that we have an 80s station in town, I’ve been thinking of mainstream 80s music (not the obscure stuff I listened to back in the day) that I’d like to hear again. Jackson Browne’s “Lawyers in Love” was one of those tunes. Luckily, it’s readily available from the usual sources. That song is one of those 80s nuggets that I’ve always wanted to cover (in my mythical band that plays cool covers, whether the song in question was cool or not). That song, in retrospect, also sums up in a very cynical sort of way a lot about the 80s. I sometimes forget how afraid we were of the Russians.

Rollin’ on the River

UPDATE: As of June 21, the trip is now scheduled for July 15. We’ll see if we hit this target, at least the forth time we’ve scheduled the trip.

The weekend of June 1-4, several friends and I are (were supposed to, but didn’t) headed down to the Buffalo National River to float and fish the remote lower section. It’s 23 miles of free-flowing river that runs through 60,000 acres of protected national forests. It’s one of the most remote wildernesses between the Rockies and the Appalachians. It’s beautiful, to say the least.

Todd and I recently bought two WaterMaster rafts for this trip and for lots of others on our Ozark streams and rivers. They’re one-man inflatable rafts, designed for fishing. They front half of the bottom is open, so you can move yourself with fins or stand up in shallow water, and the boat will just hang below you in the current. For covering water faster, it has small oars that lock into place while you’re fishing. They’re going to be perfect for the Buffalo trip. We’re giving them their first workout tomorrow on Osage Creek, which is at a great level right now.
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Get Yo Freak On

Sorry about that title, but I thought would be more entertaining than “another big website redesign.” I’m embarking on the first stages of a MASSIVE redesign of our entire site at work. I’m building a new CMS from scratch, importing old content, redesigning the awful UI, etc. It’s going to be fun, but there are numerous challenges in it. But, hey, that’s why I do this — I get bored easily if I’m not challenged (just ask any teacher I ever had in school).

“Iron Chef CSS”… heh

CSS ninja Eric Meyer has a great new article in the current A List Apart that explains how to do “magic printing” with CSS using the media=”print” declaration.