Oil on the Louisiana shores

A gut-wrenching picture gallery on the oil from the Deepwater Horizon disaster reaching the Louisiana coast is available on the Big Picture. Don't watch it if you don't have a strong stomach. Meanwhile the people supposed to keep an eye on the drillers are partying with cakes inscribed "Drill, Baby, Drill" (I doubt the actual cake was as well punctuated as the NYT makes it seem). Sad, sad, sad.

Astronomy pictures

A gorgeous gallery of astronomy pictures is available on the frame today.

Saguaros

Saguaros are the iconic cactuses from the Sonoran desert that spans Mexico and Arizona. I was in southern Arizona this spring on a little vacation with my family. This was before the rather ill-thought out law requiring non-citizens to carry immigration papers on their persons came into effect. Although I do believe a lot of the reporting on this law has been overly sensational (the requirement is already a federal law), being a very legal immigrant myself I am quite ambivalent about it as it reeks rather of racial profiling. But enough of that. I have lots of pictures from that trip that I haven't put up yet. One thing I put up was some sunrise pictures from the goosenecks, which we visited on the way back. We also hiked a little in Picacho Peak State park, which I put up as a featured gallery a while ago. I will write later about that place which is a lot of fun to visit in early spring when all the poppies and other flowers are in bloom. Right now, I'll just put up a few pictures off a Saguoro that my daughter chose as her Saguaro for her junior ranger program in fantastic Saguaro National Park. This was a big giant with lots and lots of arms.

This one I call "the rocket" for obvious reasons:

Flickr link for this image.

and this "the arm." Another appropriate name would be "the finger." ;-)

Flickr link for this image.

Here is my daughter next to "her" Saguaro


It takes Saguaros 75 years to grow their first sidearm. This one has seen quite some history. I have many more images of seas of Saguaros that I still have to work up, so more later!

Earth Day 2009

Came across this great gallery of earth-day related images:
Big picture.

Kodachrome

See this page for an absolutely fantastic slideshow of famous and less famous images taken on the legendary Kodachrome film. From Digital Story.