Pinnacle Mountain

Seven of us drive over to Pinnacle Mountain, Arkansas on Wednesday for a day of hiking. If you have not been to Pinnacle, you should put it on your list of places to go. We go over there at least once a year, sometimes more. Pinnacle is the highest point for miles around, and the climb to the top is awesome. Standing about a thousand feet above sea level, the peak provides a unique 360 degree view of Little Rock and the surrounding area.

The picture above was taken from the peak. The rock formation is principally sandstone and shale with a bit of quartz. Scrambling up the west side of Pinnacle is somewhat of a challenge for some and others make it look easy. I say look easy, because it is definitely not an easy climb. Coming down is much easier. 96 degress and a beaming sun added a bit more to the challenge, but it was definitely worth battling the sun and the rocks for the view at the top . . . and a nice cool breeze.

Back from Vegas

I just got back from a week-long design conference sponsored by HOW Magazine, and I had a great time. One of the sessions was called "Smashing Digital Photography" -- an awesome class on taking digital photographs. I took the picture above during the session. The speaker passed out bags full of toys and told us to take some pictures. While taking this picture I shook the camera and got a very nice effect. The little robot was a wind-up toy, so he was moving while I was shaking the camera. We took pictures all over the hotel, inside, outside, in the conference room, at the pool, everywhere we could go within 15-minute blocks of time. The speaker would talk to us for a few minutes, then we would go on "field trips" for a few minutes.

We were issued a challenge. Take a selfie (you know, aim the camera at yourself for a really close-up shot) every day for a year. It's like a wordless journal, chronicling your life. He also challenged us to go on a field trip at least once a month. Determine what you are going to shoot before you go out (close-up shots of flowers, angular shots, shots of things overhead, pure color, car headlights . . . you get the idea).

I can hardly wait to get into digital photography . . . really get into it.

The storm

Glorious and powerful,
the thunder rolls
as teardrops fall from a grey mother'’s eyes
to the cold, hard earth
now softened with freshwater tears
a flash of lightning illuminates the sky
the earth
and sea
with the brilliance and brightness
of a thousand candles
that casts its majesty
over the dark and dreary world
for but a moment in eternity
'neath lit, rolling waves of clouds
stretching across the sky,
beautiful and unending,
the earth frozen with fear or awe
wonder
at the power
of the storm.

A poem by guest blogger Kelly B

Loosely packed rocky rubble

In November 2005 a Japanese spacecraft, named Hayabusa, made the first-ever attempt to land on an asteroid and collect material samples. Although the data collection portion of Hayabusa was very successful, it is still not known whether the material collection portion was a success. Due to several glitches in the mission (battery failure and low fuel), researchers will have to wait until 2010 to retrieve the spacecraft and determine whether any samples were collected.

The object of Hayabusa's observations and research was the asteroid Itokawa, one of thousands of asteroids with Earth-crossing orbits. Itokawa is roughly 500 meters long, and is one of the most common types of asteroids. If one of these should strike the Earth, it would be a potential global catastrophe.

One of the most interesting features of Itokawa is it's composition. All asteroids previously studied have been solid chunks of rock, but this one is comprised of loosely packed rocky rubble, barely held together by it's own gravity. Some experts say that most asteroids should have this rubble structure, but this is the first rubble-pile asteroid that has been directly observed. Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars were all formed from chunks of rock like Itokawa.

How do asteroids end up in an Earth-crossing orbit? These near-Earth objects come from the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. When these objects collide with other asteroids they shatter and then clump together into families, migrate into regions of space where the gravity of Jupiter can jar them loose from their orbits and finally send them spiraling into orbits which come relatively close to Earth.