As I see it...

Ella (and her amazing shoes!), Jensen and Elani in her Prom Dress

Whale & Salmon

watercolor & ink

2008

Are you listening?

In 1989 both Voyager spacecraft had passed Neptune and Pluto. Carl Sagan wanted one last picture of Earth from "a hundred thousand times" as far away than the famous shots of Earth taken by astronauts from the moon during the Apollo series.

The result is stunning. In Sagan's words, "Because of the reflection of sunlight off the spacecraft, the Earth seems to be sitting in a beam of light, as if there were some special significance to this small world. But it's just an accident of geometry and optics. The Sun emits its radiation equitably in all directions. Had the picture been taken a little earlier or a little later there would have been no sunbeam highlighting the Earth.

"Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there - on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

"The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors, so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

"Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

"The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand."

~Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot

This was posted on the Humanist of Utah website. I know nothing at all about these people, but for me, Carl Sagan has a very clear message. One we ALL need to listen very closely to. We're not going to destroy the planet, nature will see to that. But, we are going to destroy ourselves (and very possibly take a few thousand other species with us) if we don't wake up..... soon.

Enough said.

Erica and Matt

We had the good fortune of having Matt, Erica's boyfriend, stay with us for Christmas.

As you will see, Erica is incapable of posing in a normal way for a picture.

The Snow Train to Leavenworth

Some shots taken from the train on the way to Leavenworth. It was a wonderful ride and the scenery and snow where amazing.

Labels: snow, snow train

The Cookie Party

Hundreds of yummy cookies...

Christmas tree....

Family...

Dammer & Meggie

Kristie & Lee

Murderous Gingerbread...

And their evil creaters.

Noël & Patrick

Christmas at our house

Just a few photos of the house decorated for Christmas. =)

The New Toy

About a month ago, I purchased one of these... a Nikon D40 Digital SLR Camera. I'm still in the kindergarten stage of learning how to use this thing, but I thought I'd post a few of the pictures I have taken so far.

Elani in her natural state.