Gas Prices Worldwide

per gallon converted to dollars (as of May 30, 2008):

Germany: $11.49
France: $9.66
Britain $8.31
Japan: $5.77
Brazil: $5.67
India: $4.16
USA: $3.96
Russia: $3.68
China: $2.93

Chicks on the Can

Energy Saver

Wasting water wastes electricity. Why? Because the biggest use of electricity in most cities is supplying water and cleaning it up after it's been used!
About 75 percent of the water we use in our homes is used in the bathroom. Unless you have a low flush toilet, for example, you use about five gallons to seven gallons of water with every flush! A leaky toilet can waste more than 10,000 gallons of water a year.

At Carderock

Bluster

PIZZA

Rising discs of dough

Tossed, twirled, like small planets on

A one arm axis

~ Donna Adler, Potomac, MD

And now, this....

from my friend Ken, the Lord of Cherry Hill, N.J....

Why Did The Chicken Cross The Road???

BARACK OBAMA: The chicken crossed the road because it was time for a CHANGE! The chicken wanted CHANGE!

JOHN MC CAIN: My friends, that chicken crossed the road because he recognized the need to engage in cooperation and dialogue with all the chickens on the other side of the road.

HILLARY CLINTON: When I was First Lady, I personally helped that little chicken to cross the road. This experience makes me uniquely qualified to ensure -- right from Day One! -- that every chicken in this country gets the chance it deserves to cross the road. But then, this really isn't about me.......

DR. PHIL: The problem we have here is that this chicken won't realize that he must first deal with the problem on THIS side of the road before it goes after the problem on the OTHER SIDE of the road. What we need to do is help him realize how stupid he's acting by not taking on his CURRENT problems before adding NEW problems.

OPRAH: Well, I understand that the chicken is having problems, which is why he wants to cross this road so bad. So instead of having the chicken learn from his mistakes and take falls, which is a part of life, I'm going to give this chicken a car so that he can just drive across the road and not live his life like the rest of the other chickens.

GEORGE W. BUSH: We don't really care why the chicken crossed the road. We just want to know if the chicken is on our side of the road, or not. The chicken is either against us, or for us. There is no middle ground here.

ANDERSON COOPER - CNN: We have reason to believe there is a chicken, but we have not yet been allowed to have access to the other side of the road.

NANCY GRACE: That chicken crossed the road because he's GUILTY! You can see it in his eyes and the way he walks..

DR SEUSS: Did the chicken cross the road?Did he cross it with a toad? Yes, the chicken crossed the road, But why he crossed I've not been told.

ERNEST HEMINGWAY: To die. In the rain. Alone.

GRANDPA: In my day we didn't ask why the chicken crossed the road. Somebody told us the chicken crossed the road, and that was good enough.

BARBARA WALTERS: Isn't that interesting? In a few moments, we will be listening to the chicken tell, for the first time, the heartwarming story of how it experienced a serious case of molting, and went on to accomplish its lifelong dream of crossing the road.

ARISTOTLE: It is the nature of chickens to cross the road.

JOHN LENNON: Imagine all the chickens in the world crossing roads together, in peace.

ALBERT EINSTEIN: Did the chicken really cross the road, or did the road move beneath the chicken?

COLONEL SANDERS: Did I miss one?

What the...???

At Breighton Dam Park...

America's Greatest Singer

Yeah, even better than David Archuleta...

Tony?

for the Pretzelhead...

Anna Rose Whitney

From the spectacular Rhododendron garden of Raymie Miller, Hanover, Pennsylvania.

Zoo Story

So, I was sittin' in this bar, just mindin' my own business, when this guy beside me starts givin' me grief, sayin' I look like a gorilla and shit like that...

I tell the guy, how about stickin' it in your ear, buddy...

He keeps givin' me shit, and finally I say, hey, up yours... twice!

Morpho

from the "Wings of Fancy" exhibit, Brookside Gardens

Buddy and Sky Update

Buddy recently converted to Judaism. He vows never to come out of the house on Saturdays, and, in a recent interview, said he plans to redirect his life toward more fulfilling pursuits.

Last week Sky had an erection that lasted longer than four hours, and he refused to consult a physician. Sky said he wants to be taken more seriously and will no longer chase squirrels.

Dogwood & Maple

Sunning

Artificial Flowers

JPG

The Early Bird

Poetry Corner

IN THE JUNK STORE

A small, straw basket
Full of medals
From good old wars
No one recalls.

I flipped one over
To feel the pin
That once pierced
The hero's swelling chest.

~ Charles Simic

Heron on the Canal

Currently

Reading: WOOD, Craft, Culture, History by Harvey Green
Listening to: The Story, Norah Jones (tasty piano, really nice vocal)
Pulling for: Wizards, Caps, O's
Fretting about: Chesapeake Bay crab population
Pissed off at: the greedy bastards who precipitated the current financial crisis and screwed with my retirement plans
Looking forward to: the summer and all things connected to it

Look Closely

Yeah, that's a sleigh parked in the bike rack.

Daf

Blossoms of Kenwood

Retro Cool

Pictures taken at just the right time

http://www.blingit.us/blog/2008/02/27/pictures-taken-just-at-the-right-time/

Smithsonian Kite Festival

Peak Bloom

Simply Abstract

The Bullshit Bag: Candidate's Edition

Please, spare the children...

A New Year

I like the four seasons. Some of my friends on the west coast scoff at this idea, but I like the seasonal changes and I like the cycle. Summer is always welcomed even with the heat and humidity of Washington, D.C. Just being out and about is a pleasure. There’s hiking, boating, the beach, baseball, crabs and beer.

Fall is great. I always look forward to Redskins football, a nip in the air, the beautiful pallate of the changing leaves, fresh cider, Nittany apples, and Thanksgiving.

I wouldn’t say I welcome winter, but winter provides it’s own special pleasures. It’s a time to curl up indoors with a good book, and it's a good time to bake some bread or sit by a crackling fire. And you can’t not like the Christmas and New Year celebrations, a bowl of hot soup on a cold winter day, and, of course, Maryland basketball.

But spring…pure joy! It’s an awakening, a renewal, and a breath of fresh air and the beginning of the cycle. Hyacinths, daffodils, cherry blossoms, and crowds of people in shirt sleeves outside the Barnes and Noble in Bethesda soaking up the sun... The first day of spring should be the first day of the year. Happy New Year!

At the Dog Show

Courtyard

The new courtyard at the National Portait Gallery in Washington, D.C.

The Silver Top Bottling Works

Sign of Spring

Hat Trick

Aunt Honey's Carrot Cake

RECIPE

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Mix:
2 cups flour
2 cups sugar
2 tsp. baking soda
2 tsp. cinnamon
Dash nutmeg
1 tsp salt
1 1/4 cup oil
4 eggs
3 cups shredded carrots
1 cup shopped walnuts
1 cup crushed pineapple

Pour mixture into lightly greased cake pan

Bake 40 to 45 minutes

Icing:

Mix:
1 lg. cream cheese (softened)
1 stick butter or margarine
1 box 10x sugar
2 tsp vanilla
Add a little milk if too stiff

(my niece baked this cake for us this past weekend, and I can tell you, it's one delicious carrot cake)

~ from the forthcoming Goodfellow Family and Friends Cookbook

Blue Skies

Steven Wright said:

“The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.”

“If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something.”

“Dancing is a perpendicular expression of a horizontal desire.”

“A clear conscience is usually a sign of a bad memory.”

Hyacinth

“If of thy mortal goods thou art bereft…and alone two loaves are left. Sell one and buy hyacinths to feed thy soul”

~Sheikh Muslch uddin Suzdi Shinazi, Persian poet, 13th century

Tree on the ridge...after the storm

2 x 6

From SMITH: readers were asked to come up with their life story in six words:

Ex-wife and contractor now have house - Drew Peck

Found True Love, Married Someone Else - Bjorn Stromberg

Little Bit Lucy, Tempered by Ethel - Tami Maus

Took Scenic Route, Got in Late - Will Blythe


From Freakonomics: readers were asked to supply a six word motto for the United States

Caution! Experiment in Progress Since 1776

Just Like Canada, With Better Bacon

Our Worst Critics Prefer to Stay

Butterfly

At the new butterfly exhibit at the Museum of Natural History

Orchids

On display at the Botanical

Gardens on the National Mall

Presidents

“I may be President of the United States, but my private life is nobody’s damned business.”
~ Chester Arthur

“A good leader can’t get too far ahead of his followers.”
~ FDR

“I never given them hell; I just tell them the truth and they think it is hell.”
~ Harry Truman

“If one morning I walked on top of the water across the Potomac River, the headline that afternoon would read: “President can’t swim.”
~ Lyndon Johnson

“What I’d really like to do is go down in history as the President who made Americans believe in themselves again.”
~Ronald Reagan

Ronald Reagan said:

"I have wondered at times about what the Ten Commandments would have looked like if Moses had run them through the U.S. Congress."

"It has been said that politics is the second oldest profession. I have learned that it bears a striking resemblance to the first."

"Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it."

"No arsenal, or no weapon in the arsenals of the world, is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women."

Brown-eyed Handsome Dog

Sky

More from Hunter S. Thompson

"Maybe there is no Heaven. Or maybe this is all pure gibberish—a product of the demented imagination of a lazy drunken hillbilly with a heart full of hate who has found a way to live out where the real winds blow—to sleep late, have fun, get wild, drink whisky, and drive fast on empty streets with nothing in mind except falling in love and not getting arrested . . . Res ipsa loquitur. Let the good times roll."

~Hunter S. Thompson

Lincoln Memorial

In 1917, just after construction, alone in a swamp

and today