Live and learn....'til 2012

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MACRO MONDAY

Taken with my cellphone camera, 3x enlargement:
A sand dollar [front and back sides, respectively]--



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Found along the Texas Coast, many collect them to make fine jewelry. Necklaces mostly. Which, to remind y'all of one I made with a sea heart bean seed...click here. What are called drift seeds...anyway, I thought I'd show you some of my most recent finds while walking the beaches in their more 'natural state'. Before and after [being cleaned, that is]---


BEFORE:




AFTER:

     Mary's Bean [Merremia discoidesperma]
        *also called crucifix bean

       Jamaican Navel [Omphalea diandra]

                      Sea Heart Bean [Entada gigas]

The last one [above] with me holding it up by the african violets, is the most 'perfect heart' we've [Bud, actually found this one] yet to find -found on a different day!!

              Sea Coconut [Manicaria saccifera]

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MONDAY MORSELS

Once again, my computer buddy, my desktop, made me feel like a green horn. I have a yahoo email account. And I opted for the new Beta Email a couple of weeks ago, I really, really like the layout and features [new and the older 'improved' features]. Thing is, I was in there cleaning out and deleted emails I no longer wanted and was using the CTRL key on the keyboard [desktop computer] to check off the ones I wanted to delete. For some reason I used my mouse scroll [the wheel] and the font shrunk to the point I could no longer read what I was viewing!! That has never happened to me before!! Naturally I kinda sorta panicked. I was pushing buttons and trying to figure it all out and get my font size back to normal. Well, I learned something that I thought I'd share. Probably many of you know this by now already. But I didn't. Once I learn 'new' tricks, I like to pass them on. And this works on all windows and tabs, not just email. Why, I even tried it here on my blog, and went out on google and opened a page link and the very same....

So, if you have a mouse, and you want the small font enlarged swiftly...

with mouse wheel -PUSH AND HOLD THE CTRL KEY WHILE USING THE MOUSE WHEEL. SCROLL UP OR DOWN TO ADJUST FONT SIZE.

without mouse wheel -PUSH AND HOLD CTRL KEY AND USE '+' OR '-' [plus or minus] KEY TO ADJUST FONT SIZE.

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NATURAL DISASTERS AND 2012

Bud and I were discussing the frequencies of earthquakes in the last decade. Now granted, the most recent in Japan with a magnitude of 8.9 with aftershocks in the 6 to 7 point range, and I'm saddened by the biblical death toll, yet..there seems to be so many natural disasters and you can't help yourself but think of the Mayan prediction of the world's end in December of the very year; 2012. Actually, researching, it's only the earth's axis and poles aligning, more precisely called galactic alignment. The earth has been shifting for eons...this is not anything new, nor is it something that would predict the world to end. Of course, this discussion in terms of the Mayans and the December 2012 doomsday was imminent after the earthquake and tsunami. But really...huge natural disasters have been around for centuries!!! Recorded history proves this:

1. Syria, Aleppo - 1138
   Earthquake kills 230,000 people
2. China, 1290
   Earthquake takes at least 100,000 people.
3. Japan, 1730
   Earthquake took the lives of some 137,000 people.
4. Italy, 1908
   An earthquake of 7.2 magnitute and the tidal wave that resulted, destroyed several southernmost Italian cities and towns and approximately 123,000 people.
5. Japan, 1923
   A third of Tokyo is destroyed and much of Yokohama in an 8.3 earthquake which between 140,000 and 200,000 people
6. China, 1927
   An earthquake 7.9 - hit Nanshan City and took about 200,000 people.
7. Chile, 1939
   Some 28,000 people were killed from an 8.3 earthquake in Chile.
8. Peru, 1970
   A 7.9 earthquake and resulting landslides killed about 66,000 in Northern Peru.
9. 2004-05: Earthquake of 9.0 and the resulting tsunami creates one of the world's worst disasters. It does major damage to: Indonesia, India, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Maldives, Somalia, Tanzania, Seychelles, Bangladesh, and Andaman. Deaths: Between 235,000 and 285,000.
10. Haiti, 2010
    Earthquate - still counting. Most estimates now exceed 220,000 dead.

And this is just a small sampling of earthquakes alone. Other natural disasters [floods, volcano eruptions -Pompeii comes to mind- the great tsunami that made the infamous city of Plato---The lost city of Atlantis (fiction or non-fiction depending on who you talk to) famine, typhoons and cyclones, hurricanes, fires, epidemics] throughout history proves it's been happening all over the world...daily, yearly!! Thing is the spoof on 2012's end of the world is getting some people ansy and fears of the end is growing. And of course, the large numbers of deaths has a lot to do with lack of communication with science itself...even tho earthquakes and other natural disasters are not wholly predictable, the means of communication is higher and more profound with less human loss than before. Read more of recorded natural disasters in history by clicking HERE.



Mt. Vesuvius eruption graphic courtesy of online research.