Madame Butterfly

I really don't know.

Perhaps you need to go to the Nasa site and see what they have to say about it.

I sew quite well and have made alot of costumes for people.

The biggest advice I can give is don't go cheap.

Spend the money on good fabric.

You may be able to find out on a website what they used for fabric types, it's the colors that maybe hard to duplicate.

If you are making them yourselfs, the patterns will suggest fabric types. It's been my experience that the adult costumes list nicer fabrics, as they will most likely be worn more often.

Edit: Also, use a decent pattern. Simplicity has the easiest and most detailed patterns to follow.

Vogue typically has the hardest.

McCall's is middling.

B)

Something To Sleep To

Michelle Branch

She's his yellow brick road

Leading him on

And letting him go as far

as she lets him go

Going down to nowhere

She puts on her make-up

The same way she did yesterday

Hoping everything's the same

But everything has changed

In my mind

Everything we did was right

Open your eyes, I'll still be by your side

How could I ever have been so blind?

You give me something to sleep to

at night

He wakes up to the sound

So scared that she's leaving

He wishes she were still

asleep next to him

Hoping she will change

In my mind

Everything we did was right

Open your eyes, I'll still be by your side

How could I ever have been so blind?

You give me something to sleep to

at night

You give me something to sleep to

And all I know is

You give me something to dream to when I'm all alone and blue

Don't leave me now

Don't leave me now

Don't leave me now

Don't leave me now

Don't leave me now

Don't leave me now

Don't leave me now

Don't leave me now

In my mind

Everything we did was right

Open your eyes, I'll still be by your side

How could I ever have been so blind?

You give me something to sleep to

Something to sleep to

Something to sleep to at night

Going through my mail folders, deciding what stays and what goes.

Playing a game on msn with a friend.

Updated: 03:57 PM EDT

Kenya Wildlife Service to Relocate 400 Elephants

By TOM MALITI, AP

NAIROBI, Kenya (Aug. 22) - The Kenya Wildlife Service will move 400 elephants hundreds of miles to the nation's largest animal reserve from a smaller park that has been holding too many of the animals, a spokesman said Monday.

The $3.2 million exercise will begin Thursday and involve transporting elephants 218 miles to the northern part of Tsavo East National Park from Shimba Hills National Reserve, said Edward Indakwa, a spokesman for the wildlife service.

The government is funding the relocation, Indakwa said.

The first 50 elephants, comprising six families, will be tranquilized and moved by truck in a trip that will take 10-12 days, Indakwa said. Officials will then wait to see how they fare in their new environment before moving the rest, he said.

"With a current elephant population of 600, the (Shimba Hills) National Reserve is choking. The elephants destroy the habitat, break park fences and cause mayhem and destruction in villages surrounding the park," said Indakwa.

He said researchers estimate that Shimba Hills, on Kenya's southern coast, can only hold 200 elephants, while Tsavo East National Park, several hundred miles to the north, has 10,397 elephants, down from a peak of 25,268 in 1972.

Tsavo East suffered its heaviest loss of elephants during the 1980s and early 1990s when poachers devastated Kenya's pachyderms. But poaching has since subsided, helped by a 1989 global ban on the ivory trade that has seen prices drop.

Kenya Wildlife Service Director Julius Kipng'etich said his organization has increased security in the area where the elephants will be relocated.

"We deployed 83 young ranger recruits to Tsavo East last month. ... If the poachers come, they will find us ready," Kipng'etich said. He said that they will also have regular aerial patrols.

Kipng'etich also said the wildlife service had taken steps to reduce the possibility of elephants damaging nearby farms, a constant threat facing authorities as Kenya's population grows and more people move to once-empty land to farm, at times close to national parks.

The service also has tagged six matriarchs and will monitor their movements so that its rangers can drive them away before they reach private farms, Kipng'etich said.

08/22/05 14:48 EDT

Astronomers gear up for 2029 asteroid pass

Scientists hope to take advantage of closest approach in 1,500 years

Updated: 3:32 p.m. ET Aug. 22, 2005

During the early morning hours of April 13, 2029, observers in Asia and North Africa will have a chance to witness a rare celestial event as an asteroid, 99942 Apophis, passes within 20,000 miles of Earth.

"It's not gonna knock your socks off, and it certainly won't be the brightest object in the sky, but it'll be easily observable with the naked eye," said Don Yeomans, manager of NASA's Near Earth Object (NEO) Program.

The approach of an asteroid this large -- Apophis is more than 1,000 feet in diameter -- and this close to Earth occurs only about once every 1,500 years.

Scientists are awaiting the close flyby with mixed emotions: excitement at a unique scientific opportunity and uneasiness that it might be a sign of more ominous things to come.

Inside look

A team of researchers headed by Daniel Scheeres, an aerospace engineer from the University of Michigan, hopes to take advantage of Apophis' close approach to learn more about how asteroids are assembled and to gather information about seismic activity inside the rock.

The beauty of this event is that it is a kind of natural experiment that scientists would never be able to recreate, Scheeres told Space.com in an email interview.

Tidal forces from Earth's gravity will twist and churn the asteroid's insides and deform its exterior as it passes by the planet. Scheeres said that currently, the plan is to use ground-based radar to monitor the asteroids movements and telescopes to observe changes in its surface features and rotation.

But even the most sophisticated ground-based observations won't be sufficient for gathering detailed information about the interior of the asteroid, Scheeres said.

That kind of detail would require that a network of probes capable of measuring acceleration and seismic activity be embedded in the asteroid's surface. Another possibility would be to place a probe in orbit around the asteroid in order to keep tabs on it and to map its surface. No such space missions are currently in the works, however.

Apophis was discovered last year and is named after a snakelike Egyptian god of darkness and chaos. The name is appropriate. For a brief period of time last winter, scientists had given Apophis, then known as 2004 MN4, a 1-in-40 chance of colliding with Earth in 2029.

Additional observations ruled out the 2029 impact, and scientists now predict there is about a 1-in-10,000 chance that the asteroid will hit Earth in 2036, on yet another of its trips around the Sun on a course that crosses the orbit of Earth.

A large part of the uncertainty surrounding Apophis' movements is due something called the Yarkovsky Effect. When rotating bodies like asteroids pass through our solar system, they absorb solar radiation from the Sun that they then re-radiate.

The miniscule but persistent pressure from this re-radiation can cause a rock to speed up or slow down and change its flight path.

In many ways, the hubbub surrounding Apophis stems from an unusual confluence of events as the detection of near-Earth objects coincides roughly with humanity's demonstrated ability to meet them. Emboldened by the success of recent missions like Stardust and Deep Impact, some scientists think it prudent to launch a space mission to determine whether Apophis poses a significant threat.

Let's go!

Astronomers know that in 2029, Apophis' path will be bent significantly by Earth's gravity. They don't know the exact outcome.

In May, former Apollo astronaut Rusty Schweickart sent a letter to NASA administrator Mike Griffin urging the agency to investigate whether in 2029 Apophis might enter certain gravitational "keyholes" near Earth that would alter the asteroid's flight path in a manner that could put it on a more certain collision course with our planet in 2036.

In order to more accurately track its movements, Schweickart also proposed launching a space mission to place a radio transponder on Apophis. An official to response to Schweickart's letter is expected from NASA within the next few weeks.

As demonstrated by the Deep Impact mission, in which NASA smacked a comet with a small probe, it is possible to strike a fast moving body in space using current technologies.

"You don't have to change the course of the comet very much to miss the keyhole if you do it a number of years in advance," said Clark Chapman, an astronomer at the Southwest Research Institute in Colorado who has served on a number of committees concerning near-Earth objects.

Chapman urges caution, however, and said that scientists shouldn't rush to action. "You don't want to nudge it until you know what the nudge is going to do," Chapman said. The worst thing that could happen, of course, would be to nudge the asteroid in the wrong direction, based on the incomplete data now in hand, and actually cause a future collision.

Sooner rather than later

Most scientists agree that 2029 is the absolute deadline if an intervention mission is to be launched. After 2029, the distance Apophis would need to be moved in order to avoid an impact would be too great given current technologies.

In his letter, Schweickart said plans for a space mission to place a transponder on the Apophis should be in place by 2014 and that an intervention mission, should it prove necessary, be launched prior to 2029.

However, Apophis will veer within an observable distance of Earth twice more before 2029 -- once in 2013 and again in 2021. Based on data collected from those two flybys, Yeomans said scientists should be able to conclude with 99.8 percent accuracy whether a future impact scenario can be ruled out and he believes we should therefore wait before launching a mission that could cost hundreds of millions of dollars.

Until then, Yeomans says he won't be losing sleep over Apophis.

"It's an interesting object and it's raised some interesting issues, but a worrisome threat? No," said Yeomans. "We've got plenty of time."

© 2005 Space.com. All rights reserved

Listening to the local high school band practice on the field for the game this coming Friday.

I will know the melody to their fight song for the rest of my life. :P

As a child, we used to go visit my Grandparents in Florida every Easter.

Clearwater Beach will always be my favorite childhood beach.

As an adult and young adult I've seen many beautiful beaches. But the most beatiful was found in Canada on Victoria Island.

It was very remote, and a part of a National Park.

It wasn't someplace to take a romantic walk, or to sun yourself. It was way to primative for that.

It was the lush wild beauty of the woods along the beach, and the sea life that changed with the tides.

I remember spending hours there studying the different creatures in the water.

It was absolutely fascinating.

Split Screen Sadness

John Mayer

And I don't where you went when you left me but

It says here in the water, you must be gone by now

I can tell somehow

One hand on the trigger of the telephone

Wonderin when the call comes, when you say it's all right

You got your heart right

Maybe I'll sleep inside my coat and

Wait on your porch 'til you come back home, alright

I can't find a fight

We share the sadness

Split screen sadness

Two wrongs make it all alright tonight

Two wrongs make it all alright tonight

Two wrongs make it all alright tonight

Two wrongs make it all alright tonight

All you need is love is a lie cause

We had a love but we still said goodbye

Now we're tired, battered fighters

And it stings when it nobody's fault

Cause there's nothing to blame

At the drop of your name, it's only the air you took

And the breath you left

So maybe I'll sleep inside my coat and

Wait on the porch til you come back home, alright

I can't find the fight

So I'll check the weather wherever you are

Cause I wanna know if you can see the stars tonight

Might be my only right

We share the sadness

(two wrongs make it all alright tonight)

Split screen sadness

(two wrongs make it all alright tonight)

We share the sadness

(two wrongs make it all alright tonight)

Split screen sadness

(two wrongs make it all alright tonight)

I called... because... I just... need to feel you on the line

Don't hang up this time

And I know well it's me you called it over but

I still wish you fought me 'til my dying day

Don't let me get away

Cause I can't wait to figure out what's wrong with me

So I can say this is the way that I used to be

There's no substitute for time

Oh for the sadness

(two wrongs make it all alright tonight)

Split screen sadness

(two wrongs make it all alright tonight)

We share the sadness

(two wrongs make it all alright tonight)

Split screen sadness

(two wrongs make it all alright tonight)

Oh in the sadness, it's alright, it's alright

Oh in the sadness, it's alright, it's alright

Oh in the sadness, it's alright, it's alright

Oh in the sadness, it's alright, it's alright

My two Favorite college teams are   Western Illinois University - the Leathernecks!  and the Univ of Iowa Hawkeyes.  (how 'bout them Hawkeyes!) which I both graduated from).

I really enjoy watching college football (and Basketball) and generally root for Big Ten or Midwest teams.

 

Oh and the Bears still suck (and the Cubs too)  GO St. Louis Cardinals (Baseball)

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Have you named any of your children or pets Hayden? :P

No Cara, it's a sports team in Chicago. B)

BTW: I am a fan of the "victors valiant"

getting ready to dry my hair

watching them come to finally fix a sewer that's in front of my place. Apparently it's been there since the early 20th century and it's been slowly leaking waters down the street for weeks now.

So, how does this affect the water to my place? :P

Wow theres a National Punctuation Day I didnt know that I guess I should be really careful with my puntuation today so people can read what Im writing because I dont want anyone to be confused

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:P LMAO!!!!! B) B)

Creating Roots

The Nesting Instinct

The desire for a place to put down roots is nearly universal. There is a natural instinct that guides us toward a comfortable sanctuary that we ourselves have created or can call home. This is the nesting or cocooning instinct. It is this drive that calls to us after a day of work or play, that counteracts the chaos of the outside world by bringing us somewhere we belong. Your nest, be it home, apartment, or single room provides a safe haven from uncertainty and a sense of comfort and control. It offers you a space that is welcoming, nurturing, and meets your demands. In nesting, you are expressing yourself, fulfilling your needs, and giving substance to your intention to live the way you want to live.

The means of nesting are as individual as each of us. Some people consider their home their refuge. Others see it as a safe place for relaxing and spending time with family and friends. It is human nature, much like it is for animals, to have the desire to nest. Many women feel the instinct to put down roots and to raise a family in a consistent and nurturing setting, and nest to fulfill this instinct. Men may feel more driven to forage, or focus outwardly, but still want to create a safe haven for themselves.

The more effort you put into creating a home or space you enjoy, the more you will be drawn to it. Try using all-natural cleaning products in scents that are pleasing to you. Soft lighting can be a welcome relief after a day spent under fluorescent lamps. Candlelight and music can add warmth and feelings of safety to your home. An easy way to create a welcoming home is to make sure your furniture is comfortable and cozy, and your home has some color that makes you feel good. Making even minor changes can stimulate the nesting instinct.

Part of the nesting instinct lies in your home's ability to counteract stress. After a busy day, returning to your personal space will lower your blood pressure, relax your muscles, and help you clear your mind. The act of "building your nest" can give you a sense of accomplishment that is bolstered each time you come home and a space that makes you feel good is the ideal background for a centered life.

:P

Contemplating breakfast

Speaking to a friend online

Trying to figure out something on a website begun for a group of friends

NASA Images Discover Ancient Bridge between India and SriLanka

Space images taken by NASA reveal a mysterious ancient bridge in the Palk Strait between India and Sri Lanka. The bridge currently named as Adam´s Bridge is made of chain of shoals, c.18 mi (30 km) long.

The bridge´s unique curvature and composition by age suggests that it may be man made. The legends as well as Archeological studies reveal that the first signs of human inhabitants in Sri Lanka date back to the primitive age, about 1,750,000 years ago.

This information is a crucial aspect for an insight into the mysterious legend called Ramayana, which was supposed to have taken place in Tredha Yuga (more than 1,700,000 years ago).

In this epic, there is a mentioning about a bridge, which was built between Rameshwaram (India) and Srilankan coast under the supervision of a dynamic and invincible figure called Rama who is supposed to be the incarnation of the supreme.

This information may not be of much importance to the archeologists who are interested in exploring the origins of man, but it is sure to open the spiritual gates of the people of the world to have come to know an ancient history linked to the Indian mythology.

Updated: 09:46 AM EDT

Happiness Is... Something That Can Be Overdone

By Marilyn Elias, USA TODAY

(Aug. 22) - Maybe you can never be too rich or too thin, but you can be too happy for your own good, says a psychologist who has studied the topic so thoroughly that he's often called "Dr. Happiness."

New evidence suggests ultra-happy people may pay some surprising costs, University of Illinois psychologist Edward Diener told the American Psychological Association in a weekend report.

It has been well documented that happy adults tend to live longer, make more friends and do better at work.

But the most happy college students aren't as conscientious as moodier classmates, Diener's studies show. "The '10s' in happiness may spend more time at the bars, dancing and drinking," he speculates.

In worldwide studies, moderately happy adults usually earn more money than the most satisfied. "Maybe it's a motivation thing," Diener says.

Culture and personality also can make a relentlessly positive outlook less desirable. Asians often consider it unseemly to be too happy, Diener's studies show.

And a workplace filled with Pollyannas could lose its competitive edge. Those in mildly negative moods can be more critical and analytic, lab studies suggest.

Shifts in happiness levels give a person vital feedback about himself and the world, much as a gas gauge is needed in cars, says University of Virginia psychologist Gerald Clore. Those who are constantly happy "may have a broken gauge," Clore says, "and it's not serving them well."

Talking to an online friend about her upcoming divorce

Getting confused again over "pecking order" and how I fit.

synchronicity

The Big Bang is Old News -- Author Comes Up with Definitive Theory of How Universe Formed

Updated: 2:25 p.m. ET Aug. 15, 2005

SUN CITY WEST, Ariz., August 15, 2005 (PRIMEZONE) -- The Big Bang Theory is rubbish, according to Bobby McGehee. Through extensive research and study, he has devised a new explanation, which he details in his book, "New Universe Theory with the Laws of Physics: Millennium 3 Cosmology" (now available through AuthorHouse).

"Since the beginning of intelligence and curiosity, mankind has puzzled over the age-old question of our origin. For many millennia, early civilizations of mankind invented mythical and magical explanations," McGehee says. "Civilizations have continued increasing their understanding by building on past knowledge and by discarding unprovable concepts and erroneous interpretations."

In this tradition of building on the past, this exciting book offers a more plausible concept to explain the origin of the universe and everything in it. McGehee presents his new theory, developed with the laws of physics in mind, in an understandable text that casts aside the Big Bang Theory. He offers a thorough appendix with a dictionary of terms for easy reference and uses analogies to explain difficult equations and concepts.

McGehee quickly dismisses the idea that the universe is expanding to its death. On the contrary, he feels it is "growing with vim and vigor." After studying the Big Bang Theory, originally conceived in the 1800s, he applied practical physics to discover how the universe formed. The resulting theory is a sound explanation for the beginning of the universe before life began.

"A deflagration wave is progressing outward and synthesizing primordial matter into corporeal matter of the universe as it continuously encompasses more volume and corporeal matter. This universe development system, from beginning to end, is scientifically sound," McGehee says.

"New Universe Theory with the Laws of Physics" is the latest advancement in a strong culture of curiosity. McGehee brings the world up to speed with an intelligent read that simplifies some of the most complicated concepts in the world.

Publishing was encouraged by his wife of 54 years, his daughter, son and granddaughter. Born and raised during the Great Depression in Oklahoma, McGehee spent two years with the Maritime Service and the Air Force before enrolling at Oklahoma State University. He graduated with three degrees: engineering, physics and secondary education. During an exciting career, he designed, invented and developed aircraft research and test laboratories and wrote numerous reports and technical papers. An associate fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, McGehee received their certificate of recognition for his contributions. Since his retirement, he has plunged into scientific research and stays abreast of new science through professional organizations: the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Association of Physics Teachers, the American Institute of Physics and the Astronomy Society of the Pacific.

Was the Big Bang no big deal?

Physicists suggest there were many big bangs

NASA / WMAP

Updated: 7:05 p.m. ET Oct. 27, 2004

It all began with the Big Bang, scientists have been telling us for years. And so that expansive beginning of the universe must have been very special, one would assume.

Not so, according to two physicists at the University of Chicago.

"We like to say that the Big Bang is nothing special in the history of our universe," said Sean Carroll, an assistant professor in physics at the University of Chicago.

The Big Bang could be a normal event in the natural evolution of the universe that will happen repeatedly over incredibly vast time scales as the universe expands, empties out and cools off, say Carroll and graduate student Jennifer Chen.

The duo wondered why time flows in only one direction, and whether the Big Bang — a theory that has not been proven — arose from an energy fluctuation in empty space that conforms to the known laws of physics.

Other researchers have long suggested that the universe is cyclic, and that the Big Bang was the beginning of our universe as we know it, but not the beginning of the larger Universe that encompasses everything, including that which we can never see because it's beyond our cosmic bubble.

The arrow of time

The question about the arrow of time has vexed physicists for a century because "for the most part, the fundamental laws of physics don't distinguish between past and future. They're time-symmetric," Carroll says.

Time is closely related to the concept of entropy, a measure of disorder in the universe. Entropy naturally increases with time, physicist Ludwig Boltzmann suggested a century ago.

As Carroll puts it: "You can turn an egg into an omelet, but not an omelet into an egg."

Nevertheless, the mystery remains as to why entropy was low in the universe to begin with. The difficulty of that question has long bothered scientists, who most often simply leave it as a puzzle to answer in the future. Previous researchers have approached the whole shebang with the assumption that entropy in the universe is finite. Carroll and Chen take the opposite approach.

"We're postulating that the entropy of the universe is infinite," Chen said in a statement issued Tuesday. "It could always increase."

The inflationary universe

To successfully explain why the universe looks as it does today, both approaches must accommodate a process called inflation, which is an extension of the Big Bang theory. According to inflation, the universe underwent a period of very rapid and massive expansion in a fraction of a second after the Big Bang.

But there's a problem with that scenario. To begin inflation, the universe would have encompassed a microscopically tiny patch in an extremely unlikely configuration, not what scientists would expect from a randomly chosen initial condition.

Carroll and Chen argue that a generic initial condition is actually likely to resemble cold, empty space — not an obviously favorable starting point for the onset of inflation.

In a universe of finite entropy, some scientists have proposed that a random fluctuation could trigger inflation. This, however, would require the molecules of the universe to fluctuate from a high-entropy state into one of low entropy — a statistical long shot.

"The conditions necessary for inflation are not that easy to start," Carroll said. "There's an argument that it's easier just to have our universe appear from a random fluctuation than to have inflation begin from a random fluctuation."

What is dark energy?

Carroll and Chen's scenario of infinite entropy is inspired by a finding in 1998 that the universe will expand forever because of a mysterious force scientists have come to call "dark energy." Under these conditions, the natural configuration of the universe is one that is almost empty.

"In our current universe, the entropy is growing and the universe is expanding and becoming emptier," Carroll said.

But even empty space has faint traces of energy that fluctuate on the subatomic scale. As suggested previously by Jaume Garriga of Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona and Alexander Vilenkin of Tufts University, these fluctuations can generate their own big bangs in tiny areas of the universe, widely separated in time and space. Carroll and Chen extend this idea in dramatic fashion, suggesting that inflation could start "in reverse" in the distant past of our universe, so that time could appear to run backwards (from our perspective) to observers far in our past.

Regardless of the direction they run in, the new universes created in these big bangs will continue the process of increasing entropy. In this never-ending cycle, the universe never achieves equilibrium. If it did achieve equilibrium, nothing would ever happen. There would be no arrow of time.

"There's no state you can go to that is maximal entropy. You can always increase the entropy more by creating a new universe and allowing it to expand and cool off," Carroll explained.

Sweating

MB i agree!

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:P

Mmmmmmmmm, me want some!!! :P

Feeling happy

Working on something for a bike.