Siberia: Nearly 105 years between giant space rock collisions!

Keeping up with the times as always, I've only recently heard about the February 15 meteor impact near Chelyabinsk, and have, today, finally dragged myself to the internet to see all the dash-cam videos.

` Installed for the purpose of recording events in cases of police corruption or insurance scammers, dashboard cameras have provided many angles of viewing the 7,000-ton meteor as it flared up in the earth's atmosphere. (Hooray for legal fraudsters?)

As it approached the earth, the meteorite was only 50 feet in diameter when it exploded into an enormous fireball (sometimes called a bolide), with the strength of a large nuclear warhead at 500 kilotons. Luckily for the folks below, this happened so high in altitude that the air was too thin to conduct much of this force.

` The infrasound from the shockwaves were detected by a global network of monitoring stations dedicated to use for upholding the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. (These same stations also detected North Korea's third nuclear test on February 12, finding it to be laughably small in comparison to the meteorite, although that Kim Jong young-un would probably claim otherwise.)

There are, of course, many videos of said shockwaves, blowing out windows and sending glass and debris flying. In this case, stationary security cameras were more instrumental in getting these shots, as well as folks who have whipped out their video cameras in response to the meteor.

From this, some 1,500 people were reported injured (mostly from glass), and to add insult, many homes were missing windows or otherwise damaged during the winter in Siberia! (And here I was thinking that single-pane aluminum windows are bad!)

Not only is this the second well-documented impact of an enormous meteor recorded in science history, but it is also the second such meteor impact recorded in Siberia. (Thus, without Siberia, none of this could have happened...)
` The odds of two huge meteors striking Siberia really aren't so low, considering that its borders stretch to nearly 10% of the earth's land surface, and the fact that the two impact sites are about three thousand miles apart.

More interesting (to me) is learning that there have been other large meteor impacts at times between 1908 and 2013, which I've never heard of before. However, I am getting ahead of myself...

Drat this infernal illness!

Despite being so ill since about January 12, I've been making good use of my time. Although there is a great deal written here, you will find this post to still consist more of colors than anything else.

Yes, even pretty colors!

Writing has been difficult for over a month now, due to the constant congestion and brain-frying inflammation from a particularly bad bug that's been going around. (I mentioned the start of this illness in this post about hypno-awesomeness -- speaking of which, Rachel's wrist has healed, so she's beaten me in recovery time.)

It's true, most of my photos are not of an intellectual nature, but they are worth a fair amount of words. For example, the words that would be coming from these creatures that have occupied the living room:

Example words:
Heather (front): Why do I get the feeling that there's... a third cat?
Christina (middle): Invisible Cat is... invisible.
Dilly (top): My hazardously long fur... it has a flavor.

Although my angry immune system has made thinking difficult, I've been taking a nootropic called Piracetam on my better days since January 23. With the help of choline capsules (which I've been taking anyway for deficiency reasons), I've only noticed positive effects -- and more of them compared to Ritalin!
` Hence, on those days when I've taken Piracetam, my schedule has been fairly packed. On other days, I've spent more time needing to rest and/or recreate.

For example, on February 2, I went to a fairly dark room to play with arcrylic paints for the first time ever -- explains a lot about the color scheme, doesn't it?
` Why did I choose a dark room? Because in there, $15.00 gets you a beer and a small canvas with paints -- and I didn't even drink the beer! Hard-core, right? Yes, now all the pieces are starting to come together!

Here's what it looked like as I was painting at the table -- minus all the cognitive reframing exercises happening off to my left:

I STILL LOVE YOU FOREVER, MAYNARD!!! Also, Dilly the cat's new height of stupidity.

You may be familiar with my account of The Amaz!ng Meeting, in which I was interviewed for half an hour by Australian Interviewing Guy, Maynard, for podcasting goodness that was so massively exciting my brain started spinning and ehrmegerd...

Some of it has finally shown up on this TAM 2012 episode of Maynard's Malaise: There's short bit in which I am introduced, at the 9'15" mark, starting with "I have deformed sinuses." Nice!
` And, as I have in other cases of video and podcast bits relating to TAM, I've updated the post where I originally mentioned the interview.

I've also been updating other posts, such as re-editing the amazing tale of 'Nine Years of Numbness, Reversed with Hypnosis.' This is when I realized that the comment filter would not allow anonymous comments, hence others' complaints that they cannot comment, and so changed that.
` There are a great many other posts that I have taken offline and will be re-editing, so it is no wonder that my blog seems sparse at the moment. Although I already have other blog posts and writing projects going, I'll be filling in those back-posts gradually.

Before I go, I'll leave you with an especially cute and stupid story about our especially cute and stupid cat, Dilly -- here she is taking her frustration out on a roll of TP:

You will rue the day you mess with Dilly Badger!

Earlier today, I brought Dilly over to the Clampett's house in order to show them how much she's grown since last time. Now that Dilly is no longer a kitten who would sit under the deck screeching like a dying eagle because she couldn't figure out how to get back to the door, I figured she would be alright if I just let her find her own way home. After all, our house is in view of their house.
` So, after playing with the eleven year old neighbor girl and her new rats and toaster oven (though not at the same time!), I came home and wondered where Dilly had gotten to. Hours later, Lou Ryan and I went back to the Clampett's house, looking up and down the street for the cat, and were puzzled that we couldn't find her, nor hear her dying-eagle squeals.
` Later on, when Lou's friend Anthony (and his kid Little Anthony) were visiting, I went looking for Dilly some more, bringing Little Anthony (and his soccer ball) with me. After not finding her again, I went back to the house and brought one of our newly-inherited cats, Christina, to the Clampett's front door, instructing her to sniff out Dilly's path.

Instead, she made a beeline for our house. Dilly could easily have done that, considering how many months she's had to explore the neighborhood, but soon it was clear that she had stayed put all this time: I heard very distinctly the sounds of a dying eagle and began searching the Clampett's yard. ...