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Crazy sports weekend for Houston and I missed it all... c'est la vie. Friday night I was fun. EL and I rarely venture down into the city on the weekend. We aren't trying to be antisocial, but there is so much to be done without hassling with traffic and overpriced crowded venues is Houston proper. We went to Thai Pepper for dinner... my favorite Thai food in town. I usually order the red curry beef panang and ask for it to be prepared as spicy as possible without insulting the cook. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Urs and I had played a round of GT2003 with Dirk before we headed over for dinner, so the drinking had already started. EL and the girls went out for desert at Jade and Urs and I headed for 10 Downing Street American style. Once we all connected again, Urs and I went on to the Rhythm Room for the Guy Forsyth show. The show was a little more revved than usual and everyone in the band was wearing devil horns. It was a mystery until about a third of the way into the performance, Guy made a comment that he was reading that "bands with horns were supposed to be big this year"... ba dum dum. I think I was the only person laughing... you could hear crickets. Now *that's* funny. It was a late night that seemed to blend into the 5:00 departure for Brazos Bend on Saturday morning. I met Dave and Heidi from Chicago in the Woodlands and we headed down to the park. After lunch at another Asian place, I was spent. Saturday was kinda fizzly beyond that... I don't remember much. EL took off for Katy all day on Sunday and I started moving my office upstairs. I'm sorta remodeling my current office into a photography studio. Henry and I spent the entire day going up and down stairs. Last night we tried this new (to us) Tex-Mex joint up the road... El Palenque. I felt a little guilty about cheating on Carlos, but it was good. The portions were way too big, but the margaritas were just right. I don't think I've ever ordered guacamole out somewhere and received more than a dollop. They brought us a plate of guacamole that could be measured in pounds. Crazy. It's never too late to get some news... so here is some reading material for the morning coffee: 1. "After a 20 year struggle, the University of Arizona's $120 million Large Binocular Telescope was dedicated last week. This unique telescope will have twin 8.4-meter (27.6 foot) mirrors that sit on a single mount. Using methods similar to a medical CAT scan, a technique of "tomographic" image reconstruction will be used to produce pictures 10 times sharper (example) than the Hubble Space Telescope for a fraction of its $2 billion dollar cost." 2. "In China, a returning satellite crashed into a house. No one was hurt. Apparently inhabited by an eternal optimist: 'The satellite landed in our home. Maybe this means we'll have good luck this year,' the tenant of the wrecked apartment was quoted as saying by the newspaper." 3. "Seems as though the Genesis spacecraft was able to launch from earth, travel through space, avoid aliens, and cruise back into the atmosphere to be caught by stunt pilots waiting patiently with their helicopters. Alas, the brakes didn't work because a sensor was designed upside down." 4. "Harvard University scientists have asked the university’s ethical review board for permission to produce cloned human embryos for disease research, potentially becoming the first researchers in the nation to wade into a divisive area of study that has become a presidential campaign issue." 5. "Cyberkinetics Neurotechnology Systems told attendees at the American Academy of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation annual conference that a 25-year-old quadriplegic with wires run from 100 tiny sensors implanted in his brain and out to a computer can use his thoughts to control a computer well enough to operate a TV, open e-mail and play Pong with 70% accuracy." 6. "The Economist has an interesting article about how the use of GM (genetically modified) plants extends well beyond the food industry. Altered trees that make better paper, insect-resistant cotton, potatoes that contain the right kinds of starches. An interesting read to see where the industry is going in light of problems with having GM foods on the dinner table. There's more industrial uses for agricultural products than you'd think of right away, so this may be a lucrative use for GM technology." 7. "In the University of Bonn, a team of scientists has built a 5 qubit register, using cesium atoms trapped by a laser-beam grid, The Register reports. They've been able to install an empty 5 bit register(i.e. all bits 0), change two of them to 1, and later read those 1s back. The next goal is to create an interaction between 2 bits. The full scientific article can be found here in PDF format." 8. "The Guardian is reporting that atmospheric CO2 concentrations have leapt by 4.5 ppm in the last two years. This raises the ugly possibility that the capacity of a large carbon sink (possibly the oceans) has been exceeded, and the worst-case scenario is that a tipping point has been reached and a runaway warming scenario is in progress. Quote from Dr. Piers Foster of Reading University: 'If this is a rate change, of course it will be very significant. It will be of enormous concern, because it will imply that all our global warming predictions for the next hundred years or so will have to be redone.'" 9. "The New Scientist, The Age (an Australian newspaper), Daily Telegraph (a British newspaper), BBC, and the Discovery Channel are talking excitedly about a strange primate, found in the Congo. Locals say it is notorious for killing fully-grown adult lions. Optimists hope that it is a new species, maybe related to the gorilla. Pessimists claim it's an overgrown chimpanzee. In either case, primates aren't discovered every day, making this a rare find indeed." 10. "Since 1980, 122 species have disappeared. Another 1,900 are in danger of going extinct, according to the first global survey of the creatures. Scientists say that this shows the broad environmental stress that is occurring all over the world, with water, air and land pollution taking its toll. The trend is worrisome." I need more coffee.