The Cube

OK, I'm no geek, but I recently switched to Ubuntu linux, thanks to the encouragement of Stephen a.k.a "blackrim" and my own necessity and my disgust with Microsoft. More recently I installed the fluxbox (courtesy Stephen again) desktop manager and it just takes 2 seconds for the logon. Its un-f***ing-believable! Even more recently, I installed the kuhl Beryl manager that turns the desktop into a cube, that you can play with and adds all kinds of eye-candies to the desktop and windows. so check it out:

Dead Birds Society

The Yale Peabody Museum VZ collections:





A Passenger Pigeon, extirpated for food. You can still apparently guess at their former roosting ground by the sheer amount of guano that lays buried underneath.


the extinct Carolina Parakeet, only parrot native to eastern US - last known record in the early 20th cent.


The evasive Ivory-billed Woodpecker, the largest ever woodie in Nordamerika. And the quest continues...


This is what kiwi feathers look like - with reduced feather morphology - mainly barbs with no barbules.


My own private Kiwi!


These Ploceus Weaverbirds look so majestic in their repose more so than even King Tut!



Collared Sunbirds (Anthreptes collaris)


Andean Cock-of-the-Rock (Rupicola r.)



Brilliant!

Ohio 2007

Oops! The trip was not uneventful, but I got to Ohio and back in one piece.


My alma mater!


Beautiful stained glass at Slocum Hall.


The former Slocum library, now reading room.



The infamous 2-headed calf at the zoo. museum.


The new science center


I used to be a CAHkid


before I defected to the Tree House. Oh, those was the dayz!


The student observatory, used to be in my backyard (when I was living in the Treehouse)


Mark, in their new house in Cinci.


Pistol Pete



At the McDermott's


The incredibly cute kitty Nomi that bit everything that moved.

New Year's in the City

Musical light-show at Grand Central terminal


The empire state building


This is a quintessential NY by night picture with the cabs hustling by.



A glimpse of the Times Sq. Ball!




Wall St.


Beautifully lit NY Stock Exchange



Da Brooklyn bridge


No points for guessing this...


So we took the Staten Island Ferry and decided not to tackle the Times square madness. So we watched the fireworks from a safe distance. Although the ferry was still packed and the weather abysmal - cold and rainy, apparently the first new year's since the late 19th cent. when there's been no snow in NYC.



Times Sq. at 4AM - the city doesn't sleep, esp. not on new year's eve!

A random Hongkongese Xmas eve party

I ended up spending christmas eve with some Chinese (Hongkongese) folks I've never met before in my life. We ate steamed veggies and exotic shrooms all night long.

The visit of the Calliope Hummingbird (Stellula calliope)

This vagrant western hummer, flew to the east coast, instead of migrating down to Western Mexico. I hope he made it to Mexico somehow for his own sake. This is a life-bird for me and the first sighting for the entire state of Connecticut.


New Haven from Lighthouse park

A Boston Thanksgiving Weekend

A cool building in Genetown, boston.


A kewl Boston skyline!


Need I say more?



The cool Harvard EEB building


At the Museum of Comparative Zoology (MCZ)


I bet you that's the cutest cub that ever was.


Brilliant Morpho butterflies at the MCZ