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Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Saturday, September 17, 2011
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Louisiana Part 1: Wildlife Gardens in Gibson
There is a giant hidden gator in this picture. Seriously.
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Monday, September 12, 2011
New Mexico Part 2(001): A Space Odyssey -- Alamogordo and Roswell
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Sunday, September 11, 2011
On The Road
1. Scottsdale, AZ
2. Alamagordo, NM (space museum) (Roswell)
3. Marfa, TX
4. San Antonio, TX
5. Gibson LA (bed and breakfast and swamp tours)
6. New Orleans, LA
7. (Pensacola) ->Tallahassee, FL
8. Savannah, GA
9. Wilmington
10. Washington DC
11. Philadelphia, PA
12. New York
13. Boston
14. Seneca Falls, NY
15. Toronto
16. Detroit
17. Chicago
18. Omaha, NE
19. Boulder
20. Cortez, CO
21. Sedona, AZ
22. Home
Friday, September 9, 2011
Words of the Week II
Noteworthy words that I encountered over the past week. Definitions from the OED unless otherwise stated.
Bathos: [rhetoric] Ludicrous descent from the elevated to the commonplace in writing or speech; anticlimax.
Mirth: Pleasurable feeling, enjoyment, gratification; joy, happiness. Often used of religious joy.
Panegyrize: To pronounce or write a panegyric or elaborate eulogy upon; to speak or write in praise of: to eulogize.
Amphiboly: A figure of speech: Ambiguity arising from the uncertain construction of a sentence or clause, of which the individual words are unequivocal: thus distinguished by logicians from equivocation, though in popular use the two are confused.
Dysphemism: The substitution of an unpleasant or derogatory word or expression for a pleasant or inoffensive one; also, a word or expression so used; opp. euphemism.
Patina: A film or incrustation produced by oxidation on the surface of old bronze, usually of a green colour and esteemed as an ornament. Hence extended to a similar alteration of the surface of marble, flint, or other substances.
Obsequious: Unduly or servilely compliant; ignobly submissive; manifesting or characterized by servile complaisance; fawning, cringing, sycophantic.
Sycophant: One who uses compliments to gain self-serving favor or advantage from another. [definition from wikitionary]
Ascetic: Of or pertaining to the Ascetics, or to the exercise of extremely rigorous self-discipline; severely abstinent, austere.
Trollop: An untidy or slovenly woman; a slattern, slut; also, sometimes a morally loose woman, a trull.
Ersatz: A substitute or imitation (usually, an inferior article instead of the real thing).
Curmudgeon: A crusty irascible cantankerous old person full of stubborn ideas [definition from the free dictionary app on my phone. I liked it more.]
Gestalt: A ‘shape’, ‘configuration’, or ‘structure’ which as an object of perception forms a specific whole or unity incapable of expression simply in terms of its parts
Dybbuk: In Jewish folk-lore, the malevolent spirit of a dead person that enters and controls the body of a living person until exorcized.
Idolum: An image or unsubstantial appearance; a spectre or phantom; a mental image, an idea.
Bathos: [rhetoric] Ludicrous descent from the elevated to the commonplace in writing or speech; anticlimax.
- Depth; lowest phase, bottom.
Mirth: Pleasurable feeling, enjoyment, gratification; joy, happiness. Often used of religious joy.
Panegyrize: To pronounce or write a panegyric or elaborate eulogy upon; to speak or write in praise of: to eulogize.
Amphiboly: A figure of speech: Ambiguity arising from the uncertain construction of a sentence or clause, of which the individual words are unequivocal: thus distinguished by logicians from equivocation, though in popular use the two are confused.
Dysphemism: The substitution of an unpleasant or derogatory word or expression for a pleasant or inoffensive one; also, a word or expression so used; opp. euphemism.
Patina: A film or incrustation produced by oxidation on the surface of old bronze, usually of a green colour and esteemed as an ornament. Hence extended to a similar alteration of the surface of marble, flint, or other substances.
- An acquired superficial covering or appearance, esp. one suggestive of age, a gloss;
Obsequious: Unduly or servilely compliant; ignobly submissive; manifesting or characterized by servile complaisance; fawning, cringing, sycophantic.
Sycophant: One who uses compliments to gain self-serving favor or advantage from another. [definition from wikitionary]
Ascetic: Of or pertaining to the Ascetics, or to the exercise of extremely rigorous self-discipline; severely abstinent, austere.
- One of those who in the early church retired into solitude, to exercise themselves in meditation and prayer, and in the practice of rigorous self-discipline by celibacy, fasting, and toil.
- One who is extremely rigorous in the practice of self-denial, whether by seclusion or by abstinence from creature comforts.
Trollop: An untidy or slovenly woman; a slattern, slut; also, sometimes a morally loose woman, a trull.
Ersatz: A substitute or imitation (usually, an inferior article instead of the real thing).
Curmudgeon: A crusty irascible cantankerous old person full of stubborn ideas [definition from the free dictionary app on my phone. I liked it more.]
- Irascible: Easily provoked to anger or resentment; prone to anger; irritable, choleric, hot-tempered, passionate.
- Cantankerous: Showing an ill-natured disposition; ill-conditioned and quarrelsome, perverse, cross-grained.
- Of animals: Subsisting by the capture of living prey; raptorial.
Gestalt: A ‘shape’, ‘configuration’, or ‘structure’ which as an object of perception forms a specific whole or unity incapable of expression simply in terms of its parts
Dybbuk: In Jewish folk-lore, the malevolent spirit of a dead person that enters and controls the body of a living person until exorcized.
Idolum: An image or unsubstantial appearance; a spectre or phantom; a mental image, an idea.
- A false mental image or conception; a fallacy.
Sunday, September 4, 2011
Thursday, September 1, 2011
Words of the Week
Here are some noteworthy words that I encountered over the past week. Definitions from the OED.
Palimpsest: A parchment or other writing-material written upon twice, the original writing having been erased or rubbed out to make place for the second; a manuscript in which a later writing is written over an effaced earlier writing.
Simulacrum: Something having merely the form or appearance of a certain thing, without possessing its substance or proper qualities.
Halcyon: A bird of which the ancients fabled that it bred about the time of the winter solstice in a nest floating on the sea, and that it charmed the wind and waves so that the sea was specially calm during the period
Aleatory: Dependent on the throw of a die; hence, dependent on uncertain contingencies.
Anaplasty: Reparation of external lesions by the use of adjacent healthy tissue.
Enanthema: A mucosal, as opposed to a cutaneous, eruption. (yum!)
Lurid: Pale and dismal in color; wan and sallow; ghastly of hue. Said e.g. of the sickly pallor of the skin in disease, or of the aspect of things when the sky is overcast.
Neophilia: Love for, or great interest in, what is new; a love of novelty.
Phantasmagoria: A shifting series or succession of phantasms or imaginary figures, as seen in a dream or fevered condition, as called up by the imagination, or as created by literary description.
Procrustean: aiming or tending to produce uniformity by violent and arbitrary methods.
Tinsel: Anything showy or attractive with little or no intrinsic worth; something that gives a deceptively fine or glittering appearance.
Jejune: Unsatisfying to the mind or soul; dull, flat, insipid, bald, dry, uninteresting; meager, scanty, thin, poor; wanting in substance or solidity. Said of thought, feeling, action, etc., and esp. of speech or writing; also transf. of the speaker or writer. (The prevailing sense.)
Palimpsest: A parchment or other writing-material written upon twice, the original writing having been erased or rubbed out to make place for the second; a manuscript in which a later writing is written over an effaced earlier writing.
Simulacrum: Something having merely the form or appearance of a certain thing, without possessing its substance or proper qualities.
Halcyon: A bird of which the ancients fabled that it bred about the time of the winter solstice in a nest floating on the sea, and that it charmed the wind and waves so that the sea was specially calm during the period
Aleatory: Dependent on the throw of a die; hence, dependent on uncertain contingencies.
Anaplasty: Reparation of external lesions by the use of adjacent healthy tissue.
Enanthema: A mucosal, as opposed to a cutaneous, eruption. (yum!)
Lurid: Pale and dismal in color; wan and sallow; ghastly of hue. Said e.g. of the sickly pallor of the skin in disease, or of the aspect of things when the sky is overcast.
Neophilia: Love for, or great interest in, what is new; a love of novelty.
Phantasmagoria: A shifting series or succession of phantasms or imaginary figures, as seen in a dream or fevered condition, as called up by the imagination, or as created by literary description.
Procrustean: aiming or tending to produce uniformity by violent and arbitrary methods.
Tinsel: Anything showy or attractive with little or no intrinsic worth; something that gives a deceptively fine or glittering appearance.
Jejune: Unsatisfying to the mind or soul; dull, flat, insipid, bald, dry, uninteresting; meager, scanty, thin, poor; wanting in substance or solidity. Said of thought, feeling, action, etc., and esp. of speech or writing; also transf. of the speaker or writer. (The prevailing sense.)
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