birdguy

No, not a local Marin boy. I'm a local San Francisco boy. We moved to Mill Valley for my last year of high school. Then I joined the Marines. When I got out I lived with my folks for a while and got an apartment in Sausalito. That was in the mid 50s. Learned to fly at Commodore Center. Then I joined the Air Force and never went back. My brother lived in Novato. Noel

Yeah, Dave, that's it. Noel

I've driven to the top of Mt Tamalpais and I've hiked to the top of Mt Tamalpais. My last year of high school we lived in Mill Valley. I graduated from Tamalpais High School. Noel

Harkening back to a previous thread think of how many firetrucks would be needed if of these crashed on landing. Noel

They also serve who just sit and wait. Better to be safe than sorry. Noel

Yes, every day. I wake up with a song in my head and start singing or humming it the shower. It continues on until afternoon. Sometimes it drives my wife nuts. This morning it was, "He danced and he danced with the strawberry blonde...." I can't get it out of my head. Noel

Martin, we are all biased one way or the other. To say you're not biased for or against means that you have not examined the evidence closely enough to say it slants one way or the other. It always does no matter how weak the evidence is. Several years my wife woke up in the middle of the night and said, "Tammy's outside." Tammy was our second oldest daughter. My wife said she was awakened when she heard Tammy call out, "Mom!" Two days later we were notified that Tammy had died that night of a drug overdose alone in a motel room 200 miles away in Albuquerque. Had she called out 'Mom' telepathically? Maybe. I slant towards telepathy in certain circumstances. If telepathy exists can we control it? Maybe some few people can but certainly not all of us. I don't think any of us are neutral...not biased for or against. Our personal bias one way or the other might not be strong enough to admit it so we say we are not biased for or against. But some small part of us does harbor some small bias. Noel

One of the curious features of science news is that the excitement it generates bears little or no relation to our ability to understand it. Kudos to you if you can explain to me what a Large Hadron Collider actually is, but anything more precise than “a huge ring under a mountain for smashing particles into each other”, and you’re a member of the cognoscenti. Yes, I know it resulted in the discovery of the Higgs boson, but just because I can say it doesn’t mean I understand it. A similar kind of uncomprehending buzz has greeted the discovery of the bones of at least 15 individuals in a South African cave system. These may be members of a hitherto unknown species, Homo naledi – perhaps our earliest ancestor, living as long as 4 million years ago. Not so difficult to understand, you might think. But the significance of the finds can only truly be appreciated if you know your Home erectus and Homo habilis from your Australopithecus afarensis. If not, then – like me – your reaction to the news adds up to little more than: “Wow! We’ve got more funny old relatives! Cool!” The thing is, it is cool and we’re right to be excited. We might not grasp the scientific significance of the find, but that doesn’t mean we can’t respond to its human importance. It’s always a kind of magic to find out that there are more things in heaven and earth than we’ve dreamed of. Invention Quoted from Julian Baggini Noel

Our air service has been an on again - off again enterprise ever since I've lived here. We used to have Mesa Airlines that flew B1900Ds to Albuquerque. They gave it up and for quite a while we had no commercial air service. Then American Eagle came in for a couple years and then gave it up. I guess it's back again now. I'm glad to hear it. Now I can fly to Charleston to visit my granddaughter and great grandkids. I'm too old to be driving cross-country anymore. When American Eagle last was flying I flew from Roswell to Dallas to Charleston. I think American Eagle Flies from Dallas to Roswell to Phoenix and return. So we are connected to one city to the east and one to the west. Noel

I'll have to check on that Jim. I know American Eagle had flights up until a couple of years ago when American Airlines discontinued the service. I didn't know they had picked it up again. Are they flying as American Eagle? Noel

Maybe next year Martin. Noel

Out here we have aspen tree groves. They share a common root system. Since they are living things it seems possible they can communicate with each other or at least collectively. Noel

We have a guest room in the basement Martin. I'd have to pick you up in Albuquerque 200 miles away since we have no commercial air service to Roswell. Noel

What about wild cats like lions and cheetahs? When they hunt in a group they seem to communicate somehow to identify the target and then work together to bring it down. I have seen cheetahs working together like that on nature shows on television. The cat running alongside the herd seems to know which animal the chasing cheetah is going to cut out of the herd and then the one on the side brings it down. Is it just instinct or do they communicate like a squad of soldiers sneaking up on an enemy position using hand signals? Noel

Martin et al. If you want to see some aliens come to Roswell next Monday for the Alien Walk. The 4th of July here we celebrate not only Independence Day but also Roswell Aliens day. We have the annual Alien Walk along the bike path in Cahoon Park. People and kids dress up like aliens and some even decorate their dogs like aliens and parade through the park. It's quite interesting. Some people are very creative in the way they dress up Noel