Water found on the Moon.
September 25, 2009 by Peter Baumbach
Filed under Quick
NASA – Water Detected at High Latitudes on the Moon
NASA’s Moon Mineralogy Mapper, an instrument on the Indian Space Research Organization’s Chandrayaan-1 mission, took this image of Earth’s moon. It is a three-color composite of reflected near-infrared radiation from the sun, and illustrates the extent to which different materials are mapped across the side of the moon that faces Earth.
Small amounts of water were detected on the surface of the moon at various locations. This image illustrates their distribution at high latitudes toward the poles.
Blue shows the signature of water, green shows the brightness of the surface as measured by reflected infrared radiation from the sun and red shows an iron-bearing mineral called pyroxene.
“Buy land—they’re not making any more of it†might not strictly be true anymore. We just added beach front on the Moon as an option.
Image Credit: ISRO/NASA/JPL-Caltech/Brown Univ./USGS
Baltimore Humane Society has a dog walk hike event every Wednesday
September 23, 2009 by Peter Baumbach
Filed under Quick
I'm Emily. Adopt me at the Baltimore Humane Society.
Every Wednesday, the Baltimore Humane Society hosts a hike. The animal shelter is fortunate to have a beautiful property with many acres in Baltimore County off of Nicodemus Road. The hike is longer during the summer months, but you do get a nice tour of the grounds. The clever part, is on the hike you are provided with a dog for a walk. If you have your own dog, you can bring him instead. Maggie and I went today. We were given dogs that know each other, so we could walk together. Otherwise, you are asked to keep five feet or so away from other dogs. I ended up practicing my calm assertive energy that I learned about on the Dog Whisperer TV show, and walked Suzanne. Suzanne is a cute adult Jack Russell Terrier. I think she enjoyed the walk.
Before you start, there is a registration form for first timers. While waiting for everyone to sign up, and the event to begin, Maggie and I visited the cat shelter. The cats aren’t taken on walks, and miss out on this great advertising. Many dogs end up getting adopted from these walks. The event itself is not that large. I make it sound huge, but there was about 20 people. Our former vet is now the Humane Society vet, and she was telling us that the dogs are quickly adopted. The cats however are at capacity. Maggie and I can tell you that we saw many cute kitties we would like to take home. We do however already have six of our own. Giles is our alpha cat, and we would have to get his permission first.
Whether you prefer dogs, cats, or both, there is something great about sharing a home with pets. Unfortunately renters are faced with the extra difficulty of finding a home that accepts pets. Many pets end up in the shelters because someone wasn’t allowed to keep them in their home. As Realtors, a common request is to help someone find a suitable rental that will accept a dog. Certain breeds make it extra difficult to get approved. We will gladly try and find you a place. However, when you own your own home, you get to decide who is family. It is one of the great empowering parts of the American Dream. Your own home with your loving family that includes pets. We will gladly help you with that too.
Find out about the hike at https://www.baltimorehumane.org/hike-rsvp.
Find out the story of the stray cats and dogs, with pictures, at https://www.baltimorehumane.org/adopt-a-cat/available-cats and https://www.baltimorehumane.org/adopt-a-dog/available-dogs.
Anne Arundel County Crime Map
Yesterday I told you about the Baltimore Sun”s Baltimore County Crime Map. Today I would like to point out that the Sun did two counties. Here is a picture of their Anne Arundel County Crime Map. It has all the same features as the Baltimore County map.
To try it yourself, go to Anne Arundel County Crime Map.
Baltimore County Crime Map
The Baltimore Sun has put together a mashup of crime data and Google maps. This picture is only an example. As a test I made a heat map of traffic stops in Baltimore County. I had some troubles getting the mashup page to work. If you also have trouble, you might try more than one browser. The successful test was with Google’s Chrome browser.
To try it yourself, go to Baltimore County Crime Map.
Eleven of the skinniest houses you have ever seen.
September 2, 2009 by Peter Baumbach
Filed under Quick
Photo Credit, Vidiot.
New York’s ‘skinniest house’ is on sale for 2.7 million dollars. It is only 9 1/2 feet wide. It is located on 75 1/2 Bedford St. in New York City. The current owner bought it in 2000 for $1.6 million.
Photo Credit, Steve Johnson.
A very skinny house in Fremont neighborhood, Seattle.
Photo Credit, Ryan Godfrey.
This looks like a skinny house in Amsterdam. The size is deceiving, because the house gets wider in the back.
Photo Credit, kraskland.
This Amsterdam house is one of the skinniest. Kraskland explains “At one time houses facing the canals were taxed based on the width of the structure, so there was great incentive to make them very thin. Here’s the skinniest one in Amsterdam. ” But, this next one might be skinnier?
Photo Credit, eclipse_etc.
Another skinny Amsterdam house. This one does look skinner than the previous one doesn’t it?
Photo Credit, liverd_00.
This pink house is in South Carolina.
Photo Credit, Adair Broughton.
This house is in Helsby England. At first it doesn’t look that skinny. But notice the parked Mini Cooper. Now you get some idea of scale. This home may have been a spite house to block someones view.
Photo Credit, Jeff Laitila.
It is a little dark outside here in Shitamachi, Tokyo Japan.
Photo Credit, Janet Calcaterra.
This skinny house is at 44 Hull Street in Boston. Wikipedia says
The structure was apparently built as a “spite house” shortly after the American Civil War. According to local legend:
…two brothers inherited land from their deceased father. While one brother was away serving in the military, the other built a large home, leaving the soldier only a shred of property that he felt certain was too tiny to build on. When the soldier returned, he found his inheritance depleted and built the narrow house to spite his brother by blocking the sunlight and ruining his view…
Photo Credit, Alyosha Efros.
This Paris building is thin but pretty wide.
Photo Credit, Jennifer.
As you can see this house was for sale during the winter. I tracked down the listing, and it is still for sale. The price is $49,900 in Rockford IL. The house is bigger than it looks. This is a triangle. There is a garage even. Still only one bedroom and one bath.
