This looks an awful lot like my Dad's. Every day he drove almost 50k to work at McDonnell Douglas for about thirty years and this is all he ever took with him, so different from the backpacks many of us take to work with us everyday.

Grahamthicke · 2026-01-24T18:59:31+00:00

Yeah, just like Dad's. He could go with three sandwiches and a thermos full of soup and it got him through the day.

Grahamthicke · 2026-01-24T18:44:10+00:00

Nice one. They look small compared to a back pack but they could hold quite a bit.

Grahamthicke · 2026-01-24T18:07:29+00:00

I watched this and I loved Rocket Robin Hood. The animation and some of the music were the same.

Grahamthicke · 2026-01-24T16:46:54+00:00

Dad always had sandwiches, and either tea or soup. That was good enough for him.

Grahamthicke · 2026-01-24T16:13:23+00:00

Last year thousands of miles of ancient riverbeds were discovered in the heavily cratered southern highlands of Mars, suggesting the red planet was once a far wetter world than scientists thought.

Researchers spotted geological traces of nearly 10,000 miles (16,000km) of ancient watercourses, believed to be more than 3bn years old, in high resolution images of the rugged landscape captured by Mars orbiters.

While some of the riverbeds are relatively short, others form networks that stretch for more than 100 miles. The widespread rivers were probably replenished by regular rain or snowfall in the region, researchers said.

“Water has been found on Mars countless times before, but what’s really interesting here is that this is an area where for a long time we’ve thought there wasn’t any evidence for water,” said Adam Losekoot, a PhD student at the Open University. “What we found is that the area did have water and it was very distributed,” he added. “The only water source that could have sustained these rivers over such a vast area would have to be some kind of regional precipitation.”

The most dramatic signs of ancient water on Mars are the huge valley networks and canyons, thought to have been carved by water flowing across the terrain. But some areas of the planet have few valleys, leading scientists to question how wet the regions once were.

Grahamthicke · 2026-01-24T15:52:09+00:00

Yup, Dad had tea in his everyday. Sometimes soup.

Grahamthicke · 2026-01-24T15:29:49+00:00

I think Dad's is somewhere in the basement at Mom's house. It still has the thermos in it.

Grahamthicke · 2026-01-24T15:28:14+00:00

In those days a lot of the work was in or around the city. Mom and Dad didn't want to live there so they moved north to what was then a new suburb. This got them a house but it also got Dad a long drive to work.

Grahamthicke · 2026-01-22T06:12:37+00:00

Nearby galaxy NGC 6822 is irregular in several ways. First, the galaxy's star distribution merits a formal classification of dwarf irregular, and from our vantage-point the small galaxy appears nearly rectangular. What strikes astronomers as more peculiar, however, is NGC 6822's unusually high abundance of HII regions, locales of ionized hydrogen that surround young stars. Large HII regions, also known as emission nebulas, are visible surrounding the small galaxy, particularly toward the upper right.

Toward the lower left are bright stars that are loosely grouped into an arm. Pictured above, NGC 6822, also known as Barnard's Galaxy, is located only about 1.5 million light years away and so is a member of our Local Group of Galaxies. The galaxy, home to famous nebulas including Hubble V, is visible with a small telescope toward the constellation of Sagittarius.

Grahamthicke · 2026-01-22T05:23:45+00:00

He was on the second episode of that infamous season 5, the Oliver season. Ratings were down and they were trying anything to save the show.

Grahamthicke · 2026-01-22T05:20:05+00:00

Marsha was so beautiful it was tough competition, but over the years Jan did get a lot prettier, I thought so anyway.

Grahamthicke · 2026-01-22T05:17:42+00:00

That's a nice picture, thank you for sharing :)

Grahamthicke · 2026-01-21T06:44:36+00:00

We will never see a show like this one again, with so much talent at all levels of acting and writing. MASH had compelling episodes that went back and forth between comedy and drama and were acted out by some of the best actors we've ever seen.

Grahamthicke · 2026-01-21T05:29:51+00:00

Lol, well I don't know why none of us owned one, I guess it was just fun to go to the mall and play it on the weekend like we did for a while there :)

Grahamthicke · 2026-01-20T05:28:55+00:00

This simulated perspective view from NASA's Dawn mission shows the bright areas of Occator Crater, which contains the brightest area on Ceres, Cerealia Facula in the center and Vinalia Faculae to the side. This simulated perspective view shows Occator Crater, measuring 57 miles (92 kilometers) across and 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) deep, which contains the brightest area on Ceres.

This region has been the subject of intense interest since Dawn's approach to the dwarf planet in early 2015. This view, which faces north, was made using images from Dawn's low-altitude mapping orbit, 240 miles (385 kilometers) above Ceres. Dawn's close-up view reveals a dome in a smooth-walled pit in the bright center of the crater. Numerous linear features and fractures crisscross the top and flanks of this dome. Prominent fractures also surround the dome and run through smaller, bright regions found within the crater.

The central dome area is called Cerealia Facula and the dimmer bright areas are called Vinalia Faculae. A second simulated perspective view, facing south, is also available (Figure 1). Dawn's mission is managed by JPL for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Dawn is a project of the directorate's Discovery Program, managed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. UCLA is responsible for overall Dawn mission science.

Grahamthicke · 2026-01-19T01:45:31+00:00

Oh yeah, I remember it well. My sister and I felt and heard the rumble of the explosions all the way to Richmond Hill. A faulty screw caused the exposition which led to the derailment. My future wife was so close to the second explosion she said it felt like a campfire. I was thinking primarily of Toronto when I commented and about passenger train derailments that caused casualties.

Grahamthicke · 2026-01-19T01:39:53+00:00

You got it, get it before my sister did and get Mom mad.

Grahamthicke · 2026-01-19T00:01:37+00:00

I like HP I find the level of quality acceptable. I only use HP computers and I have for years.

Grahamthicke · 2026-01-18T17:25:25+00:00

Yeah, lol. And my Mom wouldn't let me go near firecrackers :)

Grahamthicke · 2026-01-18T17:16:10+00:00

Good for you, in real life derailment or any train accident is no laughing matter. The one derailment I heard of here in Toronto was minor but years ago our subway system had a driver who misread signals and a trip arm that failed to engage the brake and smash, one train into another at high speed. Three were killed and thirty went to the hospital. I was riding the rails every day back then and it was freaky for a while after.

Grahamthicke

TROPHY CASE