Tantalizingly reparseable news headline for today

From NYT: Power Vacuum in Middle East Lifts Militants; serious issues, but it's hard to avoid envisioning large suction apparatus.

Splendid unexpected failure mode example: London Walkie-Talkie building

See coverage, e.g., @ Bloomberg. Reflective glass, tapered focus, solar angle. What could possibly go wrong, and what situation might architects not have considered in their design?

I'm not much for omens, but...

When I attended my Hampshire College reunion earlier this month, the weekend's weather started out with several inches of rain.  It cleared on Saturday morning; when I stepped out from lunch then and happened to look up in the south-facing sky, I saw these wisps of colorful prismatic clouds suspended over the Holyoke Range of mountains and rushed to find a clear view before they dissipated.  I was pleased to collect the images.  I don't recall having seen this rather uncommon atmospheric phenomenon before, and it was a nice treat for at least this attendee.

Two coasts, one bird (species)

I'm hardly an expert birder, but enjoy being able to observe, photograph and sometimes identify the birds I see.  The "identify" part often becomes more challenging if I'm away from my usual New England surroundings, since many birds' habitats don't overlap different regions, but some are pleasantly familiar.  The pictures above show the Great Blue Heron rookery in Stanley Park, Vancouver, British Columbia, one of its residents carrying a straw to one of its nests, and another member of the species a few weeks later at Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge in Concord, Massachusetts. They're majestic creatures, and I was glad to be able to collect their portraits on both sides of the continent.

Contemplating North America

I was pleased to have the opportunity to take this photo from the rear observation car of VIA Rail Canada's westbound train #1, The Canadian, in early April, a trip I've hoped to make for a number of years. There's another dome car (one of three) further up the train, Rocky Mountains ahead, as well as passing freight headlight reflections dancing on the stainless steel car roof ahead.  (Some lens flare as well, but I'll take that for some further effect.)  Altogether, representative of the end of Mountain Day, the route's third full day of travel between Toronto and Vancouver.  Mountain Day (my unofficial nickname) follows Prairie Day and Forests Day, perhaps less dramatic but both engaging in their own ways.  If the idea of several days out of time (and often away from cellular signals), while viewing most of a continent, seems appealing, I'd strongly recommend the trip.

It's the little things that (stop the) count

I drive a rather old car, which continues to serve well after nine years.  When I take it for routine maintenance, there's some of the same kind of anticipation that medical tests bring. Will mechanical inspection suggest a need for some significant intervention?  Happily, that wasn't the case today. There wasn't any reported indication that the car's complex systems of moving parts weren't prepared to continue ticking smoothly as they had for over 100,000 miles.  When I sat down in the car to drive off, however, I found that the seat had slid back to accommodate longer legs than mine and wouldn't slide back forward.  Back into the service bay briefly, where a piece of rubber was extracted from the seat mounting, and off into the day.  It seemed ironic that the vehicle's internal mechanisms kept running smoothly, only to have something far simpler render them briefly unusable for my own purposes.

Desktop wallpaper (blotter paper?)

I'm clearly not the only person who spends a lot of time looking at computer screens and takes the trouble to personalize them with some sort of image from outside the computer domain.  I usually find myself selecting some natural scene, like this one that's current as of today. Based on an unsystematic over-shoulder survey at offices and conferences, it seems that family members are also popular.  Though a small gesture, the result seems more comforting than one might expect, perhaps as a reminder of being anchored into the physical world.  Even when most of the image is obscured by an email client.