RenoVous

  Happy New Year!! It will probably be a short day for me and then I'm off on Monday again. As I mentioned yesterday, we're going camping this weekend.  Final weather will determine which direction we go, but I'm hoping for the warm springs. In fact, I have a list of springs for wherever we might end up.  That is my end of the year goal. So how are you going to celebrate!? Taha will be sharing party photos of all kinds for the festive mood!  Please feel free to share your own as well! This is from last year's hang out. Back in 2012, we rang in the new year with music that ended with silly string and toilet paper. We've never actually done the downtown fireworks fiasco, but people have always said it's worse than the pub crawls as far as crowds and lines and drunkenness. So yeah, we'll keep sticking to ourselves.  :-) Make it a great start everyone!! <3

  (I had to add something because the menu page stretched the below image too much). The best photo I've ever taken.  Using a Kodak disposable camera, this was on campus at UNR around Manzanita Lake and Hall. I scanned the original so I could have it online - for MySpace purposes. Here's another old favorite from our snowmobiling days. New Year's Weekend is often when we would head up, but it's been a while now. However, we do plan on camping this weekend, and it did just snow again...

  I just wanted to recap some of my favorite songs of the year. Of course. I've also been going back to this song, and I saw them with Metallica in 2004. I love the year they've been having. And what a return for these guys. The one live show I saw this year. Getting more metal now.  ;-) \m/

  Last year, Donna Eberle set up a wildlife cam and an outdoor Christmas tree. The raccoons came. A deer too. But the foxes seemed to enjoy it most. This year, she used some other props, which the raccoons especially liked. So cute!

  The polar vortex is a large area of low pressure and cold air which surrounds the North Pole.  It's a known pattern that usually goes unnoticed by those in lower latitudes, but every now and then the air pressure and winds shift. Current temperature map. Typically a large difference in the air drives the polar jet stream, but the Arctic is warming faster than other areas of the planet, which makes the difference less distinct.  This in turn causes the jet stream to meander around the planet more, causing the cold air to wobble, "and, like a toupee that goes askew, it can slip south off of the Arctic..." Scientists are still investigating the connection between the polar vortex and sea ice, but believe it may be dampening the effect of climate change.  As worldwide climate warms, this dip of colder than usual air can keep average temperatures from warming as much as other places on Earth. UCAR

  In the beginning of the month we mentioned  The Velveteen Rabbit  for a short read-along. I'm sure I read this once before a long time ago, but this time I cried more.  The sadness and the sweetness, it's different as an adult.  So today I'm looking for other short stories to finish out the year. I came across "A Child's Christmas in Wales" and since we've been traveling around some for the Christmas topics, I thought that would fit in nicely. Online Here's a classic.

  The sun set about an hour ago in the UK - the Winter Solstice at Stonehenge. Today also marks the beginning of Yule.  Many of our Christmas traditions were borrowed from the Viking's celebration of Odin, Father Christmas. With a long white beard and hooded fur coat, Odin would lead the Wild Hunt across the world on his flying horse, Sleipnir.  Children would leave their boots by the fireplace with sugar and hay for the horse and Odin would refill them with gifts. The people would also decorate evergreen trees with carvings and food for the spirits.  Holly and mistletoe were hung to ward off evil ones. The Yule Log was a whole tree meant to burn for 12 days and was to be lit with the remains of last year's log.  They would carve runes into the bark to wish for the protection of the gods and the return of the sun. Keep yourself warm on this longest night!

  An old friend of mine brought this Nativity scene from Mexico for me, and even though I'm not religious, I always set it up for the holiday. December 16-24 is the celebration of Las Posadas - posada meaning lodging, or accommodation.  There is a procession to various family homes to re-enact Mary and Joseph's journey to Bethlehem. This has been a Mexican tradition for over 400 years and has always included dramatizations, a tradition which has its roots in Bible plays, used to teach religious doctrine to largely illiterate populations. People will dress up and play the parts of Mary and Joseph as well as the angels and shepherds, or will just carry images of holy personages.  Children carry poinsettias and musicians follow along singing traditional songs, such as: Each night, children smash star-shaped clay piñatas and everyone will feast. Prayer is also heavily involved at each posada stop, and of course, leading up to Mass.

  Ashley Park Diego Calvo Lucy Boynton Naomi Ackie Kate Hudson Aaron Paul Dua Lipa Holiday Reds Here we have Jenna Ortega in Christian Siriano. And Kelly Rowland in Iris van Herpen. Lastly, I had to pull this Worst Dressed on Katie Holmes. There's been quite a bit of convo about the "dress over pants" style, but that's barely even a dress.  The problem is the choice of pant, and even more, those awful tennis shoes. Stay home, girl.

  Sometime between the 6th and 4th century BCE, Indian scholar Daksiputra Panini wrote down some rules describing the workings of Sanskrit.  Over 2,000 years later these rules helped establish the science of linguistics. He studied how words are formed and how they relate to others in the same language, now known as morphology.  He described syntax and semantics, as well as an algorithm to construct grammatically correct Sanskrit words, but it's been hardly understood. Now, a PhD student from the University of Cambridge, claims to have decoded this "language machine."  Rishi Rajpopat believes this will have implications in teaching computers to understand human speech. Panini provided a set of rules for word building, as well as a metarule - In the event of a conflict between two rules of equal strength, the rule that comes later in the grammar's serial order wins .  Rajpopat believes this has been misinterpreted, and that is why scholars have struggled so long....

 This morning I caught a post from BBC Earth that introduced me to Snow Raven. She is a vocal artist born in the Republic of Sakha - Yakutia in Arctic Siberia. When she was three years old, she started to mimic and learn the languages of the animals around her. I can't embed from Instagram, but I hope you can watch:  Here I found another one under "Arctic Beatbox." Here she plays an instrument called the mouth harp. She spoke with NPR about her upbringing and the ancestral songs she learned from her grandmother. The duo is called OLOX, and they went on America's Got Talent. What an amazingly unique cover!

  Welcome to the Quinta Da Regaleira in Sintra, Portugal. In 1904, Antonio Augusto Carvalho Monteiro enlisted Italian architect, Luigi Manini, to build his "Palace of Mystery." A Masonic Initiation Well, meant to symbolize death and rebirth of the initiate. Gazebo on the Lower Gate Bridge. The property contains a ten-acre park along with waterways, grottoes, and fountains as well as stucco statues and ornate benches. The Fount of Abundance In 1995 it was designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

  There was an open house holiday at a new condo park, calling itself the Reno Experience District. I know it's a little fuzzy, but still. Home decor for Pa. Gingerbread Village with Seester. And the snow.  ^_^ Hubby's grandparents cleaned out a closet and gave us their old records, which included Bing Crosby's Christmas album.