The House on the Hill Opposite is in Spooky Mode today

 Having given up lighting up at dawn, the house opposite was in full Halloween mode at dawn today. 

The House on the Hill Opposite

Sir, I exist.

A Man Said to the Universe

BY STEPHEN CRANE

A man said to the universe:

“Sir, I exist!”

“However,” replied the universe,

“The fact has not created in me

A sense of obligation.”

I first learned that poem under the name "sense of obligation," as that was the title of a 1961 Harry Harrison story serialized in Analog. The poem was quoted at the beginning of the text.

I was reminded of it when I saw the James Webb telescope pictures this week. Stephen Crane's universe replied to the man, albeit dismissively. The universe in these pictures does not pause to answer, not even to dismiss our concerns.

Here, the universe says to man, "I exist."

And that's all she wrote.

Egrets

Egrets

I've had a few

But then again, too few to mention.

Birds on hay bales, near the Salton Sea. 

They may not be egrets. I'm no birder. 

Update on the Photobucket Fiasco, and the missing pictures on this blog

I've been diligently working through the missing pictures. I started using botofuckit in October 2008, and I've found and replaced nearly all the missing pictures from then until September 2009. Luckily, I stopped using the "service" a couple of years ago, so I only need to go up to 2015. I've also fixed as many broken links as possible, and man are there a lot of them.

I'm only about 15% through the relinking, but as before, if you land on a post and you want to see a picture that's been replaced with photoscrewit's ransom demand, leave a comment on the post and I'll find it and re-up it as soon as I can.

Important notice re: Earlier images on this blog are disappearing

Photobucket, the 3rd party serving photo-hosting service, has emailed me (and all others) to say they will no longer host 3rd party images.

To continue using Botophucket, all I have to do is pay $400 a year!

Needless to say, I'm not going to pay $400 a year (actually it's $399), but to help force the issue, Photofuckit are replacing all the hosted images with thumbnails containing their ransom demand. So those of you who read my blog here at http://peromyscus.blogspot.com/ are going to find it looking a little measly with many of the older pictures replaced by those thumbnails. 

My apologies, but it it will take some time - perhaps forever - to change all those links, especially as Photobucket's download button only downloads one picture at a time. One at a time!

If you are searching for a picture (e.g. one of the historical Led Zeppelin pictures) and think the image may be underneath the ransom demand email, leave a message here and I will attempt to find it on my hard disk and re-upload it or send it to you. Same deal for any postings in message boards or fora that you think may have been by me (e.g Elixir_Sue, Lyle Hopwood, Peromyscus). 

Sheesh.