Accra - A C C R A

I don't know the capital of every country in the world, nor do I think I *should* - but this is still fun:



When I was little, and couldn't sleep, Mom suggested I list every single state in the US, alphabetically. If I ever realized I'd missed one, I had to go back and start from the beginning. I don't think I made it to Wyoming.

I found myself, as I passed San Bruno Mountain today, where the endangered Mission Blue butterfly lives, "There are Mission Blues on San Bruno Mountain, but the California dogface butterfly is our state butterfly. Why do I know that? I don't know. I just do."

It's the sort of useless thing that helps me paint a picture of the world when people talk about it. It's a piece of the whole puzzle.

Africa from Europe on Google Streetview

From Google Sightseeing

How cool is that? That is very cool.

We're fostering a tiny puppy, switching the garden over into fall mode, trying to get our house in order, and I'm finishing a semester at school. This is Geography Awareness Week, and I think there will be a post about that before the week is up.

sense of place - Oakland Hills Fire

Oakland Hills Fire -- after
Originally uploaded by marymactavish.

For some reason, as I go through my old photos, the fire photos are really affecting me. Even before I noticed them in my stack of "photos to scan," I was noticing again how the hills have grown up thicker with eucalyptus than before, and the plan to places houses farther apart and make roads wider is barely there. And I might be wrong, but I think that Oakland never did get around to making its fire hydrants compatible with the hoses of surrounding towns' fire departments.

But anyway: I'm thinking of it, eighteen years later.

sense of place - Loma Prieta quake, twenty years ago

Downtown Berkeley
Originally uploaded by Susan Decker.

Visual memory? How about visceral memory!?! This gave me a chill.

I was standing exactly where the guy with the shorts is standing at 5:04 pm on October 17, 1989.

Look! Up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane!

It's the moon! It's meteors!



Pretty much everyone knows that I have a broad definition of "geography," right? Usually, if I can see it from earth, or if what happens there is directly relevant to earth, I'll often decide it counts. For awhile, I pondered having a day a week set aside for related sciences, but I've mostly given that up. If I post them here, I'll find a way to make them geography-relevant.

But this trailer is about an event that involves people on the ground looking at things relatively close to us, including within our atmosphere, so I think it's all about geography. Check it out. It's a lot of fun.

Another student presentation - uses of the rainforest

"oh AWESOME"

I've never been tidepooling at night. This makes me think I should definitely try it.



I love hearing grownups, especially teachers, say "OH AWESOME."

Why did Georgia flood so badly this year?

This guy talks about a couple of reasons quite clearly, if a little over-excitedly. He makes good points. There are probably hmore reasons, but these are the jist.



(About his first argument: Fall flooding like this was pretty much predicted by models.)