Friday, February 25, 2011

Daydreaming, and also the relatively near cosmos.

Kelly just posted this on my facebook wall, which prompted yet another (visibly escalating) brainstorming/daydreaming session about the greatest, most awesome, most utterly childish and wonderful house ever, which was recorded thus in my comments on her post:

-Dibs. I wish they'd shown more of the house though than the slide and the bookshelves. I mean those are awesome things. I'm just saying. Five (out of nine) slide pictures seems a little excessive.

-My slide would have more colors.


And maybe a water feature.

-Facebook just reloaded in the middle of the best house description ever. I will kill it.

Now I have to retype the whole thing! Please stand by.

-...Also, the floor of the "courtyard" would be a trampoline. And there would be a rooftop garden. And a fireman's pole. And a room made entirely of mattresses. And the hallway of bookcases (ZOMG) would include a reading nook. And windows all along one wall. Also, there would be a double (treble?) wrap-around porch. And there would be a shower-bathroom like the one at my cousin's house, where the whole bathroom is also a shower. And there would be a hot tub someplace. Probably in a corner of the rooftop garden. Also, hammocks aplenty. Hammocks for all! All the times! Different types of hammocks, even, with different colors and some with tassels. Possibly the floor(s?) would be painted with the yellow brick road. That is undecided. Also there should be a bathroom with enough plants in it that when you shower it is like showering outdoors in a jungle. Possibly this could be accomplished by the installation of a shower amidst the greenery of the rooftop garden, but clearly that would be seasonal. Additionally, there could be a swinging rope bridge going from one of the porches across the yard into the most epic fabulous tree house of all time ever. I would consider the installation of a moat, only probably not crocodile-infested. Duck-infested, maybe.

[end quotes.]

It's fun to get carried away with absurd dream-home dreams. Don't judge me.



On another note, it seems that they have found (or believe that they may have found) another planet in our solar system. Once you get that far out, of course, you're using the term "solar system" fairly loosely. It is in our solar system because it orbits our sun. From a long, long, long way away. Anyway, apparently rumors of this planet have been circulating for some time. There was evidence that was debunked (irregularities in Neptune's orbit), and now there is more possible evidence that is being analyzed. So we'll see. What gets me though is that this "ninth" planet is going to be called Tyche if, indeed, it exists. I know I'm being unreasonable, but I want them to call it Pluto.

There are, at the very least, three reasons that that is a stupid idea. I know this. You do not have to argue the point.

Here is the dictionary.com article on the name "Tyche," and (ish) on the planet. The comments are especially good. I particularly liked "is it safe for astronauts to go there?" The state of our educational system... it's just not very good. In case anyone is unclear about the distances of things in our solar system, here is some information for you. Light travels at approximately 186,282 miles per second. It takes the light from the sun eight minutes to reach the surface of the earth. By contrast, it takes the light of the sun between four and seven hours to reach Pluto, depending on its location in its orbit. Tyche, if such a planet exists, would be significantly further still from the sun even than Pluto. Considering that our astronauts have never even been to Mars, the question of whether they would be safe on Tyche is a moot point. And anyway, the answer is no. Tyche is/would be a gas giant with roughly 4x the mass of Jupiter. Any astronauts would be crushed rather quickly.

For reference, here is the NASA article on Tyche.

2 comments:

  1. Can I get a reading / knitting nook in your dream house? :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Marie,

    I was looking for a link to send you an email, but didn't see one -- I deleted your comment on the 4am post on my blog -- not because it didn't make me smile, because it did! But rather because I was hesitant to have a smiley-type of comment on a post that people would see in the context of a death. If that makes sense.

    That said, I would love an old comfy rocking chair! And a window seat covered in pillows and surrounded by book shelves and bright sunshine filtered through tree branches! :)

    You know, I enjoy your blog enough to come back and see if you've replied to my comments here. :)

    Also, there is a way so that people can be notified of any follow-up comments to the ones they leave -- not sure how exactly. Do you get that option when you comment on my blog? (I am sadly techno-illiterate much of the time...)

    ReplyDelete