There’s a lot of traveling going on this time of a year via car, plane, train or boat, and somewhere this very second, a 10-year-old is looking up from the book she’s been reading in the back seat of her parents’ station wagon and speaking the words that, for many people, define the whole summer …
Category: Blog
Mountains
I may be a prairie boy now, but I didn’t start out that way. I was born in Silver City, New Mexico, and as a small child, whenever we went back to New Mexico, I always said we were going to “my mountains.” This time of year, lots of people go to the mountains, even …
Mountains
I may be a prairie boy now, but I didn’t start out that way. I was born in Silver City, New Mexico, and as a small child, whenever we went back to New Mexico, I always said we were going to “my mountains.” This time of year, lots of people go to the mountains, even …
Olympic technology 1996
At a speed-skating meet in Norway in the 1960s, Canadian Paul Enoch smashed a world record by three seconds. He did it wearing a pair of his wife’s skintight nylon stockings–in an age when most skaters still wore flapping woolen garments. A year later, the first skin-tight nylon racing suit was released on the market. …
Spas
Since ancient times, humans have been in hot water–literally. Soaking in hot, mineral-laden water has long been used to ease aches and pains and even touted as a cure for far more serious conditions. The Romans and Greeks built many spas in places where hot springs bubbled to the surface, and in Europe, many …
Winemaking
The process of making wine begins, of course, with growing grapes and extracting their juice. But then what happens? I’m here to elucidate (which is not a word you want to try saying after you’ve drunk a little too much wine, by the way). Once the juice is in the vat, it’s left to ferment. …
Synchrotrons
Saskatchewan could soon be home to Canada’s first synchrotron, and if your first reaction is, “So what?” then, dear reader, you must read on. Physicists are a lot like small boys: they like to see what makes things tick by smashing them up. In the case of small boys, those things may be clocks …
Weeds
When I was a kid, I thought dandelions were cool, from their delightful yellow flowers that broke up the monotony of green lawns to their puffballs of parachute-wearing seeds which were so much fun to blow into the neighbor’s grass. Now that I’m grown up, however…well, actually, I still think dandelions are cool, but those …
Nanotechnology 1996
One of the first science-fiction movies I can remember seeing was Fantastic Voyage, the tale of a group of scientists in a submarine who were shrunk to microscopic size and injected into the body of an injured man. Their mission: to vaporize a life-threatening but inaccessible blood clot in his brain. Among other things, the …
Car care
I like my car a lot. But I have to admit, it doesn’t look as good as it used to. And probably yours doesn’t either. That’s because the moment your car rolls out the factory door, its finish starts to deteriorate. It’s not too surprising, since a car’s surface is attacked by ultraviolet light, ozone, …
Paint
It happens every spring. The air warms, the birds sing, the trees bud, the flowers bloom, and people look around at all this natural beauty and say to themselves, “Man, does that fence need painting.” Yes, there’s something about the spring and summer that brings out the handyman–er, handyperson–in all of us. And topping the …
Spring
One hesitates to make a premature pronouncement, but it does appear–at least for the moment–that maybe–and this is only a suggestion, not a prediction, don’t hold me to it–that it could be–although I could be wrong–finally–dare I say it?…spring. Whew! No blizzard blew in as I typed that, so I think we’re okay for the …
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