Recently in Cool Category

When I grow up, I want to be exactly like Doris Russel, who still swims at the age of 90. Not only does she swim three-quarters of a mile every day, she actively competes at meets - swimming up to five events in a meet. This is the quote I like best:

"Something about that water is magic," she said. "Once you get in the pool, it's heaven, really heaven. And I love the smell of chlorine. When I get out of the pool, I smell my arms and smile. People think I'm crazy, but . . . it smells so clean."

I love it! I sniff my skin after swimming too! Go Madame Butterfly go!

Not my doing, but cool nonetheless. Note that all of the daytime shots are on I-39/90/94 through Wisconsin. They start after the nap at the newly renovated rest area by the Wisconsin River (~2:21)

Ohio to Minnesota Time Lapse from Dave Lucius. (via Boing Boing)

From Andre Torrez, comes the Rubik's Cube Master. The only way I could solve one of these was by taking it apart, which I thought was pretty ingenious at the time.

The hybrids are cool cars, getting about 70 miles per gallon (mpg). But, what if you could get 259 mpg? Someday you might in the VW 1-liter. Don't think about driving across the country on one tank of fuel, as the fuel tank is only 1.7 gallons big. But still, that's 440 miles on one tank. Wow. And it looks funky, too.

Currently, the Space Shuttle Endeavor is docked to the ISS. I love to get caught up in watching the missions on NASA TV and catch glimpses of the world speeding by below them. To see the space station in the night sky, there's a cool applet that will calculate when and where to look to see the ISS pass overhead. Very cool.

I get so enthralled, because I still believe my Dad's prophecy that tourist space travel will be available in my lifetime. I know that $20 million could get you a trip right now, as Dennis Tito did and Lance Bass tried to do. Although, I could apply to be an astronaut, I think being a tourist is the best way to get there. But I don't have $20 million to go. But $20 million was 10% of Dennis' worth, and I think I would be willing to part with that much in order to get to see the earth glow night, and the glowing blue of the oceans in the sun.

The weather prediction for last night was grim: cold, rainy, and cloudy. Until I heard that, I was planning on venturing out to view the Leonid meteor shower. The closest I got to viewing was our front porch in my PJs for three minutes before I went to bed. From the sound of it, it wasn't as impressive as last year. However, in cased you missed it too, heres a 2002 Leonids Meteor Gallery provided by Spaceweather.com.

A big hearty congrats goes to Steve Fossett and crew. He is the first to circumnavigate the globe by himself in a hot air balloon. Said Fossett, "You can't do very much celebrating...I do have a couple of bottles of Bud Light, but there's no one to drink it with."

That sucks. Not only does he have to drink diet beer, Bud no less, but because he flew solo, he drinks alone. Sucker.

I really like seeing real and theatrical events through isometric screenshots. I wish I was this creative.