I just received this e-mail, probably because of my involvement with SETI@Home. If you care about SETI, please take the time to read the letter below and send letters to your congressmen.

Arecibo Observatory, the world’s largest radio telescope and the source for the SETI@home data that your computer analyzes, faces massive budget cuts that will END its ability to continue the search for life beyond Earth. The decision to ensure full funding currently rests upon votes in Congress on Senate Bill S. 2862 and House Resolution H.R. 3737. These bills desperately need more support.

Please take a moment to help us SAVE ARECIBO.

Clicking the link below will direct you to a web page that allows you print out letters prepared for your Senators and Congressional Representative urging them to support Arecibo. Printing and mailing the letters is really easy, too!

You will also have the chance to add a few personal thoughts, if you wish, to let your Senators and Representative know why this funding is important to you! And if you’re really feeling passionate about saving Arecibo, please use these letters as the basis for letters you write yourself, urging your congressmen and women to vote to save Arecibo.

Because our representatives in Congress rarely give much attention to all the email they receive, printing out and MAILING these letters via standard U.S. Postal mail remains our best option for contacting them and our best hope for saving Arecibo (The second best option is to call your representatives). Your 42 cent stamps on these letters could help us get the millions of dollars needed to save Arecibo.

Our search cannot continue without the necessary support. Your work, as SETI@home participants, represents an indispensable resource for conducting the search. Now, we need your help to ensure that our other most valuable resource - our eyes and ears to the cosmos - can continue to probe the universe as we seek to answer the question: Is there anybody out there?

http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/arecibo_letter.php

Thank you for your help,

The SETI@home Team

Here is the link mentioned in the letter.

create your own personalized map of the USA

Guess I need to make a point of visiting Kentucky, it just looks odd there all alone.

These family photos were taken during June.

I made Joey a little blank book today and he wanted to fill it with a story. When I asked him to think of the beginning, ending and what happened in between, he looked at me funny.

“Well,” I said, “how does your story begin?”

“Once upon a time,” he replied.

“Okay. How does it end?”

“The End.”

Not much I could do at that point…

Earlier today, my kids were playing with their rubber stamps and I was explaining the purpose of the exclamation point and question mark. After I explained that the exclamation point was to show excitement or surprise Maggie created this:

Think she’s trying to tell me something?

In memory of George Carlin, his classic bit on “Stuff”:

Your result for The What Middle Earth race do you belong to Test…

Elf

Take The What Middle Earth race do you belong to Test at HelloQuizzy

These photos were taken of Maggie and her brand new pink and purple bicycle.

Please enjoy these family photos taken this month. The photos taken on the swing set are from a visit to New Jersey early in the month.

The New York Times has an interesting article suggesting that disorder may not be as bad as the “professional organizers” have made it out to be:

An anti-anticlutter movement is afoot, one that says yes to mess and urges you to embrace your disorder. Studies are piling up that show that messy desks are the vivid signatures of people with creative, limber minds who reap higher salaries than those with neat “office landscapes” and that messy closet owners are probably better parents and nicer and cooler than their tidier counterparts. It’s a movement that confirms what you have known, deep down, all along: really neat people are not avatars of the good life; they are humorless and inflexible prigs, and have way too much time on their hands.

When I was a kid, I always felt sorry for my friends whose parents always made them put everything away, because they often decided not to undertake a project for fear of the mess it would create. Now that I’m a parent, I allow my own kids to create what could only be described as a mess. For example, they have been very creative with their mixing of different toys: Duplo creations cavorting with Thomas the Tank Engine layouts while Little People on building blocks stand nearby watching. If I made them put everything away all the time, this creative mixing might never occur.