Josh, Anne-Marie, and Aylia Colwell’s Gazette

A pair of mockingbirds built this nest in what appeared to me to be a very precarious position on top of two interleaved palm fronds from neighboring palms in our back yard. But the birds have a much better instinct for nest building than I do. One bird is hanging out there permanently now, so I suspect eggs have been laid.

This bird doesn’t react to our presence and appears to be staying put to take care of eggs.

This shows the rather precarious positioning of the nest on palm fronds. It has survived some pretty vigorous thunderstorms already.

I was in Rome last week for the Cassini Project Science Group meeting. This view is from a new viewing platform at the top of a national monument to modern Italy, built about 100 years ago. Behind me is the Colosseo, named after a long-lost 30-plus-meter statue of Nero. I had some time to visit the colosseum on Friday which is impressively huge but which has such a bloody history that it was also somewhat repulsive to think about what happened there. At least according to the audio guide, the depiction in the movie Gladiator captured the bloodletting there fairly well.

A night shot of the colosseum.

A view from the interior of the Colosseum.

The spot of sunlight is crossing a brass strip that runs diagonally across the floor of this church. The Sun shines through a whole high on the southern wall, and the meridian line shows the location of the Sun at local solar noon. With the seasons, the position of the image of the Sun moves up and down along the strip.

Today’s launch of the space shuttle Discovery was our first attempt to view the ascent literally from our back yard. The shuttle was clearly visible for more than a minute, rising high above the horizon on a column of flame and smoke before disappearing behind a cloud shortly before solid rocket motor separation.

We were told that “winter” here is the dry season, but during the months that are elsewhere known as winter it seemed that we had fairly regular rain, though certainly not as much as during the months that are elsewhere known as hellishly hot and humid. Perhaps high temperatures in the low 80s kept things from drying out very much so that the ubiquitous water retention ponds remained filled until this month. Since mid-April it has been very dry and increasingly hot. The ponds dried up. Perhaps this happens every year; it’s our first pass through the seasons (technically: early summer, summer, high summer, late summer). But yesterday we got a couple of good vigorous summer thunderstorms that dumped enough water on the ground to cause the spontaneous creation of approximately 2.4 billion frogs. Unfortunately, several of these frogs were created on asphalt and immediately smooshed by motor vehicles. The more fortunate frogs found themselves in the newly replenished holding ponds, now awash with upwards of three inches of water over their mucky beds. These frogs celebrated the water with a cacophony of croaks and ribbets that was almost painfully loud when I took Dusty for her morning stroll today.

Not much activity on the blog lately, but now that the UCF semester is over I can at least give a status report on where we are and what’s next. I have a crazy travel schedule starting in a couple of weeks that will keep me away from home for most of the summer. The trip list at the moment is:
Ft. Lauderdale
Houston
Rome
Boulder
Washington D. C.
Montreal
Paris
London.
I won’t be in any city more than 6 days. Anne-Marie plans to accompany me on the Montreal trip which will be, I think, her first visit to Canada and my first since the 1976 Olympics.

Aylia gets home from a busy and successful semester at Occidental College tomorrow morning, and Anne-Marie is in France for her mother’s 80th birthday bash in the Pyrenees. Last week we bought a new car so that we have two for the summer while Aylia is here and commuting to whatever summer job she lands. We’ll sell Anne-Marie’s beloved beetle in the Fall in favor of the more practical four-door hatchback Nissan Versa. We had a fun visit from Brad a couple of weeks ago when he delighted us by eating his pancake with blue cheese dressing. After a year of spats I’ve finally broken up with Microsoft PowerPoint. We’ll still see each other for lectures in the Fall, but for the many talks I have to give this summer I will use Apple’s Keynote which, while strange at first, has the virtue of stability. On Guitar Hero III my career progress has slowed considerably at the “hard” level where I’m about 3/4 of the way through. Postings over at “According to Colwell”, my personal blog, have also stalled for the same reasons they have stalled here. After getting grades turned in I am now dealing with proposal and paper deadlines.

I’ve been meaning to write a wikipedia page for my paternal grandfather, Dr. Ernest Cadman Colwell, who had the scholarly credentials to merit such a page. He was president of the University of Chicago, author of several books, discoverer of “Colwell’s Rule” of Greek New Testament grammar, and first president of the Clarement School of Theology. While searching for some material on line for an eventual wikipedia page, I found this one-sentence entry in Time magazine from 1945.

Je n’en reviens toujours pas!

Anne-Marie devant ses 2 toiles exposées au centre artistique City Art Factory à Orlando.

Voici 2 de mes dernières toiles exposées dans une galerie à Orlando.
Vous pouvez allez explorer le travail de notre groupe d’artistes sur www.bluetangoartfactory.com

Maman est arrivee en Floride pour son anniversaire qui a ete fete plusieurs fois. Je crois que toute l’annee 2008 va celebrer son anniversaire! Ses vacances se sont bien passees. Vrai, il y a eu une petite chute, mais rien de grave, que de la peau ecorchee. Le reste semble lui avoir plu. Tout est un peu trop grand et ostentatoire pour elle ici, mais la faune et la flore l’ont ravie.
Ces quelques photos devraient temoigner assez fidelement de son plaisir et du notre.

Diner d’anniversaire avec Paul

Maman souffle ses bougies pour la 2eme fois en 2 jours!

Diner avec Ann a DeLand

Vous voyez les bebes alligators? Maman en a compte 16.

Petit repos a SeaWorld au mileu des fleurs

Entre les lamantins, les alligators, les tortues, les dauphins, les oiseaux, les fleurs et tous ces arbres plus ou moins gigantesques, je crois que Maman s’est fait de bons souvenirs.

I recently finished my very first Occidental performance last weekend. It was a student written show called Powerhouse, and I was one of five cast members, along with a sophomore, two seniors, and one alumni. It was one of the most wonderful experiences I’ve had; not only was I working with serious actors, but also professional directors.

With alumni Dan Selon.

With Karen Baughn, Jon Stoner and Dan Selon.

Curtain Call

Nate, the future Dr. Lust, brought Venetian Carnivale hats back from his trip to Italy where he fixed up the telescope at the Vatican Observatory.

Jon, Josh, and Kevin, finally looking dignified.

The hats, for those who are not familiar with them, are designed for use in the ancient art of Venetian Hat Dueling.

Whacking hats.