JO, SJG

A couple little personal items today, if you'll pardon me. First of all, its my wife's birthday. Her name is Jennie, and she blogs here, mostly dealing with her addiction to thrifting and her appreciation of all things vintage. She also sells vintage clothing and housewares in her very own Etsy shop. If that's your thing, it would behoove you to take a gander and buy lots of things. It puts her in a super mood. The weekend trip I wrote about yesterday was part of her birthday present, so don't think the only thing I gave her was a free plug on this little blog!

Second, today is the eighth anniversary of Stephen Jay Gould's death. When I was a teenager, my brain flitted between pseudosciences (I wrote my senior term paper on UFO abductions), like a hummingbird trying to pull nectar from plastic flowers. Gould's eloquent writings on the history of science and evolution were in part what set me nice and straight, to flowers that don't just look pretty but offer actual nourishment. Thanks, Steve.

Painting by Carl Buell, via Flickr.