Kristi Wachter.com

I've been trying to reinvigorate my language skills, so I've started reviewing some of the languages I've studied, switching to a different one (Spanish, French, German, Italian) each week.

I thought music might help reinforce the vocabulary I was picking up, so I trawled the library for pop CDs in other languages. I had no idea what any of these bands would sound like; I figured I'd just check them out and give a few repeat listens to anything I enjoyed.

Thanks to Google for informing me that today is Alexander Calder's birthday, via a beautiful Google doodle on their home page. I love the shadows.

I was lucky enough to grow up near Chicago, where I got to see the Calder Flamingo every time I went downtown. I've always especially loved his mobiles.

The American Masters episode on Calder was marvellous.

Yesterday a Wonderboy song came up on random play, and I got a great big grin.

For about a decade, I ran a little independent record label, Racer Records. I got to work with artists I really loved, putting out their records and trying to build a bigger audience for them.

Wonderboy was the first band I signed, and I love them as much today as I did back in 1993.

Hearing a Wonderboy tune just makes me indescribably happy.

Background: "Nature Publishing Group told the University of California that next year subscription prices would increase 400 percent, with the average annual cost of a journal increasing to $17,479. UC Libraries fought back with a combative letter to UC faculty suggesting that faculty should consider boycotting the journals, and cease submitting or reviewing articles for these journals." via Metafilter

936 pages.

Somebody recommended A History of the Modern World over on Ask Metafilter and I leapt over to the San Francisco library's website and requested it.

It's 936 pages. Not counting the (excellent-looking) appendices and bibliography.

I don't know what I was thinking.

I was never all that interested in space as a kid. I enjoyed reading The Martian Chronicles and some other sci fi classics, but I was barely aware of NASA or the science of space exploration.

That all changed for me on the Fourth of July, 1997, when I watched the Mars Pathfinder land on the red planet.

I've been so lucky to see oystercatchers lately.

They're some of my favorite birds. They're about the size of a seagull, with black bodies, Silly Putty colored feet, and bright red tube-shaped beaks.

They can be incredibly difficult to see against the dark rocks where they feed. Fortunately, they often cry out just before they take flight. By following the sound, I can often spot them just before they leave their current rock for a different one.