In case you were wondering what the snow was like here in Colorado the other day…

[Click to ensnowflakenate.]

That’s an image taken by NASA’s Aqua satellite on February 5, 2012. I live in Boulder, to the northwest of Denver (which is labeled), right on the edge of the Rockies. We got well over 30 cm here locally, and it was deeper in other places. Typical of the area, though, the Sun was out the next day, and now our yard looks like a fairyland of sparkles.

It’s unusual to get a heavy snowfall like this in February (we do get big ones, but later in the year) and from what I’ve heard this was a record for a February. And not to overextend the post to climate change, but a) weather is not climate… unless you add time, and 2) contrary to any soundbite you might hear, snowstorms will actually become more common as the Earth warms. Warmer weather means more evaporation, so more moisture in the air. It’s still cold higher up in the atmosphere, and it’s still cold in the winter over land, so a warmer planet overall means more snow in some places. I’m not attributing this event to global warming, to be clear. But it’s the kind of thing we can expect in the coming years.

NASA image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz, LANCE/EOSDIS MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC

- Snowpocalypse 2011 from space!
- Lovely, frigid ripples
- Icy swirls around a patient volcano

If you read my blog (and you’d better accept that as an axiom) then you have probably heard of Chris Hardwick. His podcast, Nerdist, is a monstrous juggernaut of podcasty geekiness, for one thing. And he’s been on Craig Ferguson’s show, and Conan, and Chelsea Lately, and a bunch of others. He wrote a book on how being a nerd can make your life better. Chris is something of a Doctor Who fan — proof, you want? — and so he and I have significant overlap in our lives. We met at Comic Con a couple of years ago, but we haven’t managed to get together since then.

But all that will change on Friday, March 2, when Chris will be bringing the Nerdist podcast here to Boulder, live at the Boulder Theater!

Chris and his co-hosts Jonah Ray and Matt Mira will be on stage making the nerdery in my fair town, and — wait for it, waaaiiittt for ittttt — Chris has invited me to be his guest.

I don’t know what we’ll be talking about, but I’m sure it will cover these topics at the least: the Doctor, growing up geeky, astronomy, w00tstock, space travel, the Mythbusters, zombies, and which of us wants to run off with River Song more. Probably pretty much in that order.

I feel obligated to note that if you’re not familiar with Chris’s podcast, it might be possible that it should be considered just ever so slightly NSFW. Or maybe a lot. Just so’s you know.

Tickets are on sale now! If you’re in the area come on by… and face it, if you’re reading this blog and you know who Chris is you have nothing else to do on a Friday night anyway.

P.S. If you’re not around Boulder, the Nerdist Podcast Live is going to be at a bunch of other towns as well, so look for one near you.

Just an hour or so ago as I write this (Saturday, November 26, 2011) I was sitting at my desk at home, puttering around on the computer. I glanced out my office window and noticed the Sun had set a few minutes before. Even though it was still quite bright out, I thought I might be able to spot Venus low in the west. So I leaned back and looked out the window. Venus was easy enough to spot — it’s really quite bright — but to my surprise and delight a very thin crescent Moon was hanging right next to it!

I did two things right away: I tweeted about it, so others could go outside and see the pair if they could, and then I grabbed my camera and went outside. I took literally 111 pictures, and put the best of them on Flickr. Check this one out!

[Click to embiggen.]

This was one of the first of the set I took; the sky was still quite bright. You can see the very young Moon on the right, and Venus way over on the left. I measured the distance off the picture, and they were about 3° apart, or about 6 times the width of the Moon’s face. That’s pretty close!

I kept snapping away as the sky darkened, and moved around a bit to get a more interesting foreground. I like the way this one came out:
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I was in my home office yesterday morning, sipping my coffee and trying to wake up while perusing the latest news from Twitter and Google+. It took a second, but the sound coming from outside worked its way into my head… a rushing, roaring sound. "GGGGggggggshhhhhh! GGGGggggggshhhhhh!"

I knew what it was right away: the flame from a hot air balloon, the pilot giving the bag some gas. We get a lot of balloons here in Boulder; the cool air in the summer mornings coupled with the spectacular view of the mountains makes them really popular. But this time was different; the sound was much louder than usual. Hmph, I thought, better grab the camera.

I ran outside, and yeah, it was close:

Wow! [Click to fifthdimensionate.]

It actually rose up from behind my house, so I ran down the street to get a good view. It flew past me (where I got this shot) then passed overhead where I got that shot.

How close was it? Close enough to wave at the passengers in the gondola, and have them wave back. That was cool.

It slipped out of sight, and landed in a field across from my neighborhood. I went back inside, but a few minutes later my wife called out, "We’ve got two more!" I went into my back yard, and one was landing in the field behind my house, too:

I have to say, this is a great way to wake up in the morning. It’s simply delightful. And I have a sneaky suspicion that sometime in the next year or so I’ll have to taker a ride like this myself with my family. I’d love to be able to take pictures like this from the other side.

As I write this, storm clouds are gathering in the west. That’s a pretty common situation here in Boulder, Colorado, in the summer. We get fine, clear mornings, and sometimes rain in the afternoon. In general big storms aren’t exactly rare, but this summer we’ve been getting pounded. On my bike rides it’s been routine to see the creeks in the area swollen to the point of overflowing.

But this summer, that situation has turned more dangerous. We’ve been getting some serious flood scares, and the reason may not be obvious to people who don’t live in the area: fires.

Last year, the Fourmile Canyon area north and west of Boulder burned pretty vigorously for many days. The smoke plume was visible from space, and it caused a lot of local grief. What wasn’t clear to me at the time was how this would affect flooding.

The image above, taken on June 7, 2011, is from NASA’s Earth Observing-1 satellite, and is a combination of far-infrared and visible light. Water (reservoirs and lakes) shows up as purple in this false-color image, vegetation is mostly green, and red/orange shows the fire damage. You can see Boulder to the lower right of the burned area.

When fire burns off all the plants, there’s nothing to hold the rain water in when we get storms. The water all washes downhill, in this case into the Fourmile Creek. That runs into the Boulder Creek, and that, well, here’s a natural color image which shows why that’s bad:

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Last week, I showed you a turtle doing his thing while I was out biking — providing "his thing" means falling face-first off a log.

Not too long after that, a ways farther down the trail, I had an encounter with a much cuter critter.

That’s a prairie dog, and they’re very common around Boulder. They are about as adorable as you can imagine, even in the way they behave. They stand on their hind legs, chitter loudly, and run around like they’re starring in a Pixar cartoon.

On the other hand, they also are known to carry the plague. And by the plague, I mean the plague, Bubonic Plague. That’s one reason I try not to get too close to them. I watched "Holy Grail"; I know the score.

Colonies of them can have dozens of members, and watching them prance around and run from hole to hole is fun. Their noises are interesting; some folks think it may be a very rudimentary language. I remain agnostic on this, though of course skeptical, but they are a very gregarious and chatty animal.

And, of course, they do have a sense of drama.

I love biking, especially in Boulder. There are trails everywhere, and lots of fun wildlife. Whenever I’m out I see hawks, prairie dogs, red winged blackbirds, rabbits, and more. Sometimes even owls.

What I did not expect to see the other day, however, was a big ol’ turtle lumbering across the bike path! [Click the picture to testudinate.] For scale, I’d guess his (hers? Who can tell?) shell was about 30 cm across. He was trying to get to a creek off the path, I think, when I got this shot.

I switched to video on my camera, and happened to catch a moment that I’m sure would embarrass the turtle if it had access to YouTube:

Ha! Boom. Clearly, he shook it off and kept going. After I took this clip, he got a better look at how steep the creek bank was, changed his mind, and turned around. That process took several minutes; turtles are in no hurry.

As far as video quality goes, my apologies for a) the panting; I had just gotten off my bike to take the video so I was still catching my breath, and 2) the wrong aspect ratio for the video; I was holding my phone sideways to take pictures and didn’t turn it upright for the video. Sigh. I guess turtles have the right idea. Hurrying just gets you in trouble.