This morning I was awakened by a loud crashing sound. At 8am, after not getting to sleep until after 2am. The crashing sound was accompanied by a preceding flash of light. This, my friends, was an electrical storm. We had a smaller one the previous night. These sorts of storms are a rare occurrence in this area so when it happens I get very excited, But not so much when it wakes me up in the middle of my sleep. I wish I could have been excited about it. At one point I felt the thunder shake the house. Pretty intense. Both times I traveled to Colombia, during the many flights I took to get there and back, I saw an electrical storm from the airplane window. Those are crazy. There are multiple flashes of lighting every second. It's like this huge bundle of clouds and flashing light. Supposedly while I was gone in Colombia, there was a massive storm in Portland, like the thunder was setting of car alarms. I am sad I missed it, but whatever, I was in South America. What's better than that?

From Wikipedia:

Lightning is an electrical discharge that occurs in a thunderstorm. It can be seen in the form of a bright streak (or bolt) from the sky. Lightning occurs when an electrical charge is built up within a cloud. When a large enough charge is built up, a large discharge will occur and can be seen as lightning. The temperature of a lightning bolt can be five times hotter than the surface of the sun. Although the lightning is extremely hot, the duration is short and 90% of strike victims survive. Contrary to the popular idea that lightning does not strike twice in the same spot, some people have been struck by lightning over three times, and skyscrapers like the Empire State Building have been struck numerous times in the same storm. The loud bang that is heard is the super heated air around the lightning bolt expanding at the speed of sound. Because sound travels slower than light the flash is seen before the bang, although both occur at the same moment.

A few weeks ago while I was doing some research on lightning, I was trying to find slow motion videos of ground to cloud lightning. I did eventually find one, among others that are just as awesome. Take a look.

And that concludes my lesson in nature for the week.







Oh, and please tell me I am going to get the job working for these people. I would be so happy if I did.

This entry is going to be mostly about insects. If you don't know already, I am quite fond of them. First I will introduce you to one of my favorite photographers.

Igor Siwanowicz

Someday I would like to take photos like that. For the time being though, I am stuck with a decent camera and a magnifying attachment for my lens. So I can take photos like this.

Invertebrates are consistently interesting to me. They are so strange and unique. So different from eachother and other animals. Recently a new species of slug was discovered on Wales. This slug is different from normal slugs in that it is carnivorous, blind and nocturnal. Here is a description.

"The nocturnal predator is armed with blade-like teeth for slicing through animal flesh and can measure up to 5 inches (13 centimeters) long when stalking its prey, They engulf the worms piece by piece, One end of the worm will still be alive while the other is being gradually ratcheted into the slug by the teeth."

Or how about the worm that is native to the Pacific Northwest that spits and smells of lilies? That would be the Giant Palouse Earthworm.

"The worm is believed to grow up to 1 m (3 ft) in length. Modern specimens, however, have only been observed up to about half that length. The worm is albino in appearance, and when handled it gives off a scent similar to that of the lily flower. It is reported to be able to spit in self-defense."

And then there is the aphid, which most people are familiar with. But there may be some things you don't know about them. This was taken from several sources and then edited by me to make it easier to understand.

"Aphids are known for having unusual reproductive adaptations. In some species, reproduction is fairly simple. In other aphid species, reproduction can be very complicated with both sexual and asexual forms, creation of eggs or live nymphs and even be associated with switches between woody and herbaceous host plant types at different times of the year.

Many aphids undergo cyclical parthenogenesis (this means birth without fertilization from a male). In the spring and summer, only females are present in the population. The overwintering eggs that hatch in the spring result in females. Reproduction is typically parthenogenetic and viviparous (this means live birth, no eggs). This results in eggs that are genetically identical to their mother. The embryos develop within the mothers' ovarioles, which then give live birth to first instar nymphs (viviparous). Aphids typically live from 20-40 days and thus undergo multiple parthenogenetic, viviparous generations each summer."

Then it gets really weird.

"Ova within a viviparously (live birth) reproducing female start to develop immediately after ovulation, this occurs long before birth. This means that an embryo can exist inside another larger and more mature embryo. In fact a newly born Summer aphid can contain within herself not only the developing embryos of her daughters but also those of her grand-daughters which are developing within her daughters. Parthenogenesis combined with this 'telescoping of generations' give aphids an exceedingly rapid turn-over of generations meaning they can build up immense populations very quickly."

So essentially, some female aphids are born pregnant. They can also grow wings at will if they need to move to another host plant.

Okay, I hope I haven't bored you too much. To satiate the short attention spanned, here is a cool video of the velvet worm. I know it's in Spanish, but it's the best video I can find.





I hope to see the rainforest someday. Well, I have seen it, from an airplane, but I want to be in it. Hopefully I will be meeting Sally in Costa Rica next year.

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I still have no job, but that's okay for now. I am not quite broke yet. Plus, I get to see Erica and Venice more often and that is a good thing.



Chau.

Hahahah!! Usually I wait a few weeks between journal entries (does anyone call them that anymore? It didn't used to be called a "blog" here) but I found something funny AND I am finding excuses to stop cleaning my room.

I have officially become addicted to Stumbleupon. This is something that I "stumbled" today.

These are the nominees for the Chevy Nova Award. This is given out in honor of the GM's fiasco in trying to market this car in Central and South America. "no va" means, of course, in Spanish, "it doesn't go".

The Dairy Association's huge success with the campaign "Got Milk?" prompted them to expand advertising to Mexico. It was soon brought to their attention the Spanish translation read "Are you lactating?"

Coors put its slogan, "Turn It Loose," into Spanish, where it was read as "Suffer From Diarrhea."

Scandinavian vacuum manufacturer Electrolux used the following in an American campaign: "Nothing sucks like an Electrolux."

Clairol introduced the "Mist Stick," a curling iron, into Germany only to find out that "mist" is slang for garbage. Not too many people had use for the "Garbage Stick."

When Gerber started selling baby food in Africa, they used the same packaging as in the US, with the smiling baby on the label. Later they learned that in Africa, companies routinely put pictures on the labels of what's inside, since many people can't read.

Colgate introduced a toothpaste in France called Cue, the name of a notorious porno magazine.

An American T-shirt maker in Miami printed shirts for the Spanish market which promoted the Pope's visit. Instead of "I Saw the Pope" (el Papa), the shirts read "I Saw the Potato" (la papa).

Pepsi's "Come Alive With the Pepsi Generation" translated into "Pepsi Brings Your Ancestors Back From the Grave" in Chinese.

The Coca-Cola name in China was first read as "Kekoukela", meaning "Bite the wax tadpole" or "female horse stuffed with wax", depending on the dialect. Coke then researched 40,000 characters to find a phonetic equivalent "kokou kole", translating into "happiness in the mouth."

Frank Perdue's chicken slogan, "It takes a strong man to make a tender chicken" was translated into Spanish as "it takes an aroused man to make a chicken affectionate."

When Parker Pen marketed a ball-point pen in Mexico, its ads were supposed to have read, "It won't leak in your pocket and embarrass you. "The company thought that the word "embarazar" (to impregnate) meant to embarrass, so the ad read: "It won't leak in your pocket and make you pregnant!"

When American Airlines wanted to advertise its new leather first class seats in the Mexican market, it translated its "Fly In Leather" campaign literally, which meant "Fly Naked" (vuela en cuero) in Spanish.

Sooo funny. What I don't understand is why these companies don't do a bit more research before releasing these things. I can't seem to find what the Spanish "Got Milk" ad actually said. I find a lot of places that say the translation was, "Are you lactating?" but not what it was in Spanish. I guess they changed it to "Toma Leche?" which is "Do you drink milk?" but if someone asked me how to say, "Got Milk?" in Spanish I would say, "Tiene Leche?" Which would be "Do you have milk?". There is no word for "got" in Spanish but it usually means to have or to acquire.

Some photos for good measure.





And some bugs.

More photos from Colombia!

Some scenery.

View of the city from Biblioteca Luis Angel Arango. A very large library.



A street in La Candelaria, my favorite part of the city. It is very old with colorful buildings and cute cafes.



La Plaza de Bolivar, a huge square near La Candelaria, so beautiful, so many pigeons.



Catedral Primada de Colombia, a church near La Plaza de Bolivar.



Here is the inside.


Okay that is all for now. I have some film photos that are better, but I need to scan them. More from Monserrate.

I already want to go back there, but it will be forever until I can do that.
Sally and I are going to try and meet in Costa Rica next year. I would really like to see the rainforest.

In more recent news, I am now jobless. It kind of sucks. I wasn't fired or laid off but the company I work for removed my position and they offered me another one but I hated it and I was so upset about losing my job that I just quit. I liked my job and I think that's pretty rare, so to lose it was really a shock. So if anyone in Portland knows of a receptionist/bookkeeper type job, let me know.

I don't have any recent photos of myself but I found this super old one that I really like. I bet you can't tell what's going on.

As soon as my school loans come in this fall, I am either buying or building myself a new computer. There are two games coming out this fall that I need to play and my crappy Toshiba laptop with Linux OS is not going to run them. Those games are Fallout 3 and Spore. Plus I have other games already that I can't play anymore like the whole Sims package and Fallout 2 and Starship Titanic and Baulder's Gate. Ugh, but I HATE Windows. Oh well.

I love llamas! Even though they may not like me.



This was at the foot of the mountain Monserrate. I'm in love with that place and am happy I have been there twice.

This me at the top of Monserrate.



Another view.



Oh, and I am happy to say that I was in Colombia the day that Ingrid Betancourt and other prisoners were rescued from the FARC. If you don't know about it, you should look it up. It was pretty epic, I'm sure someone will make a movie out of it.

In other news, I am probably losing my job soon. Bleh. They removed my position and gave me a new one that I really don't want. Not happy. Wish me luck on finding work in this economy.

My cat sure is pretty though.

This is my souvenir from Colombia.





Jhon at Zone Colors, Bogota, Colombia.

More photos when I find the cord to my camera.

I am addicted to Spore and the game hasn't even come out yet.









These are my creatures. I love them.

Tuesday I leave for Colombia. I get to see the lovely Sally again, yay!

New hair. New cards.

Taking a break from my Spanish blogs.

I am ready to start having fun now. I like going to school but working five days a week at 7:30am and going to school full time is killing me. I never get to see my friends anymore, I don't have time to work on my projects (concept art for boyfriend's video game, silkscreen, photographing insects, sleeping...)

Less than a month until I leave for Colombia!

Hola todos. Me aprendo mas español todos las dias. Es muy dificil a comprender cuando se habla, pero puedo leer y escribir muy bien. Sé mucho más español ahora que la ultima vez que estuve en Colombia. Yo soy feliz a volver! Yo encontro una foto de Colombia. Mi con mis amigos!




Los extraño.

Okay, that is my Spanish practice for the day.

Did I ever show this to you guys? It's amazing. The dance and the band. I am pretty much over most North American music. And everything else.


(stolen from

Ran into some SGs the other day. Some that I haven't had the pleasure of meeting. Though it was brief, it will be remembered digitally.



(Stolen from Silencia)

The other day, my boyfriend and I made robots.
















Since I don't post often or with many photos like the other girls do. I would like to have a new set someday, if I had a photographer. Meh.