It’s not often that I run across an opinion or explanation from someone else which I feel summarizes my own feelings better than I have been able to do.  In fact, I often find myself in quite the opposite position - that of translator for ineloquent but earnest writers who cannot find the words to express themselves and thus thrash about through paragraph after paragraph, drowning in “you know?”s.  It was refreshing, therefore, to stumble upon this snippet of clear-eyes wonder at the universe:

Not all atheism is the same.  Much as there are many kind of infinities, there are many kinds of disbelief.  I, for example, am like many science/math guys who are diversely read who wind up functionally a flavor of pantheist.  Elegance is everything.  Even so, I don’t precisely disbelieve in God so much as I disbelieve in the relevance of God.  Universe is really big, in a way that the vast majority of people who don’t study science and math at a high level fundamentally do not appreciate.  There is more than enough space around for God (and I am specifically not talking about space/time sor of space).  Thing is, I would no more be able to tell God from Cthulhu than a termite out in the shed be able to tell my aunt from my uncle from a star in the sky.  There.is.just.no.point. in believing in God, and I’m better off muching that deliciously yeasty bit of rotten shed-wood.

Lovely.  Thank you, shah8, I’m glad I read the comments.

Oh, you want to know about the title?  Well, I guess you’ll just have to go read the blog post at Pandagon.net

In which I empty my iPhone of the various and sundry images which it has been collecting over the past few days.

I gave blood yesterday.  This is my arm with 610g of blood being drained from it.

This is a cookie they gave me as a reward for being a good little bleeder.  I also got a pin.

Jon and I went for a walk in the cemetery a few days ago.  I took some pictures of an Eastern Tent caterpillar, but the iPhone camera is terrible for anything close-up, so they were all blurry and useless.  Instead, here is a tree which has some oddly-placed blossoms.

Pottery shot from tonight’s session: a vase, bowl and bunny by Anaïs, and my mug and bowl in the foreground.  The spiral pattern in my bowl was Ben’s idea, and I think it turned out pretty cute, even if it’s a bit wobbly.

Finally, a couple of shots from my adventures at the forestry faculty: a batch of newly-hatched gyspy moth caterpillars, and a breeding tank for the Forest Tents, which I decorated with their cocoons to look like a little christmas tree.  The dishes in the bottom contain the pupae which were found without cocoons.

Sometimes my math study time turns into slab pottery design time.

…is a beautiful thing.

(berry berry crepe, side of bacon. Oh my.)