I've Been Thunderstruck

I came across an interesting post today, called The Dreams of which Stuff is Made. This is the sort of thoughts about our physical world that totally get me thinking about just how amazing all this really is. Consider these few items, and then head over to the post for more :

• Tightly coiled in the nucleus of every cell of your body is six feet of DNA bearing your genetic code. Since the body has around 10 trillion cells, there are about 10 billion miles of DNA inside you.
• With your eyes, you can see the past. Look at the North Star and you are looking at 1300 A.D. Today’s light left that star nearly 700 years ago.
• Right now, as you remain “still,” you’re moving 400 times faster than a bullet. You are traveling 1,000 miles an hour with Earth’s daily rotation, 67,000 mph with Earth’s yearly journey around the sun, 550,000 mph with the solar system’s revolution around the Milky Way, and 1.3 million mph with the galaxy’s motion through the universe. A bullet goes about 3,000 mph.

I try and talk with people about this stuff all the time, but I can tell they just don’t get how amazingly complex this world…this universe…really is. They get angry when an email doesn’t reach them in 2 seconds, but never stop to think of how amazing that process really is. Or they take the light from stars for granted, not realizing what they are looking at could actually be gone.

Take some time to think about the universe, and what’s really going on. Fun stuff!

It’s always easier to talk a good talk than to walk a good walk! The proof is in the pudding, as they say.

Back when I lived in Seattle, I used to drive by Dunn Lumber Company every day on my way to work.They had a sign outside their store that, on both sides, would display some sort of philosophical quote. Now, most stores can’t even manage to spell most of the words right on their signs, because they always seem to lack enough letters to do the job right. Not Dunn! These guys were able to get entire quotes, on both sides of the sign, without any mistakes. After about a year of driving past these signs, it finally dawned on me that they would make good blog material…so, I started taking pictures of them. What follows for the next while is a view of the world according to Dunn Lumber Company. There is some good advice here…take some time to think about what you see.

This one seems particularly appropriate these days, given the number of different strategies being formulated to get this country out of its economic crisis. I know it’s also quite on the mark where I work.