entirely safe and fun

Or: i catched u a mummy mouse but i mummy eated it

We made a trip down to the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum in San Jose this weekend. They’ve got a fine and accessible presentation there of some neat artifacts, with a helpful yet unintrusive curatorial narrative. In particular, the exhibit of non-tomb-related items is excellent, counteracting the usual perception created in Egyptian collections that the ancient Egyptians had nothing else to do but prepare for death (a perfect real-world example of sample bias). Adding to the allure, they have several remarkably pretty formal gardens on the grounds. Be aware that you’ll have to deal with a lot of stairs if you go, so the museum isn’t wheelchair-accessible.

All of that being said, this is what I have to offer you. It is a sad commentary on the memetic power of the internets that after everything that we saw and learned, and with all the things I could have photographed thanks to the Museum’s enlightened policy, the one thing I couldn’t resist sharing was a lolcatterized feline mummy, made from a noisy phonecam picture.

HAVE YOU SEEN THIS GOOSE?

Seriously, not dead.

First, I’ve got up a Flickr set of our trip to Kauai (for more photos, see the larger set). The photos there will be acquiring notes over the next few days, too. Everything in the Bestof set has a narrative comment already. Thanks to Michael and Daniela at Marjorie’s Kauai Inn for their attentive hospitality! I’ll be pulling together a more comprehensive blog post on this adventure, probably using Flickr’s syndication features, soon.

Second, beer. It turned out excellent and I’ll be repeating the recipe soon, probably next week, but with a couple of small changes to address the things I would have preferred to turn out differently. The hops will become Nugget and I’ll chop the amount down a bit, compensating with a bit more bitter orange peel. At bottling, I’ll rack off the sediment more aggressively, and I’ll be using a little more corn sugar, as well, to increase carbonation.

Finally, two neat websites I’ve started reading lately:

• Boot Legacy Law Blog, a strikingly well-written legal blog on matters related to IP, property, and jurisdiction issues. Way cooler than it sounds, in no small part because of the parts about treasure hunting, and because it’s so well researched and chock full of linky goodness.
• Epidemix, a public health blog… reassuring to me because I was worried that I was the only person actually reading the CDCP’s (pardon the pun, but…) vital Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. It’s news you can use to avoid catching a reportable illness.

Check ‘em out on the blogroll (over there on the right, unless you’re in a feed reader or some commie mutant thing like that).