I am soon joining the ranks of the unemployed. My department will shut down in six to twelve months and my “separation package” is contingent on my staying to the very end.

Imagine standing atop a train going 120 mph, and the train goes through a tunnel but you do not. You hit the wall above the opening at 120 mph. That’s how fast you will be going at the end of your fall. Yes, it’s discouraging, but proper planning requires that you know the facts. You’re used to seeing things fall more slowly. You’re used to a jump from a swing or a jungle gym, or a fall from a three-story building on TV action news. Those folks are not going 120 mph. They will not bounce. You will bounce. Your body will be found some distance away from the dent you make in the soil (or crack in the concrete).
Quotation from David Carkeet, Unplanned Freefall? Some Survival Tips

“Nun’s Farts” are little dessert pastries that look like cinnamon rolls. These wee confections are also called bourriques de soeurs nuns ‘belly buttons’ or more politely rondelles ‘slices’ or hirondelles ‘swallows.’ Inching a little higher up the obscenity scale, one finds a doughnut-like roll made from leftover home-made bread dough called trous de soeur ‘nun’s holes.’ They are usually eaten with molasses—to sweeten the experience.
Quotation from Bill Casselman, Acadian Food Words & New Origin of the Word Acadia

Called “The Eden of the West” or simply Eden, the Fountaingrove Winery was built according to the precepts of the Brotherhood of the New Life, a utopian religious community located in Northern California. The leader, Thomas Lake Harris, called himself the “Pivotal Man” from whom the announcement of Christ’s “Second Coming” would emerge. He believed the winery itself would be physically taken into the “Celestial Sphere” at the turn of the millemium. He also saw Fairies roaming in the vineyards.

Also see Fountaingrove Winery: Part 1. And click here for another photo of the winery.

The Fountaingrove Winery was established in 1875 in Sonoma County (California) by Thomas Lake Harris. Harris believed he was chosen by God to grow grapes and to make rare wine “filled with the divine breath.” He also believed himself to be immortal. The winery became home to the Brotherhood of the New Life, a “cult” that believed God is bisexual and that each person has a counterpart in heaven. Harris expected complete surrender from his disciples, including the surrender of all their their material wealth to him. He was eventually, perhaps predictably, forced to leave the winery after a sordid sexual scandal. When he died in 1906, his followers earnestly declared he was only “sleeping.” The winery closed in 1934. A fire destroyed about half of the remaining ruins in 1991. Today, the winery is mostly visited by local teens who like to get loaded and spray colorful graffiti.

Give me a severely dilapidated building, some broken bottles and cryptic graffiti, and I’m pretty much mentally and emotionally revitalized.
Quotation from Gabe Meline, The Fountaingrove Winery

Although the sun shone high and strong, I got a serious case of the heebie jeebies. I kept expecting to see ragged, misty faces looking at me through the cracked window panes. I love that feeling.
Quotation from Leilani Clark, Ghosts in Our Midst

The end of the world is getting nearer and nearer, hurling towards us at over 25,000 miles an hour. The current assumption is there is a 10% chance per century of a dangerous, life destroying space object striking the earth.

Apophis is small by asteroid standards, perhaps 300 meters across, but it could hit with about 60,000 times the force of the Hiroshima bomb– enough to destroy an area the size of France.
Quotation from The Atlantic, The Sky is Falling by Gregg Easterbrook

If Apophis is a RETROGRADE rotator on the small, less-massive end of what is possible, the measurement uncertainty region will get pushed back such that the center of the distribution encounters the Earth’s orbit. This would result in an impact probability much higher than computed with the Standard Dynamical Model.
Quotation from U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Near Earth Object Program, Predicting Apophis’ Earth Encounters in 2029 and 2036.

The risk of collisional cascading is called Kessler’s Syndrome. When U.S. and Russian satellites collided in space this week, more than 600 bits of debris joined 18,000 other objects orbiting our planet. These artifacts, including rockets, satellites, bolts, screws, pieces of titanium and paint flecks, travel faster a bullet. They pose a danger to other space vehicles, including the International Space Station. Kessler’s Syndrome describes a situation where each collision causes more debris which causes more collisions, until it is unsafe for anything to orbit the earth.

Houston, We Have a Trash Problem (Wired Magazine)
Lottie Williams of Tulsa, Oklahoma reported that she was struck on the shoulder by space debris (Center for Orbital and Reentry Debris Studies)

Space isn’t remote at all. It’s only an hour’s drive away if your car could go straight upwards.
Quotation from Sir Fred Hoyle