some cats like swimming

Check out a large male white Bengal tiger called Odin.

Most cats do not like getting wet – as anyone who has tried to bathe a moggie will know. …

Six years old, and at the prime of his life, Odin lives at the Six Flags Discovery Kingdom Zoo in Vallejo, near San Francisco. He is about 10ft long from nose to tail, and is an excellent swimmer.

The BIG cat who likes getting wet and wild | the Daily Mail

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HUGE panorama photos from Peru

George spent many hours “sewing” together photos from our 2005 travels in Peru into big panoramas.

Software is getting better. But it still takes time to manually “correct” the seams.

Here’s a low resolution version 500 pixels wide at Machu Picchu. (Note I’m wearing an MEC check fleece top.)

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The original high resolution panorama is 1881 pixels wide!

See all of George’s Peru panoramas here.

Yahoo Photos OUT – Flickr IN

Yahoo! is doing something brave. And smart.

They are shutting down Yahoo Photos, the biggest host on the web with 2 billion pics. It’s crappy.

The service will be shut down in favor of the newer and more social Flickr, which they acquired in March of 2005. …

Yahoo is not forcing transition to Flickr – instead, users are being given the option of choosing among a number of top photo sharing sites.

If you are a current Yahoo! Photos user, you will be given the option to export all your photos into Flickr (a one-click process) or you will be able to export to a few other services such as Photobucket, Snapfish, Kodak Gallery or Shutterfly. …

Breaking: Yahoo To Shut Down Yahoo Photos In Favor Of Flickr

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source – where else?

World’s Strangest Vehicles

Another great photo series by Dark Roasted Blend includes a couple of carbogganing rides. (Disclosure: I invented the sport of carbogganing.)

Does this one need a push start?

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Dark Roasted Blend: The World’s Strangest Vehicles

what is a Navigation Marathon?

Warren and Bill did something called a Navigation Marathon:

Saskatchewan Orienteering Association
Navigation Marathon and Dundurn Rogaine
21 and 22 April 2007
Dundurn Military Training Area

Warren wrote:

For the most part, my contribution was to successfully slow Bill down to a walking pace. …

We made two expensive mistakes the first day which cost us almost an hour, and we ended up being half an hour late. This lost us 60 points. The toll on our bodies was more significant as we struggled to minimize the loss. Bill’s blisters made it obvious that he hadn’t quite broken in his shoes. We did however manage to find all markers that we attempted.

Bill shined at night. I also shined, but it was because I had a bike headlight which was able to light up the reflective markers from a long ways away! Once again, we set moderate goals, and found all markers which we attempted. …

We were good on the final day too, again, hitting all markers which we could. The final 2 kilometers AFTER the finish line were really tough, trudging along the road. The meal and awards were well worth hanging around for. …

Dundurn Navigation Marathon 2007 – a photoset on Flickr

Pretty good considering how OLD they are.

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original

protect hardwood floor with tennis balls

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100_7549.JPG, originally uploaded by Rick McCharles.

Weary of re-gluing tiny felt pads on the bottom of chair legs, the Masons finally resorted to tennis balls.

This works perfectly.