That pic is gorgeous, Hec.

Holy shit, that's a beautiful picture of the Northern Lights.

Yes! And it's now my desktop background.

From your list, I have seen ball lightning. It was freaky as hell. I was a teenager, and my mom and I were in the kitchen doing dishes, and there was a storm coming - visible on the horizon but not upon us yet. Suddenly there was a sharp cracking sound, almost like ice breaking; we both turned and looked up, and there was a ball of fire between us and the ceiling. It dashed about halfway across the kitchen and disappeared silently. It took no more than a couple seconds; we barely had time to react before it was gone. We had no idea what it was; it wasn't until years later that I learned about ball lightning - and that some learned folk think it doesn't exist. Uh-huh.

Northern Lights

When I was at Camp Wilderness Boy Scout camp one summer, I signed up to get my Astronomy merit badge. We gathered about 11 pm every night after forcing ourselves to sleep after supper.

As we were looking at the stars, pointing out the constellations, etc., a strange glow started to suffuse the sky. At first we assumed our eyes were becoming accustomed to the near total darkness with all of the camp lights out where we were. Probably a far city. Then it started getting bigger, and ribboning, and then there were flashes of color, and it covered at least 40% of the sky.

My Astronomy instructor told us to take a good look, as we might not see something like this for fifty years.

I'm looking forward to it....

poor Aims & Em. {{{{ }}}}. Take care of yourselves.

Thanks, WS!

From your list, I have seen ball lightning.

Whoa!

My Astronomy instructor told us to take a good look, as we might not see something like this for fifty years.

Cool beans.

"Because you took my hammer, and now I own you."

::hearts billytea::

Poor Aims and Em. Feel better ~ma to both of you.

We just got done playing two rousing rounds of a card game called Guillotine. Loads of fun and I was shocked when I wound up winning round two after I was hammered early in the game.

Poor Aims and Em, indeedo. {{}} and prontohealth!~ma to the both of you.

I sure would like a robot for the dishes and vacuuming. Wouldn't care if it was male or female either.

Not sure why the robot has to have gender. Humans shouldn't channel their complexes to the robots, haven't we learn anything from Star Trek? It would be suffice, IMHO, if said robot would wear a purple feather on its head and a tiny black bow tie, replying "Yes, Master" in Marvin's/Jeeves' voice. IJS.

Thanks for the snow pictures, everyone! It filled my tending-to-be-petty-and-moody-from-lack-of-sleep heart with joy. Vortex, seeing yours was like stepping into another magical world, which I never imagined can exist.

And speaking of which, Hec, good list. Since I'll prolly visit Buffistas during the winter, I think it's only right that I'll go a little bit norther to see the Northern Lights. And it's just like when I understood that I can see a rain forest, for the first time, when I went to the U.S. the first time: I was hopping, with joy, and kept telling people: "I never ever thought I'll see a rain forest! Wheee!". Of course, didn't really end up there, but I tried.

As for St. Elmo's Fire - suddenly, some description of the "Greek Fire" of the Middle Ages battles starts to make sense...

Now, shower time. Let's see if it'll make me to reconcile with the freaking fact that I should be up, and working, and studying. Meh! I'm gonna need so much cuteness in distractions to deliver me through this day.

A fountain of lava.

Ahhh, natural world. You are so freaky and beautiful.

I saw the Northern Lights in Ann Arbor. Weird freaky greenness in the sky!