All Around the World

This is a picture of the Las Guacamayas Biological Field Station in Peten, Guatemala. It is part of the Mayan Biosphere Reserve and the most technically advanced facility on the Reserve.  There are eight buildings which house different research areas. The station is open to students from high school to graduate school and professors give lectures that are open to the local community.

I thought this was pretty cool. This is the Jieta Grotto in Lebanon. It's made up of two limestone caves and they're about five and a half miles long. Abandoned since prehistoric times, the lower cave in the grotto was rediscovered in 1836. It has one of the biggest stalactites in the world and has really remarkable rock formations.

Obviously, this is the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. Volcano eruptions over the years have given the area a distinct ecosystem.  Besides, it looks really cool.

http://www.nps.gov/havo/index.htm

Now for the animals. 

 I've always loved lions. I think it might have something to do with my childhood obsession with the Lion King. :)

Maps, Maps, and More Maps

 

So, I have absolutely no clue what beef cattle emissions are but here's a chloropleth map for the rates in 1992 in North Carolina. The key is pretty detailed and its overall a pretty easy map to interpret.

Yes, this map is about lynchings but it is a pretty good proportional symbol map. It has information about the person who made it and when it was made, the key is simple and easy to read, and the title tells you what the map is about.

When I was a kid, my mom and I moved around a lot. The longest place we lived was here on Running Deer Way. Yeah, all the names of the streets in the development were kind of funky like that. Anyway, the red pushpin represents my house. The blue path leads to the shopping center. It didn't have much there but a grocery store and couple of little restaurants but my friends and I used to bike there. The light blue represents the pool and basketball courts and the purple is the playground. The green block is the field right in front of my house where we used to play kickball and hang out.