Blogroll

Jan. 10 – Thursday was the grand opening for the new Caterpillar Inc. west Spokane distribution center, not far from the Medical Lake exit.

The place is huge. The stat of the day was 15. The building (565,000 square feet) can house 15 football fields.

Oddly, the interior has contrasting color patterns. Black and yellow are the official Cat company colors. But the interior floor plans are festooned with green and yellow walkways.

Which are the colors of another heavy equipment manufacturer: John Deere.

Jan. 11 – As Idaho lawmakers head back to their districts for the weekend, some face perilous driving conditions across the state, bad enough that a few are deciding to spend the weekend in Boise. Meanwhile, enough snow has fallen around the state Capitol to allow construction of a stylish snowman with leafy arms, which is standing proudly on the Statehouse lawn near Eighth and Jefferson streets.

Jan. 11 – I have never heard of him, but his death feels profoundly sad:  Aaron Swartz, 26, who co-founded Reddit – a social news website – and was also an activist who fought to make online content free to the public, has hanged himself in his Brooklyn home.  

Swartz was to go on trial for allegedly stealing millions of journal articles from an electronic archive at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  Some legal experts believe that the charges were unfounded since MIT allows guests access to the documents – and Swartz was a guest.  

A tragic ending to a very bright young man’s life.

Jan. 8 – Re: Sharing a birthday with Elvis: Cynthia Langenheder used to think it was neat to have the same birthday as the late king of rock and roll.

But over the years, she started thinking more in terms of sharing the birthday with Stephen Hawking.