Once in a while a friend sends a photo that amazes me. Dave was practicing with his new camera, and managed to capture this cool image of googly-eyed puppies going crazy in the Wisconsin snow.

Dave, I’d say this picture proves that some pet-owners do look just like their pets! :)

thedude accompanied horsie-girl Kelly to her favorite weekend getaway. She had a great time with Tilly in spite of the muddy conditions, and thedude went a little nuts with his camera.

It’s day 11 of our trip now. We left our room at the Inle Princess and floated to this huge market where we did a bit of shopping and a lot of people-watching.

Were you there? Did you feel it? Did your Geekometer spike at 11? Mine did.

From Wikipedia:

On Friday, February 13, 2009 at exactly 23:31:30 (UTC), Unix time will equal ‘1234567890′. Parties and other celebrations are planned around the world among various technical subcultures, to celebrate 1234567890 day.

Find a party in your neighborhood.

We’ll be opening a special chardonnay after work. Happy 1234567890 day!

After the silk-weaving, we moved on to another labor-intensive activity – turning leaf springs into knife blades.

We’ve seen this sort of work before, but the way this team of men worked the hot steel was something to see. Here are a couple of videos.

This has to be one of the most labor-intensive jobs we saw while in Burma.

We saw a lot of meticulous work being performed by Burmese women, but these women had less to show for a full day’s work than most – a few yards of colored lotus silk thread.

Xenophon Therapeutic Riding was featured on a local news channel last night. This is the organization Kelly has been working with for a few years. They do wonderful work with children and horses. Watch the video now!

I enjoyed last weekend’s bug trek so much that we decided to do it again today. This time we brought along a few of our favorite people and, of course, my camera.

We found our ladybug friends again, but in smaller numbers. This time they had begun to swarm – behavior we didn’t see last weekend. They might be looking for moisture. They may need a little extra luck this year, as California is in the midst of what is shaping up to be the the worst drought on record. We didn’t let this news dampen our spirits though, and thoroughly enjoyed our hike. Hey, I think we should do this every week!

Everyone in this quiet village on Inle Lake seemed so friendly. I wish we could have stayed longer!