Have my mathematics blog on your Friends page? No, you don't. Have it on your RSS reader? No, of course not, we stopped using RSS because ... um ... we found we were too happy with life or something? I don't know. Anyway, here's what's run the past week there:
- Reading the Comics, February 6, 2016: Lottery Edition because remember that big lottery payout was a thing like a month or so ago? And the comics finally got around to it.
- Proportional Dice, a fun little puzzle.
- Reading the Comics, February 11, 2016: Apples And Pointing Things Out Edition in which Broom Hilda For Crying Out Loud challenges my ability to figure something out.
- Dice and Compass Games, a little grab-bag post.
Halloweekends Saturday, of course, we used to visit the Merry-Go-Round Museum in Sandusky. And now, you can too!

bunny_hugger gets a picture of the Merry-Go-Round Museum's own-carved holiday mount. This, their Saint Patrick's Day horse, was the raffle giveaway for New Year's. We didn't win. Or they didn't leave a message, anyway.

Some of the horses at the Merry-Go-Round Museum, plus a ticket window from Euclid Beach Park (Cleveland). In the far background you can see a ``roller coaster simulator'' that's just a fixed chair with a small screen showing a Magnum XL 200 ride video.

Did you know my camera has a tilt-shift ``miniaturization effect'' feature? My camera has a tilt-shift ``miniaturization effect'' feature. Here I use it on the Merry-Go-Round Museum's antique carousel, with a focus on the family of sea-serpents they've carved for it.

A bucking horse and a cow, exhibits at the Merry-Go-Round Museum. The cow is from a European carver, and it's been left unrestored to give some better idea of what stuff looks like when it comes to them. I don't believe this is the mount that was found abandoned in a barn and used some for bow-and-arrow practice as a target, but they do have one there.

``They want a giraffe?'' said the carver, sometime in 1920. ``What the dickety-heck is a giraffe? Gimme the dictionary ... uhm ... `giraffe. African animal. Another name for cameleopard'. OK. I can do a camel leopard. No, I'm not gonna waste time taking a trip to the zoo. I gotta start carving!''
Trivia: The Viking Mars Landers were, before separation from the orbiter, given an initial computer load with instructions for a complete, basic, sixty-day mission even if no further instructions were received from Earth. Source: On Mars: Exploration of the Red Planet 1958 - 1978, Edward Clinton Ezell, Linda Neuman Ezell. NASA SP-4212.
Currently Reading: Spies And Shuttles: NASA's Secret Relationships with the DoD and CIA, James E David.