I know that it’s cold up north, but today I was informed of a fascinating reason to live in Alaska – they’ll pay you! According to my trusty SF Chronicle, “Dividends are paid to every Alaskan who has lived in the state for a year. About 623,000 applications have been received this year.” The expected amount is about $1100 but won’t be officially announced until September 24th. Following an oil discovery in 1976, the Alaska Permanent Fund was started to allow all of the citizens to benefit from the farming of Alaskas natural resources. Growing up in Texas I don’t think I ever made a dime off of the oil leaving the state, but then again I never woke up at midnight and the sunlight was cascading over a giant polar bear thinking, “Mmm, snack!”

As a young science student, about 12 years old, I was informed of the life cycles of stars and that, yes, our sun was indeed a star. This spiraled out of control in my dreamlife to a point where I would wake up sweaty and fearful that the earth had just been engulfed by our sun during it’s swelling to the red giant phase of it’s life. Needless to say, my waking up proved the fact that the sun was still just a middle-size star. It took a little while longer, but I finally realized the timeline of the life cycle of a star and the probability of me or any of my genetically recognizable offspring being alive when this stellar event actually takes place billions of years into the future.

If you have ever had a similar fear of an asteroid hitting the earth or of a germ warfare conflict wiping out civilization, take a moment to read “We’re All Gonna Die” from Wired magazine. Maybe it will put that fear into perspective and your dreams can return to one of your many other vivid, enjoyable fantasies.

So, according to the WSJ, a small coffee at Starbucks is referred to as a tall cup and an extra-small is offered but called a short and is not on the menu boards because they needed room for the grande and venti and four sizes would, apparently, just be way too many.

I have lived in San Francisco for three years and still have not grown accustomed to the “non-fat double capp with extra foam” crowd. I’m sure the employees at the coffee shops have seen the cringe on my face when the person in front of me orders a “venti vanilla soy double latte with extra foam and whipped cream.” This isn’t a personal attack on the lifestyles of the complicated coffee connoisseur, but rather a reflection on growing up in the midwest.

My childhood consisted of one type of coffee with either sugar or cream added. Personally, I need the extra sugar to fight some of the bitter taste when I actually partake of coffe in loo of my regular Dr. Pepper fix. But it really was that simple in the past. I can even acquiesce and see the benefits of different types of milk and lattes and even the occasional cappucino. What I just sit back and laugh at is the complexity and sheer enormousness of the coffee-based big-gulps that the mass populus seems to crave today, to the point that the small cup doesn’t even make it onto the menu board.

Amazing. 40 percent of Americans iron while naked. It just seems dangerous to me.

I’ve always felt that “natatorium” was a complicated way of saying “building with a swimming pool.”

I will now be speciously enjoying the story line of the new movie Finding Nemo. I have been a huge fan of Pixar’s line of films and shorts, and will be seeing the newest addition to their feature film catalog soon, but I no longer am under the illusion that Nemo would survive in the real world.

SCORPIO October 23-November 21: You get a refresher course in what matters most. Something taken for granted won’t come easily. This pushes you to make more of talents.

I hate it when my horoscope doesn’t blatantly come true that day. I mean, it isn’t exactly specific, but shouldn’t I know at the end of the day what “refresher course” I took?

I spent an hour today comatose on the grass, guarded from the unusually warm sun by a large group of pine trees. It still amazes me after three years of working in San Francisco how a small square of green can calm and tranquilize the senses, even as the rest of civilization continues bustling onwards on every side of the oasis. The natural recharge just reset my body and mind and spirit in a much needed way and reminded me of the majesty of escape and necessity of nature in urban areas.

In new studies with light, “photonics crystal pioneer John Joannopoulos and his group at MIT” have found a way to change the frequency of light at will. While their thoughts on the potential uses involve “turning heat into light, for example, or prized terahertz rays,” I really have only one question: What does this mean for Pink Floyd Laser Light Shows?

Missed my ferry home tonight. By one minute. I didn’t want to wait the hour until the next boat, so I hopped across Market Street to catch the BART back home. The ride was a bit warm, you know the temperature when the AC is performing the A but not the C. Got to my destination station and sure enough the ticket is 30 cents short and I don’t have change. But wait, I’ve got another 60 cent ticket and with a little negotiating the BART gate agent lets me slide through. A short walk home and the evening can begin.

Sniff…sniff…Crap. That’s right. There was an inordinate amount of crap on the walk home. I was obviously on the dog crap path, a secretly marked route where it is allowed, hell, encouraged to let your dog’s business become every other pedestrian’s business.

Now I walk these sidewalks maybe once a month, just often enough to know it’s not the best part of town but that I will make it home safely if I don’t have a ride. Yet, never can I recall seeing any dog doo anywhere on the way home. Maybe it is just a newly instituted policy that I would know about if I had a dog. I don’t feel left out, more bewildered that suddenly (as far as I know) this is the place for the poop to pile up.

And piled it was, ending the work part of my day with a fragrant reminder of all the little things that didn’t quite fit together throughout the day. I’ll probably take the ferry next time.