A painting of ocean waves in the open sea

When I downloaded this, I thought it was a photo picture of ocean waves, but it turned out to be an art oil painting on a 31.89 in by 39.37 canvas:

The Spanish artist's name is Carmen Alonso, I can't find out any other informations about him (or her). As I was impressed by the scenery of large waves and thinking it was real, now knowing it's a painting, I can't help wandering whether or not the scenery is or can be real. It's waves from many different directions come together at an instant.  I guess I can not point out any specific indications to say that was not real, we can only terribly impressed with the artist's talents, skill, and vivid imagination. At the bottom of the painting there's a long patch of white foam.  Could it be the aftermath of a breaking freaque wave? Well I am imagining.  If a freaque wave occurred out there in the middle of the vast ocean, no one is out there to witness it, hence it had never happened!  Really?

August 21, 2013 Full moon, another blue moon.

Here's the full moon last night which is the 7th lunar month full moon this year as seen from Southeast Michigan. 

As this is the 3rd full moon of a 4 full moon summer season, by one definition the full moon last night is also a blue moon.  I was a little puzzled at first because this one was the only full moon of the month, how can that be a blue moon?  Well what I didn't know is that there are different definitions of blue moon. 

Anyway "once in a blue moon", we just had another one, so it goes!

Santa a surfer?

Now this is something to behold -- a surfing Santa!

May be I am just being ignorant, I have never seen or thought of a connection between winter Christmas Santa and summer surfing.  This picture was copied from Drudge Report with its headline "Desperate Retailers Start Xmas Sales in August" referencing to this CNBC article. Is Santa s surfer? Well, why not?

Seiche global scale!

According to Wikipedia:

A seiche (/ˈseɪʃ/ SAYSH) is a standing wave in an enclosed or partially enclosed body of water. Seiches and seiche-related phenomena have been observed on lakes, reservoirs, swimming pools, bays, harbors and seas. The key requirement for formation of a seiche is that the body of water be at least partially bounded, allowing the formation of the standing wave.

The term was promoted by the Swiss hydrologist François-Alphonse Forel in 1890, who was the first to make scientific observations of the effect in Lake Geneva, Switzerland.[1] The word originates in a Swiss French dialect word that means "to sway back and forth", which had apparently long been used in the region to describe oscillations in alpine lakes.

People in the North America Great Lakes area, especially Lake Erie, generally familiar with seiche motion between Buffalo, New York and Toledo, Ohio after high northeast winds along Lake Erie main axis. It os interest to note Seiche can also be global between Japan and Norway fjord after the 2011 earthquake as reported in this UK Daily Mail article with an interesting long title: "How 2011 Japanese earthquake created freak 5 ft waves that terrified locals on the other side of the world -- in Norway," The report is based on the Live Science article written by Becky Oskin: Norway's Weird Waves Traced to Japan Earthquake. The remarkable research was done by Stein Bondevik, a geologist at Sogn og Fjordane University College in Sogndal, Norway and his team. The findings were published July 3 in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.  Here's what happened that inspired the study according the the Live science article:

The roiling seas surprised and shocked Norwegians when the waves rolled in after 7 a.m. local time on March 11, said lead study author Stein Bondevik, a geologist at Sogn og Fjordane University College in Sogndal, Norway. The waves measured nearly 5 feet (1.5 meters) from trough to crest (their lowest to highest point). No damage was reported, however. "Luckily, they happened at low tide," Bondevik said.

Yes, luckily, indeed, as compared to what had happened in Japan.

A moonset picture

Here's an interesting picture provided by NASA -- the moonset of a new moon.  It is certainly not easy for an aim-and-shoot everyday camera to do.  This one was taken last night over Taiwan.

Here's the explanation NASA provided to accompany the picture:

Explanation: It took three worlds to create this simple image. The first world was the Earth, which was quite prominent. The dividing line running horizontally below the middle separates sea from sky. On this part of the Earth, it was almost nighttime. The second world was the Moon, which was almost invisible. The Moon had its unilluminated half masked by the red sunset glow of Earth's sky. A thin sliver of the new Moon was visible, a crescent that traces the bright curving line. The third world was the Sun, which does not appear directly. All of the light recorded in the image originated from the Sun. The above half-second exposure was taken last week from Anping, Taiwan. A few minutes after this image was taken the Earth had spun just a little bit further -- forcing theMoon to follow the Sun into the sea -- and the horizon to become dark.

Anyway clearly the ocean was rather calm at the moonset time. Or may be the ocean surface was too far away to see minutes before the sun rises for the new day!

Marriage proposal made amidsts costal ocean waves

There's always some new imaginative ways of making marriage proposal memorable. This one related to ocean waves naturally caught my attention. Here's the start of the story:

On November 21st, 2012, Matthew Hartman attempted to pull off an epic marriage proposal that his girlfriend would talk about for the rest of their lives. He led her to a large rock surrounded by ocean waters at Laguna Beach, California, and then sang her a song that he wrote for the occasion. Then he got down on one knee to pop the question. Or, at least that was the plan.

A large ocean wave had other plans for the couple. At just the wrong time, it decided to crash the party and sweep the girl off her feet before Hartman could. . . . 

The article, written by Michael Zhang on March 10 this year, consisted a video and a series of picture recorded this memorable event, took place at Laguna Beach, California and planned by the future groom Matthew Hartman and his photographer friend Jonathan Hwang. Here's what had happened according to Hwang:

On the day of the event, I arrived just as his friends were laying down a path of candles out to the rock that Matt was planning to stand on. That idea was quickly swept away as an enormous wave engulfed both the candles and the friend who was laying them down. Having witnessed that scene, everyone began to panic and we almost decided to have the proposal on the beach instead of out on the rocks. I tried my best to reassure everybody, telling them, “What are the chances of it happening during the actual proposal?”

However, I was secretly hoping that the odds would be on my side and that they would get swallowed by a wave. After all, that was the shot I had dreamed about. Little did I know that I would get my chance right as the ring makes its first appearance. Looking back, it probably was not the wisest thing to put the two in potential danger, and thankfully nobody was hurt.

The last comment "nobody was hurt" is certainly the best and thankful part of the whole story.  No one can guarantee this but they just happened.  Hwang's concluding comment tells it all:

In the end, it might not have been the most thought out proposal, nor was it safe by any means, but the results from that day turned out to be both spectacular and breathtaking–literally!

So that's the way it was happened -- a nice story book like story. Hope their future life together will be just as happy and successful as this drama of making very special memorable marriage proposal turned out to be!