POSTED // Feb 3,2012 - If you go to California’s Yosemite National Park this month, you might get the chance to witness a reddish gold waterfall. Here’s how: At sunset, gaze up at the sheer east face of the rock formation known as El Capitan.

POSTED // Jan 27,2012 - Collectors prefer wild orchids, says William Langley, writing in the U.K.’s Telegraph. Orchids grown in nurseries, which comprise 99.5 percent of the total, are tarnished with “the stigma of perfection.”

POSTED // Jan 20,2012 - Here’s one of my favorite quotes from American philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson: “I hate quotations. Tell me what you think.”

POSTED // Jan 13,2012 - Last summer, before the football season started, sportswriter Eric Branch wrote about a rookie running back that San Francisco 49er fans were becoming increasingly excited about.

POSTED // Jan 6,2012 - Happiness isn’t a state you acquire by luck. It takes hard work and relentless concentration. You have to rise up and rebel against the nonstop flood of trivial chaos and meaningless events you’re invited to wallow in.

POSTED // Dec 30,2011 - When the new moniker finally became official, Metta World Peace sealed a radical shift away from his old way of doing things

POSTED // Dec 23,2011 - Suzan-Lori Parks is a celebrated American playwright who has won both a Pulitzer Prize and a MacArthur Foundation “Genius” Grant.

POSTED // Dec 16,2011 - The Amazon is the second longest river in the world, and has such a voluminous flow that it comprises 20 percent of all river water in the world. And yet there is not a single bridge that crosses it. I love that fact. It comforts and inspires me to know that humans have not conquered this natural wonder. Which leads me to my advice for you this week, Sagittarius. Please consider keeping the wild part of you wild. It’s certainly not at all crucial for you to civilize it.

POSTED // Dec 9,2011 - Harvey Ball was a commercial artist who dreamed up the iconic image of the smiley face. He whipped it out in 10 minutes one day in 1963.

POSTED // Dec 2,2011 - I don’t like to encourage anyone to focus their gambling urges on trivial matters like card games, sports events and lotteries.