I feel so clever

 That tree I saw at UC Irvine and UCLA and Cal Tec has been driving me crazy, so tonight I did a google search and came up with the Silk Cotton Tree, or Kapok tree.  The seed pod explodes into a ball of silk like fluff that contains the actual seeds.  It has spikes on the branches and can grow really large.

I don't remember what we did before we had the internet.  I guess we used to have to use the encyclopedia set and pour over all the books in the set.  It took way longer to find any information.  Not that I will ever do anything with my new found information, but at least I can sleep peacefully knowing that I've learned something new.

My youngest son loves to watch Youtube videos.  I'm making him watch some educational ones while he is on vacation.  If you haven't discovered Crash Course yet, and you have kids, you should tell them about it.  They are brothers, one does science stuff and one does history stuff.  I like the science brother better, but then I am a science teacher.  He talks really fast (hence the crash course name) and covers the material really well.

It's a great way to study material for a test.  The other one I was having him watch was Khan Academy.  The guy (Khan) is a dad who made videos for his son.  He's really smart and the videos started out as mostly math related, but I think there are lots of subjects.