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Showing posts from November, 2010

Of Cuivienen near a Blue Moon

Note: I am a J.R.R. Tolkien fan. This post refers to a lot of Tolkien that I make little attempt to explain. As such, at times it can be like a baseball fan reading the details of a cricket match. Sorry about that if it makes the post more difficult for you. There are plenty of links to get lost in if you want to explore any of it. Last Saturday, just after sunset on what turned out to be a bright open sky adorned with small tears of clouds in a reflected orange hue, I lit another camp fire in our newly designated fire pit behind our house. It burned warm and strong as the stars came out and what was close to a Blue Moon rose behind us. Vega and Deneb appeared in the darkening blue near the zenith. Jupiter had been shining for awhile. Jennifer and I sat by the fire. We talked and drank and watched the vista of fall color trees on the ridge to our west fading against a twilight glow. I had a beer. She had a Gentleman Jack . The fire peaked and died down after it got dark. I wanted to

Catching Jupiter Live

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Jupiter and some of its moons, roughly as viewable through my telescope at higher magnification (9mm) last night. This pic is part of a screenshot from my Starry Night software. Labels for the moons as given in Starry Night. Thebe was too faint for us to make out last night through my telescope. I have a 150mm Newtonian telescope made by Celestron that I haul out rather infrequently to check out various astronomical delights first hand. Last night I set it up for Jennifer's parents, my daughter and her boyfriend. It was the first time most of them had seen Jupiter and several of its moons live. My daughter and her boyfriend thought it was, just perhaps, cool. Jennifer and her parents showed a bit more interest. I have wandered through the night skies often since my teens. The thrill of seeing far away objects in our universe is something special to me (especially spotting them for the first time). I recall, for example, the first time I ever saw Jupiter's moons, many years ag

The Return of Memento and the Toys

Last weekend was a bit of a movie weekend at our home. My daughter watches a lot of movies with her friends through Netflex on the PS3. But, late Saturday afternoon she and her boyfriend found themselves acutely afflicted with boredomitus , boredom being the national epidemic of this country, apparently. I was telling them that I had just purchased Toy Story 3 on Blu-Ray, but Jennifer was off playing in a near-by tennis tournament so we were saving that one for a Sunday evening family viewing. I buy everything on Blu-Ray these days, as long as there is a “digital copy” packaged with the film. My PC doesn’t play Blu-Rays yet so I need a DVD copy for those repeat viewings that often drive my wife and child mad. Anyway, the conversation drifted toward the last pure DVD I bought – The Dark Knight . As long-time readers know, Christopher Nolan is my favorite contemporary film director. I was truly impressed with his last film, Inception , which I saw in IMAX this past summer. Anyway, the

Is the Tea Pot Empty?

In an historic turn of events, the Republicans surged in the 2010 mid-term elections as no party has since 1938 . Primary factors are attributable to general voter anger at the focus of the Obama Administration on expanding social welfare to a degree not seen since 1964 (a.k.a. Obamacare) while the country continues to feel the fearful effects of the Great Recession, particularly in the area of unemployment . (As a point of qualification, Bush's Medicare Part D entitlement costs have been (so far) larger than even Obamacare . To the tune of many trillions of dollars of public debt already committed into the foreseeable future . The fact is the Republicans are no less to blame for the entitlement binge than the Democrats.) The “ audacity of Hope ” seems to have had its chance as far as the voters are concerned. The politics of Fear seems to have decisively won the day . With the Democrats losing control of the House while maintaining only a slim margin in the Senate it is unlik

The way we were for Halloween

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We were there. Kinda. Jennifer and I drove into Atlanta for Diane and Brian’s Halloween Party. For various reasons they have not been able to throw their big party the last couple of years. This year the annual event was rebooted and had a nice vibe. Traditionally, their Halloween Party has been fun affair. They invite a ton of people. Very eclectic. Mostly non-‘Dillos, though the ‘Dillos were well represented. We’re talking kids from maybe age 6 or 7 on up to adults, almost everyone in costume or in some sort of special adornment. Brian is in a slow process of doing some major renovation to his house. This year he had ripped out the wall of his former sitting room and made it one big space the fireplace in the den and the entire kitchen in between. It really opens up some space with the new, vaulted ceiling design. It didn’t feel that crowded. He had plentiful, tasty Sweetwater beer in a standard size keg. There were probably around 60 people there by the time things started kicking