On A Cold Winter's Night...

OK, technically Winter hadn't started yet... but it sure felt that way. Winter was less the 24 hours away. And for the first time in 372 years the Cold Moon occurred on the Winter Solstice, passing through the earth's shadow for a total lunar eclipse.

Normally, a December night in Florida would be clear and mild. This year, we had a cold front pass by just two days ago. After 3 days of overcast, an unusual event in Florida when not associated with a tropical system, Monday turned clear and cold... for us. Monday night was going to be even colder.



When I was in college I had an attachment for my old Pentax K1000 that let me mount it on my old refractor telescope. I can remember sitting in the doorway of the garage in Massachusetts trying to stay out of the wind so the telescope would stay steady. It was winter then, too. Back then I only had 36 odd chances to get it right, and I didn't know if I did until about a week later, when my film came back from the developer. I got one shot right that year. I still have it.


A few years ago I bought an attachment for my new telescope, so that I could shoot pictures through it with my new camera, a Pentax K10D. A new generation of Pentax. Much to my chagrin, the attachment did not work all that well. My first try went fairly unsuccessfully as I tried to focus the camera through the telescope. Mounting the camera where the lens goes results in too long a focus, and as a result I have to disassemble most of the eyepiece holder just to get a configuration that will let me focus the light on the camera's image plane. The mount it self is only a tube. With no aperture controls, so I only have the shutter speed to control the amount of light.

Earlier in the week, I got the telescope out and started playing with the configuration. I wanted to see if I had missed something in the dark the last time I tried to shoot through it. I set up the scope in the living room and shot down the street. Once I figured out what I was doing, I took it out into the front yard. I had it working well enough that I felt I could at least try, provided the weather cooperated. At the time I wasn't sure it would. But Monday dawned clear and cold. The weather was going to be perfect. The only problem now... the eclipse didn't start until 1:30 am. If I did this, it was going to be a long night.

At about 9:00 that night I decided this was an opportunity I shouldn't miss. I got the scope out and set about configuring it. Then took it out got a few test shoots. The moon was full and bright. The show hadn't started yet. My plan was to set the scope up and leave it in the garage. The space right outside the side garage door was going to be perfect. By the time the eclipse started, the moon would be right over head, in the gap between the trees. I just had to remember to stay quiet as that put me literally three feet off my neighbor's bedroom window. I moved everything into the garage, the camera, the camera charger, and computer. I wanted to check pictures and things progressed. Then I locked everything up, and went to bed.

When the alarm went off an hour and a half later, it was already cold in the house. Edward was still sleeping, so I got up and headed out. By the time I got outside, the show had started. The moon was just entering the umbral shadow. The dragon had taken it's first bite. We were on our way.

It's easy to focus on the moon when it's big and bright. So I took lots of pictures, bracketing the shot solely by the shutter speed, so that I got the right exposure. Then I took the camera inside to look at what I got.

"Inside" was a relative term. The computer was set up in the garage on the work bench, only minimally warmer then out by the telescope. I could bring the camera in, download the pictures and have a look. I couldn't do that 30+ years ago. I knew right away I was getting good shots. I was psyched. I'd take 10 or 12 pictures, take the camera in, look at them, pick the best and post it to Flickr. Then post the link to Facebook. Then back out to the waiting telescope for more pictures.

As the moon got closer and closer to totality, my shutter speed got slower and slower. With the promise of an orange moon, it was going to get pretty slow. The good news was, there was no wind that night to shake the telescope, or feel even colder to me.

My telescope has a polar mount. That means you set it up with one axis parallel to the north star and you can track objects in the field of view with just one knob. Unfortunately, that knob is relatively close to the focus knob and just as the moon reached it's dimmest, I grabbed the wrong knob, and lost focus. That meant I spent the next hour of totality trying to find the right focus. I got close, but I don't think I got one that was really crisp. Chalk it up to a learning experience. Next time, get it focused, then tape down the knob so you can't mess it up.

I got Edward up at 3:00 am, right before the peak of the eclipse. He came out to join me for about an hour. The moon didn't pass through the very heart of the earth shadow, so there was a brighter side that seemed to rotate around the limb of the moon. Slowly at about ten minutes to 4:00 the moon began to peak out from the umbral shadow. Totality was over. The good news was I had something to focus on again.











I watched the end of the eclipse posting pictures as it continued. That's when I discovered just how many other people I know were also up watching the eclipse. Some across town, some across the country, a few on the other side of the world. Some I knew were going to be watching, others I didn't. As it turns out, a friend in Seattle couldn't see the show due to cloudy skies. So instead, he watched through me, and the pictures I posted. Then he posted my Flickr link for others of his friends to see.

I finally wrapped things up at about 5:20 am. The moon had slipped out of the umbral shadow, and only the keenest eyes could tell that the eclipse itself wasn't over. All the friends I'd seen on Facebook had fallen silent, probably smarter then I, having already headed off to bed. As for me, the cold finally caught up. It was around 43F and I'd been standing outside for the last 4 hours in my sneakers. I probably should have put on warmer shoes. It took until about 11:00 the next morning for me to finally feel like I'd shaken off the cold.


Was it worth it? Oh yeah. Got some great pictures, enjoyed posting them for others, and got to see an event that won't happen again until 2094. Sure there will be other total eclipses, and plenty more winter solstices. But not at the same time, at least in my lifetime. I'd do it again, too. Because to tell the truth, I didn't feel cold until toward the very end. I was too excited about watching the eclipse on our special holiday, the Winter Solstice, when a cold, dark winter's night marks the start of world's slow march toward warmth and light again.

Composite image:

Maintenance...

Drove the Jeep to work yesterday. That's cause I dropped the Rav4 off at the mechanic on the way home the night before. There'd been a soft thump, thump, thump coming from one back tire for a little while and I figured I better stop ignoring it. Their first thought was that it was either the tires going bad, or the wheel bearings needed to be replaced. After the mechanic heard the noise, he thought it might be the bearings, but needed to get it up on the lift and inspect the bearings and the tire itself. Since there wasn't a lift free it would be the next morning before they get a chance to look at it. Diagnosis: Bad tires, but only the two back ones. So we had them put two new tires on the the Rav, up front, and move the older front tires to the back. It's a front wheel drive. The good news is it wasn't the bearings.

While they had it, I had them change the oil and the air filter, and they said the power steering fluid was dirty, so they changed that, too. Other then that, they didn't find any problems. For an 8.5 yr old car (and a Toyota, no less, considering all the recent recalls) that's pretty darn good.

There was one other thing. The Rav came equipped with two cigarette lighter plugs. One traditional "cigarette lighter" plug in the dash and one "12V/120W" plug in the center console. I don't use either one very much. Which explains why I never tried to use the second plug until about a month after the warrantee ran out. That's when I noticed that it didn't work.

Being that the car hasn't need much work, it wasn't until yesterday that Edward reminded me to ask the guys at the shop to take a look at the plug in the console while they had it, but if it was going to be expensive not to bother. They took a quick look and said that they could see the bottom of the plug and it wasn't connected to anything. Someone at the factory forgot to connect that plug, most likely. I told them it was only worth about $40 (an hour's labor) to see if they could fix it, which meant they were taking apart the center console. He thought they could do that, and I said go for it.

When I picked up the car I had two new tires, a new air filter, clean oil and clean power steering fluid... and for the first time since I bought the car... a second working cigarette lighter plug. Now I can plug in both the Ipod and the Iphone if I want to. Sad to think it only took 8.5 years to get it fixed.

Sanderlings

You've all seen them. The small gray and white shore birds that flit and skitter along the beach in front of you as you walk along the waves. They're cute, quick...

...and tough to photograph.

You either end up focused on the sand behind them...
or catching them as they leave....
But while we were in Englewood this week, I managed to get a few good ones.

As well as the single birds, and a few pairs, there were several flocks of them along the shore. They would dash back and forth with the waves, searching for whatever tasty morsel they could find in the swash.









If we got too close, they would dash past between us and the waves..
Then go back to searching for that elusive meal...
And if you hang around long enough, you might even catch them resting on the beach...
catching a little shut eye....


while one of them keeps watch for beach combers.

Survivor....

My survivor's pendant.

For Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Edward and I have decided to publish his writing from the time when I was undergoing treatment "The Chronicles of Karen: You Are Always the Hero of Your Own Story" is a combination of updates to family and friends and Edward's exercise in creative writing about what we were going through. The "adventures" portion of the posting is all of the treatments and trails, re-imagined in a fantasy setting. They helped me get through treatment. All the messages, save the Introduction, were written in 2007.

To read the Chronicles please visit the Blog:
The Chronicles of Karen: Tales of a Breast Cancer Survivor
the-chronicles-of-karen.blogspot.com/

Gator Aid...

Yeah, that's an alligator... sitting in the middle of the road in front of the house. He's fine, just out for walkies.

Edward and I were sitting in the front room the other day when we both looked up to see an alligator nonchalantly walking across the front yard. Yes, the front yard. He was about 2.0-2.5 feet long. He must have decided to go for a stroll from the ditch in the back.


Now what? Edward ran to get his shoes on, and I went to get my camera. Someone has a little bit skewed priorities here, but we won't mention her name. We had to do something to get this guy back into the park before someone got hurt.



He bolted toward the street when I opened the front door. Doh. Didn't think about that, the noise spooked him. Believe people when they say that gators can move quick. This one sure did. Then he decided he would lay down and hide... in the middle of the street. I walked around him to the far side. He watched me the whole way. I was hoping that if he spooked again at least he would run toward the park. We didn't want to have to call animal control. They would have taken him away. We just wanted to see him back where he belonged.

I stood in the street ready to block traffic, should there be any, in my socks. Like I said, maybe I wasn't the brightest one here. Edward came out with his shoes on, and two brooms.


We, rather Edward, started herding him back towards the house. He, the gator, wasn't to keen on that idea and hissed the whole way. He wasn't about to be rushed. In fact, he acted like he wasn't going to do anything he, or she(?), didn't want to do. More then once he hunkered down, trying to get an angle on the brooms from which he could defend himself. Once he did get a hold of one of the brooms. Better that then an ankle, or an arm.









Eventually Edward got him to go under the back fence and off toward the ditch. We didn't open the gate, but watched him saunter down the top of the ditch and eventually down the side out of sight, as if he owned the place.



Perhaps he did, who were we to tell him otherwise.

DragonCon 2010: Out of Context

"I can not English today."

Even the best of us stumble every once and a while. This quote was from a linguist giving a talk on how to develop your own language when writing a novel or screenplay. He was having trouble with his native language... He explained the principles behind the International Phonetic Alphabet, a universal phonetic spelling symbology seen commonly in Wikipedia these days. He showed how using those simple (?) rules, you can learn to pronounce anything in any language, whether it was Japanese, Elvish, Korean, Na'vi, Tanzanian, Klingon... or English. It was a fascinating talk about how languages are constructed, starting from the basic building blocks of a language, the sounds and how they are made with your mouth, to putting those sounds together to make words, phrases and grammar. He used real world examples as well as fictional examples from our favorite movies and novels. A "conlang", or constructed language, also has to have a context, a logical reason for existing, that will make your language, and your story, come alive. With out that context, you'll simply have a bunch of nonsensical sounds and phrases that will make it difficult for anyone to learn your language.

That said, some of us still have trouble. Perhaps more of the convention attendees should have sat in on that talk...


"I can't wait to take off these f*in shoes and put on my combat boots."

"Ooo... I have ice boobies..."

"When he's in his Manties, he's unreliable."

"Midgets are my worst enemy. I trip over those things."

"Brown people should not go window shopping at gun shops in Tennessee, no matter how road weary."

"She was acting like a prepubescent 48-year-old."

"Did you see her in that muffin-top corset?"

"Important safety tip: Don't ride-share in the car carrying the magic brownies."

"The monsters in my sketches always come out preciously horrible. They make you want to give them tea and cookies."

"With a skirt that short, yeah, all they are looking at is your hair."

"If you don't know how something is going to work, call it nano-material"

"How do you disperse a crowd? Naked fat guys."

"When you clone a whole army from one guy, you should at least pick one that can hit the target."

"Smart bullets. The problem is eventually they start arguing with you."

"That's the biggest damned yoda I've ever seen. MegaYoda."

"He's like an SUV waiting for a rollover."

"It was an MC Escher, Chthulhu-style dungeon."

"Hello, Master. I have something I need to tell you." (at the very pregnant, I Dream of Jeannie).

"Aren't you a little short to be a stormtrooper?" "I get that a LOT." (at the very cute, female stormtrooper with her helmet off).

"If I were a Tylenol or an Advil in this hotel, where would I be?"

"What's the difference between science and science fiction? Timing." - Lamar Anderson


Timing is everything......

Problem Solving....

I was up until 12:30 last night. Edward and I were trying to figure out if something in the front room was causing our lights to flicker. It had gotten so bad that Edward's UPS was shutting down his computer to project it. We were getting drop outs in power and had lights dimming or flashing off and on. It would do this for 10 minutes or so then quit. Then start again. We'd had the power company out twice and they said the power was clean coming into the house.

We figured out what was going on this morning by accident. We started by changing out some sockets around house, thinking they might be shorting out. The first was outside by AC unit. It looked a little rusted and not sealed, so we bought a new cover for it and installed that. While we were doing that we noticed the power line from the house to the outside part of the AC was cracked and rusted. Aha! We thought, we've found our problem. So we called an electrician to come out and replace the line. Oh, and while he was out here, could he see if he could track down why the lights were flickering.

He got out here late morning and started with the junction box in the garage to see if he could figure out why the lights were flickering. He put his hand on the breakers... "Nothing's warm". The house was built in 1979, so it had an old junction box. It doesn't have a single main breakers that will shut down the whole house. That wasn't required by code in 1979. There are five big breakers that need to be thrown to bring the whole house down. One for the AC, one for the range. Those and two others are for 220V. The one labeled "main lighting" will take down all the 110V in the house. Below that there are more breakers that will take down regions in the house. He poked and tested for a few minutes, then ZZziiitt! "Well, we're making progress." He said cheerfully. Edward and I just started laughing. He worked the main lighting breaker out of the box. Yup, there was the problem. One of the contacts on the breaker looked scored and pitted. Not good. That would explain why all the lights in the house would flicker at the same time. Luckily for us, there was a spare breaker of the size he needed right there in the box. So he switched out the breakers, and reconnected everything. Then he disabled the bad one and stuck it back in the place the spare had been, so that there weren't any live contacts exposed, and closed up the box. The lights haven't flickered since.

Next he fixed the power line to the AC. Turns out that was fine and would have been so for quite a while. The outer casing was cracked but there was steel under that what wasn't even close to leaking. The wires themselves were fine. He replaced the casing, threading the same wires through the new casing and reconnected it to the AC.

The lights have been solid ever since. What a relief. Electricity makes me nervous. Electricians scare me. They have a reputation for using you to "make their next boat payment". This guy was nice. He didn't try to sell us a new junction box, or anything else. Our office uses this company to do work in the building, so I had a recommendation form the office operations manager before I called him. It'll be about $200, maybe a little more. He left saying they'd send us a bill. We're glad its done. Both of us were worried about the AC getting damaged, or the microwave, the TV, the stereo, never mind that we were afraid it would start a fire if we couldn't find it. Turns out that what we called them out for wasn't what was causing the lights to flicker at all. I guess that's the way it works sometimes, the problem that wasn't a problem, gets the problem solved...