Because Mondays are…still Mondays.
Even when it really doesn’t feel like Saturdays and Sundays are a real weekend or time off from the stresses of Mondays through Fridays.
Even when you need to check your watch or your phone or your computer to even figure out what day of the week it is.
So, “happy Monday!”
Have a red, RED rose to take your mind off of it.
Filed under Flowers, Photography
Tonight’s layers of clouds didn’t “partially obscure the conjunction of the crescent moon and Venus.” Nah!
Such negativity! “Obscure” is such a judgmental term!
Nah, let’s say that they added color and character!
“Character!” Yeah, that’s it!
It was a group effort tonight! Clouds, moon, Venus!
Filed under Astronomy, Photography, Space, Weather
For the next few days, the moon will be gorgeous and getting closer to Venus and then moving past it. If you didn’t see it tonight, look tomorrow, or Monday, or Tuesday…
Even early after sunset, way before it’s dark, you’ll spot the moon in the blue sky. It’s almost ludicrous how bright Venus is as well. I spotted it in the blue sky just a few minutes after sunset, when it was till plenty bright enough to read outside.
Tomorrow the moon will be a little more illuminated and will appear closer to where Venus is.
As it gets darker you’ll see other stars coming out. Just off to the left in this view is Orion, and just a bit higher than Venus you’ll see Castor and Pollux in the constellation Gemini.
To the left of the moon (on the left side of that palm tree) is Aldebaran. Once it gets a little bit more dark, you should be able to easily spot the Pleiades. (Remember?)
Filed under Astronomy, Photography, Space
Thirty years ago today the space shuttle Discovery launched with the Hubble Space Telescope onboard. It was placed into low Earth orbit the next day. Despite the problems that were discovered when the first pictures came down, Hubble became an astonishing success. Not only has it given us over 1,400,000 observations which have revolutionized astronomy, the crewed space shuttle missions to repair and later repeatedly upgrade the instruments on Hubble have been a truly amazing example of what a trained crew can accomplish in space.
In honor of that 30-year anniversary, NASA, ESA, and STSci have released this image of “the Cosmic Reef.” In it we see NGC 2020 (the large, red nebula) and NGC 2014 (the smaller, blue nebula).
(Image from NASA, ESA, and STSci)
These star-forming regions are part of the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of ours that is 163,000 light years away.
In addition, a video about the image has been released by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.
This means a lot to me, for so many reasons. Among them is the fact that for the 25th anniversary of Hubble’s launch, I attended my fifth NASA Social, this one in Washington, D.C. For that event, NASA released this image of Westerlund 2.
(NASA, ESA, the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA), A. Nota (ESA/STScI), and the Westerlund 2 Science Team)
(Here, here, here, here, here, here, and here are my posts from that NASA Social – other posts from around that time show pictures from my amazing sightseeing expeditions around Washington.)
When this picture was first revealed to the world, it was displayed on a huge video screen right over my head in the lobby of the Newseum,
I was sitting in the second row, behind three astronauts, one of whom was the head of NASA at the time.
(Astronaut and NASA Administrator Charles Bolden was seated in front of me – he was a crew member on STS-31 which launched Hubble thirty years ago. Loren Shriver was seated at right – he commanded STS-31. Scott Altman is the one on the left who was walking toward us – he was the mission commander for STS-109 and STS-125, the fourth and fifth Hubble servicing missions.)
That afternoon was spent at Goddard where, among other über cool activities, I got to hold and play with one of the actual tools that was used in space to do perform one of the instrument upgrades.
Oh, and we got to see the Hubble’s successor, the Webb Space Telescope, which should launch next year.
Yeah. That was a pretty great day.
So, Happy Birthday, Hubble! Here’s to a few more years of service, and maybe even more if us clever little apes can figure out a way to service you again even without the Space Shuttle!
Filed under Astronomy, Photography, Space
They’re all blooming now, many colors, many sizes.
No lizards in sight.
Filed under Castle Willett, Flowers, Photography
Week Number Four? Five? Five, I think, but it might be four. Didn’t we have this discussion last night? Or was it the night before?
Time is not what it was. I’m thinking of Tom Hanks’ character on that island with the volleyball after being so clock driven and time obsessed while working for FedEx. This might not be quite that extreme. But there are days…
And yet, the flowers don’t care. All they know is the days are longer, warmer, there’s water, there are bees. It’s time.
Filed under CoronaVirus, Flowers, Photography
Quarantine Day #26? Maybe? I should check and see when this started here…
Anyway, people online have been complaining about needing haircuts, including the subhuman cretins out “protesting” (by which I mean they’re following the right-wing cult leaders who lead them around by the short hairs) about “opening up” the states. Sorry, that got away from me…
Anyway, people online have been complaining about needing haircuts and I know the feeling. I normally keep my hair short and it was about time for a haircut when everything got shut down, so four weeks down the road I’m even shaggier. It’s not that I don’t like how I look – geez, have you people every actually met me? No, it’s that it gets to be a pain in the ass to take care of, it tickles, it just starts to bug me.
Fortunately, I don’t have a complex haircut requirement. Buzz cut, all over. I’ve said for years, if I could see the back to trim it up a little I wouldn’t even bother going to SuperCuts or Great Clips or Fantastic Sam’s or wherever it’s fastest and cheapest.
Time to test that theory.
The clippers came today, the instructions were scanned enough to verify that they could be ignored, the light was fading, and I went out into the back yard to cut my own hair!
Of course, I did it live on Facebook. Because a little bit of harmless insanity goes a long way these days.
It’s not for everyone, but I had fun.
Filed under Castle Willett, CoronaVirus, Paul, Video
In that fuzzy not-quite-awake, can-I-still-get-back-to-sleep stage this morning I had the most wonderful few seconds of thinking that it was Sunday and stepping through what I was hoping to waste time on and not get done. Then, of course, I realized it was in fact Monday.
The resulting shot of adrenaline, sorrow, and existential angst should last through the whole week.
So have another one of the roses from next to the driveway. The lady from down the hill a ways was walking her boxer this evening and she also stopped to take pictures of them, then acted embarrassed when she saw me watching her from the front porch.
No worries! I just wished that social distancing didn’t prevent me from saying hello to her puppy!
Filed under CoronaVirus, Flowers, Photography
Filed under Deep Thoughts
Most of the restaurants in our area have made the shift to delivery and pickup only and we’re trying to do the best we can to patronize them and keep them going. Tonight I had an interesting and enlightening experience picking up dinner.
One of the local pizza places that was a standard, go-to place for kid’s birthday parties, team parties for soccer and baseball and basketball, Monday Night Football viewing, and so on (a mom and pop place, not a national chain) has reopened with limited hours and strict ordering and pickup routines. Not onerous, but they’re not fooling around.
You order online only, pay for it online in advance, then go down and park. They have a fairly extensive area in front of the restaurant cordoned off and you don’t go inside of the barrier. They’ll come to the door and holler at you to see who you are, give you an update on your order’s timing, then go back inside. Once your order is ready they’ll put it on a table outside, they’ll go back inside, THEN you can go inside the cordoned off area to pick up your food and leave. Simple.
I got there and parked. There were two or three people sitting around in their cars, waiting for their orders. Everyone’s wearing masks and observing social distancing and then some. I told the folks in the restaurant who I was and was told it would be another ten minutes. I moved away from the door area to wait.
In comes a huge SUV, which parks right next to the doors in a handicapped space. No sign of any handicapped tags or plates. Out pops a woman who would fit a Central Casting call for “middle-aged white trash.” She does not have a mask of any kind, but she’s smoking a cigarette. She goes up to the ropes, is told it will be another ten minutes or so, and chooses to start giving a ration of shit to the waitress.
She finally goes back to stand next to her car, crushes the cigarette on the ground (yet another of my favorite antisocial behaviors), and lights up another. Someone new has parked over yonder and is walking up, sees her, and makes a comment about her not having a mask.
“I can’t smoke if I’m wearing a mask!”
Well, that’s probably true. This new guy decides to point out the option to not be smoking.
“FUCK YOU! Mind your own business!” At which point she got into her illegally parked SUV and shut the doors to wait for her food.
My order came up about then so I took it, walked the long way around Patient Zero, and left.
It’s America in a nutshell right now as I see it. 80% or more of people doing the best they can, a bit confused perhaps, almost certainly trying to function way outside of their comfort zone, but getting by and working for the common good. All accompanied by a very small minority that are either not intelligent enough or not mature enough (or both) to be able to do what’s right.
I don’t have a dog in the hunt re: Ms. Chain Smoker. I didn’t get involved, just moved further away.
But I will say this – I’m rooting for the lung cancer.
Let’s bring back consequences for stupidity.
Filed under CoronaVirus, Los Angeles
We Love The Stars Too Fondly 