January 28, 2003
How do you spell relief?
I just listened to Bush's State of the Union address, and it brought back memories of the same event, one year ago. Cele and I were driving back from Missoula and listened to it on the radio. The gist of the speech then was "Osama can run, but he can't hide. We will get him." I missed something - when did we start spelling Osama "S-a-d-d-a-m"? This whole push towards war smells heavily of "Wag the Dog". Zeldman offers another take on the situation, which, if it wasn't threatening to plummet us into WW III, would be pathetically humorous.
January 16, 2003
At 10 degrees, it's lunacy
I know it's a crappy picture, but for a ten pm, 10 degrees, taken from the front porch with a hand held camera first attempt, I'll lay claim to it. Not everybody has a picture of Saturn they've taken themselves, even if it is a bad one. I can see I need to work on resolving the problem of focusing between my glasses, the telescope and the camera. Something about the blind leading the blind... My moon shot turned out a little better, but that's because the moon is hard to miss. I wasn't able to tone down the brightness, so it's lacking some definition, but at least now I have a starting point to measure my astronomical growth as a space photographer. (har har)
January 11, 2003
Takes a licking...
Cecelia found this watch while we were taking Bart for a walk along I-90 several weeks ago. Amongst all the crap people pitch from their cars, this caught her eye, and we thought it was interesting, so we packed it home. Looking the serial number up on the Elgin website, she found out it was one of a run of 1,000 of this model made in 1904. Realizing how old it is and the place we found it, my imagination started working one of those stories following the life of this watch. How did a 99 year old gold pocket watch come to be discarded in the litter along an interstate highway? The crystal is broken, it doesn't run, and it would probably cost as much to fix as it's worth, if it can be repaired, but it still seems the place for century old pocket watches is as family heirlooms, not 21st century jetsam.
January 09, 2003
How ya'll are?
Yay. It's official. Cele and I are going to New Orleans April 10 -15. My birthday is April 12, so we're going to hang at the French Quarter Festival for the weekend. The plane tickets are bought, the room is booked, now I just have to pass time and practice my Creole.