Look west shortly after sunset. That bright object is Venus and it rapidly catching up to Earth due the fact that Venus travels faster around the Sun. As it passes directly between the Earth and the Sun, two things happen. First, it Venus appears larger because it is getting closer to Earth. Second, we see more of the dark side of Venus and less of the light side of Venus. In other words, Venus shows a phase just like our Moon.
Tonight I went out with my Canon Digital Rebel Xti and the 55-250mm EFS lens, zoomed in on Venus, and was pleased to see the little crescent of Venus.
Venus will get a little lower in the sky each night and soon be too low to observe. If you want to see this phenomena, now is the time!
The owner of my apartment building invited a couple of activists from Madison to spend the day here yesterday signing up low income tenants for the Wisconsin Home Energy Assistance Program. "Gee," I thought, "he's never done that before." Then I found out why the sudden interest in the welfare of his poorer tenants: he's going to get "free" refrigerators and a new boiler for the building if enough tenants sign up.
As a result of the "stimulus," the US government (i.e., the taxpayers) will buy my landlord dozens of energy efficient refrigerators and install a new energy efficient boiler. I figure that's worth tens of thousands of dollars. That's just in one building. He owns at least a dozen. And he's just one landlord out of how many in this country?
My landlord is a millionaire many times over. I do not begrudge him his money. He inherited most of it, but has also earned quite a bit. He works hard and he is successful. That is the American dream. What I don't understand is why US taxpayers should subsidize improvements to his properties. When I questioned the wisdom of this, one of the Madison activists was all over me like stink on poop. She jumped right into my face and yelled, "We are putting hundreds of thousands back to work!" I didn't argue. The fangs came out instantly and it wouldn't be in my best interests to go against "free" money for my landlord.
I hope your grandchildren enjoy paying for my landlord's property improvements. I hope that "free" money brings jobs and prosperity and peace to Racine. I know my landlord is feeling more prosperous these days. How about you?
Hello, my autumn dreamers! How are you? In case you haven’t noticed, we have had some beautiful, sunny, crisp days lately. It has been very pleasant outdoors. Thank you, Mother Nature, for gracing us with your charms. How nice of you to be so nice to us, you nice Mother Nature, you. You are such a sweetie. Thank you.
I watched in dismal disbelief and disarray the other night as our beloved Green Bay Packers fell prey to the evil Chicago Bears. I took a special, personal interest (if you know what I mean; wink, wink, nudge, nudge) in that final field goal by the Bears. I was predicting a different outcome for the kick and I am still wondering what happened. Sometimes the “stadium effect” interferes with psychic powers because of an astral echo created by the surroundings. Usually, I can compensate for that. Hmm, so many strange happenings of late… Anyway, I expect the Packers to maul the Detroit Lions this Sunday, October 3, in the arena of Lambeau Field. Our glorious gladiators in green and gold will triumph once more!
Party on the Pavement, downtown Racine’s annual fall celebration, is this Saturday, October 2. http://racinedowntown.com/party.html The RacinePost has a wonderful article (as always) on the Party, too: http://kiosk.racinepost.com/2010/09/party-on-pavement-takes-over-downtown.html There is so much to see and do. Unfortunately, one of them will not be me in a customized Segway Zoltar booth. Downtown Racine Corporation remains cool to my overtures at establishing a presence in the area. “Phony baloney, hocus pocus” indeed! We shall see, DRC, we shall see. In any event, Party on the Pavement is a wonderful event for all ages. Head downtown Saturday and expect to have fun.
And where else but the RacinePost would you read news that TNA Wrestling is returning to Racine? http://kiosk.racinepost.com/2010/09/tna-wrestling-bringing-superstars-back.html Mr. OrbsCorbs reminded me, repeatedly, that he thought it was a good idea to mention this event in my blog. I’m not a big fan of professional wrestling, but Mr. OrbsCorbs assures me that many of you are, so enjoy the spectacle on Friday, October 15.
Finally, my friends, here is a short video which succinctly expresses my feelings about the intrusions which cell phones have become in our daily lives:
Oh my! Sometimes I wish I could do that. Thank you so much for reading my blog, dear Irregulars. I look forward to this every week. We are family.
Enjoy the brisk mornings and cool nights ahead, my dears. “Good sleeping weather” is the way it is often stated. Some trees are already turning color. On with the show! Dehiscence.
Was reading the news, saw they had a Levee break up in Portage. It isn't even the wild Spring time. What pops into my head but Led Zep, When the Levi Breaks. While hunting up the tune (I remember the songs better if I see them performed), I ran across this rarity. Neil Young shredding it on the stage with Led Zep. A little older, a little more worn, but looks like Rock and ROLLLLL
I was up in Flagstaff on Friday night and decided to visit Lowell Observatory. Near the top of Mars Hill is a little pullout where you can stop and look down at Flagstaff. I snapped a pic of the Moon and Jupiter rising over the city.
A little later in the evening, I slapped the 250mm zoom lens on my camera to try a close up of Jupiter. Although it won't win any awards, it was interesting.
You can see the four Galilean Moons...one is almost caught in the glare on the left side of Jupiter. Look to the upper left of Jupiter and you see a little blue disk. That is the planet Uranus which is very close to Jupiter right now. If you look at Jupiter in binoculars, you should be able to pick out Uranus pretty easily. And if you have a camera with a good zoom, you can try taking a picture of them!
Would anyone be interested in having local candidates answer some issue questions from our irregular members? All questions would be phrased in a non partisian manner.
I was thinking the following races, but could add more if interested:
62nd District - Mason Vs Wright State Senate - Lehman vs Wangaard Sheriff - Schmaling vs Gerritts vs the guy running as a libertarian 1st Congressional - Ryan vs Heckenlivly any other local race you might be interested in.
I received the above video in an email with this explanation:
"This takes place in England - the owners of the yard added each piece of the Rube Goldberg contraption slowly so that when the squirrel learned one section and got the nuts, they then added the next section. Finally it ended with what you see on the clip!"
Hello, my magic mushrooms! How are you? I’ve been riled up ever since the cancellation of our second picnic in a row. I was so going to make a point of attending the picnic to stop you scoffers who whisper that perhaps I drink too much to make an appearance or perhaps I’m not even a woman at all or some such other nonsense. Don’t deny it. I know you’re out there. No, I don’t mean my loyal core of Irregulars, but I have read the rumors that swirl on the internet about Madame Zoltar. It is very irritating, and 99% untrue (although I wish that about 54% were true – oh my). I’ve avoided contact with Mother Nature since the washed out picnic. I know that I said I was going after her, but those words were spoken in the heat of the moment. I embrace peace and love, and I extend the olive branch to Mother Nature. I hope she accepts it.
I’m pretty pooped this week, dears, so I don’t have much more to say. I just wanted to touch base with my wonderful Irregulars and assorted hangers-on. I find our weekly visits to be inspiring and rejuvenating. There is just something about the community here, the air of camaraderie and joyous laughter. You all make me feel like dancing.
And don’t forget to have a great week, my dear friends. Autumn is in the air and the nights grow cooler. I have seen a few trees start to change color already and I look forward to the display to come. I love you all. Lamprophony!
At another site, someone posted the Poll, "How many people know what a milling machine is." I thought about it and said six in ten, Shockingly enough most replies are saying less than one in ten. So I thought I'd ask here. What do you think a milling machine is? It's funny because what one person thinks a Mill is, another might have an equally correct answer that is far different.
Okay, I was up at Kitt Peak on Friday (posted some night pics a couple of days ago) and took a nice burst of Sunset pictures trying to capture the elusive green flash. In reality, you can capture several small green flashes as the Sun sets behind a jagged mountain.
This video is 36 frames taken in burst mode with a Canon Digital Rebel Xti using a 55-250mm EFS lens at f/5.6. I cropped the pics and put them together into a short video (the colors in the original are better...maybe I can figure out how to optimize if for youtube sometime). Each picture is up for 1 second so this is slowed down compared to real life. As the Sun sets, you can see a series of small green flashes as the Sun disappears behind the mountain.
Visually we saw one green flash. The photographs reveal that we really saw a series of small, quick flashes that our eyes perceived as one.
Seems that a city expert on lead abatement discovered that Mayor Dickert's "Neighborhood Stabilization Program" is violating state standards for lead removal. When he pointed it out, he was told to shut up. When he persisted, he was suspended without pay, and expects to be fired. Two police officers then stopped by his home just before midnight, delivering a letter that prohibits him from entering stabilization properties and other city-owned areas.
Jupiter makes its closest approach to Earth tonight...it's closest approach until 2022. We call this opposition since Jupiter and the Sun are 180 degrees from each other in the sky (or on opposite sides of the sky). Jupiter moves around the Sun more slowly than Earth so Earth catches up to Jupiter and passes it about every 13 months.
However, Jupiter and Earth do not have perfectly circular orbits. Therefore sometimes they get a little closer together than other. Jupiter is closer to the Sun than average so this a a closer pass than normal. Jupiter appears a little brighter than usual (and, through a telescope, larger than usual. You won't see much besides a bright dot naked eye).
Friday night I am pretty sure I had the rare experience of seeing Jupiter's Moon Callisto naked eye. We checked and what I was seeing matched where Callisto was. Callisto was very far away from Jupiter that night as well. At its farthest, you can just barely pick it out. Jupiter being closer than average may have helped as well.
Jupiter rises in the east at Sunset. It will be highest in the sky at midnight, and set at dawn tonight. Jupiter will rise a few minutes earlier each night. If you can't see it tonight, don't despair. The distance between Earth and Jupiter changes slowly so it will be almost as good for a few weeks and slowly dim (even at its "dimmest" Jupiter is still brighter than any star in the sky!)
A steady hand with binoculars can reveal Jupiter's Moons. A small telescope starts revealing Jupiter's bands. The next couple of months are Jupiter season so go take a look.
I was up on Kitt Peak Friday night and got a chance to take a few pics. The Moon was waxing gibbous so it was pretty bright. Since real dark sky photography was out of the question due to the Moon, I took advantage of the moonlight to get some pics of some of the domes on the mountain since they were nicely illuminated.
First, the stars of Scorpius near a dome. Someone was playing with a green laser during this exposure. You can see it on the dome.
Next is the visitor's center telescope. If you visit Kitt Peak, this is one of the telescopes open to the pubic at night during the Nightly Observing Program.
Now we have a pic of the Big Dipper about to slide behind the 4 meter telescope dome.
This photo shows the McMath-Pierce Solar Telescope. This is looking toward Tucson and you can see some of the light pollution from Tucson reflecting off some low clouds. Kitt Peak is a great place to be at night. Be sure to schedule a visit if you are ever in Tucson!
UPDATE - the picnic is CANCELLED, again. The weather refuses to cooperate with us. Perhaps a winter get-together would be more to Mother Nature's liking.
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The following is my comment under our Friday open blog. Tomorrow's weather doesn't sound very inviting, what do you guys think?
Mme. Z, you're SO grounded!! here are the forecasts I have gotten -
all agree on 60ish, not horrible really but add to that ...
weatherbonk says 40% chance of rain
Accuweather says rain at 1 and mid afternoon, and is precise is saying that we will get .61 inches - how funny is that??? not just .6 but .61, hilarious!!
Channel 12 says rain and channel 6 says storms, I think this one is a wash (yes, pun intended)
I would open the offer to our house but we're under serious renovation projects and I don't have much house to move around in up OR downstairs, I think we should maybe plan on the Irregular Christmas party, if it's not storming then, we could still cook-out :)
What do you guys think? dig in our heels and hope to pull it off or surrender to Mother Natures revenge on Mme. Z?
"http://www.notsonoisy.com PAC-MAN was played by real human-beings sitting in a cinema: it's the 5th video performance of the GAME OVER Project from the French-Swiss artist Guillaume Reymond. This stop-motion video was shot and played for the new ProHelvetia's programme GameCulture http://www.gameculture.ch at the Trafo cinema (Baden, Switzerland) on August 28th 2010. This giant game was played by 111 human pixels that has moved from seat to seat during more than 4 hours..."
Hello, my luscious lollipops! How are you? Has everyone gotten over their disappointment concerning the cancelled picnic? Oh dear, I am so, so sorry for my botched prediction. Even the best can’t claim 100% accuracy, but I feel very bad for having let down my beloved Irregulars. I’ve said in the past that I don’t like to deal with Mother Nature because she is so unpredictable. Despite my misgivings, I asked her what she had planned for us on Saturday. She said the storm front was going to split before it reached Racine, with half passing to our north and the other half to our south. Like a fool, I believed her. Oh my, when will I learn?
I received a rather disturbing email this week from someone named “l_O_o_n_E_y_T_U_n_E_s”. The message contained links to the two videos which appear below, apparently the work of the same person.
First is “Hand Thing:”
Second is “Kitty Candy:”
Those videos are on the YouTube channel of “ShayeSaintJohn:” http://www.youtube.com/user/ShayeSaintJohn, where many more are available. Why Mr. or Ms. T_U_n_E_s sent me links to those videos, I have no idea. I find them fairly disturbing, yet somewhat interesting, like an automobile accident. Oh my, I just shivered! I tried replying to the original email, but it is a no-reply account. Please, Mr. or Ms. T_U_n_E_s, if you are reading this, please do not send me anymore links to anything else, period, please. Those videos skewed my aura for the rest of the day. In my business, if your aura is skewed, you are screwed.
Now that Wisconsin’s primary is over, we can expect the gloves to come off in some of our local races. I sincerely hope that everyone involved does their best to avoid the nastiness and negativity that have filtered into many of our political debates. Please, let’s try to keep it civil. No matter who wins or loses what, we all have to live together.
Well, that’s my blog for this week, my dears. Think of it as a creepy preview of Halloween, soon to be splattered all over every store you enter. Thank you so much for spending time with me. I love you, my friends, and I look forward to seeing you all at the picnic this Saturday.
Enjoy the cooler weather. At least, I think it’s cooler. Now I’m afraid to say anything about the weather. Enjoy whatever climatic conditions occur. There, that should cover it. Advection!
I ran across this online playing on youtube and since then have been a little on the obsessed side. You might have heard of him because as I understand it he's quite well known, but you know I'm not always up on things. The is a man that was diagnosed with multi-drug resistant TB and was quarantined for about 6 months in a tiny hospital room. To occupy his time he started making little videos and writing songs and poems and spreading them out on youtube.. I am thoroughly entertained by him.. Here is probably his most well known rap and it makes me giggle..
If you have the time you should really look through the rest of his stuff.. Most of it is quite funny but others are very thought provoking.
Our friend cyndi sent this in an email. The video description states: "This is the commercial spot Budweiser produced after 9-11. It aired only once. They only aired it once so as not to benefit financially from it - they just wanted to acknowledge the tragic event. This is so consistent with a company who always does things with a ton of class. Can you imagine what the cost was considering production, air time, etc.?"
"Wisconsin police say a street musician apparently upset by criticism of his music bashed a man over the head with his guitar, slammed another person into a wall and wrestled with an officer before being arrested.
"Madison police spokesman Joel DeSpain tells The Capital Times that 31-year-old Brandin Hochstrasser, known as 'Bongo Jesus,' was performing Thursday when a 54-year-old man knocked his music. DeSpain says the two argued and police were called when Hochstrasser began hitting his critic with his guitar.
"DeSpain says Hochstrasser then charged the man, knocking him down. An officer used a stun gun to subdue and arrest Hochstrasser."
I never knew the details of the things that happened to women as they fought to have their voices heard. This is not common knowledge, but it should be...... 'Courage in women is often mistaken for insanity.' This is the story of our Mothers and Grandmothers who lived only 90 years ago
Remember, it was not until 1920 that women were granted the right to go to the polls and vote.
The women were innocent and defenseless, but they were jailed nonetheless for picketing the White House, carrying signs asking for the vote. And by the end of the night, they were barely alive.> Forty prison guards wielding clubs and their warden's blessing went on a rampage against the 33 women wrongly convicted of 'obstructing sidewalk traffic.'
(Lucy Burns) They beat Lucy Burns, chained her hands to the cell bars above her head and left her hanging for the night, bleeding and gasping for air.
(Dora Lewis) They hurled Dora Lewis into a dark cell, smashed her head against an iron bed and knocked her out cold. Her cellmate, Alice Cosu, thought Lewis was dead and suffered a heart attack. Additional affidavits describe the guards grabbing, dragging, beating, choking, slamming, pinching, twisting and kicking the women. Thus unfolded the 'Night of Terror' on Nov. 15, 1917, when the warden at the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia ordered his guards to teach a lesson to the suffragists imprisoned there because they dared to picket Woodrow Wilson's White House for the right to vote. For weeks, the women's only water came from an open pail. Their food--all of it colorless slop--was infested with worms.
(Alice Paul) When one of the leaders, Alice Paul, embarked on a hunger strike, they tied her to a chair, forced a tube down her throat and poured liquid into her until she vomited. She was tortured like this for weeks until word was smuggled out to the press. So, refresh my memory. Some women won't vote this year because- -why, exactly? We have carpool duties? We have to get to work? Our vote doesn't matter? It's raining?
(Mrs. Pauline Adams in the prison garb she wore while serving a sixty-day sentence.) Last week, I went to a sparsely attended screening of HBO's new movie 'Iron Jawed Angels.' It is a graphic depiction of the battle these women waged so that I could pull the curtain at the polling booth and have my say. I am ashamed to say I needed the reminder.
(Miss Edith Ainge, of Jamestown , New York ) All these years later, voter registration is still my passion. But the actual act of voting had become less personal for me, more rote. Frankly, voting often felt more like an obligation than a privilege. Sometimes it was inconvenient.
(Berthe Arnold, CSU graduate) My friend Wendy, who is my age and studied women's history, saw the HBO movie, too. When she stopped by my desk to talk about it, she looked angry. She was--with herself. 'One thought kept coming back to me as I watched that movie,' she said. 'What would those women think of the way I use, or don't use, my right to vote? All of us take it for granted now, not just younger women, but those of us who did seek to learn.' The right to vote, she said, had become valuable to her 'all over again.' HBO released the movie on video and DVD . I wish all history, social studies and government teachers would include the movie in their curriculum I want it shown on Bunco night, too, and anywhere else women gather. I realize this isn't our usual idea of socializing, but we are not voting in the numbers that we should be, and I think a little shock therapy is in order.
(Conferring over ratification [of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution] at [National Woman's Party] headquarters, Jackson Pl [ace] [ Washington , D.C. ]. L-R Mrs. Lawrence Lewis, Mrs. Abby Scott Baker, Anita Pollitzer, Alice Paul, Florence Boeckel, Mabel Vernon (standing, right)) It is jarring to watch Woodrow Wilson and his cronies try to persuade a psychiatrist to declare Alice Paul insane so that she could be permanently institutionalized. And it is inspiring to watch the doctor refuse. Alice Paul was strong, he said, and brave. That didn't make her crazy. The doctor admonished the men: 'Courage in women is often mistaken for insanity.' Please, if you are so inclined, pass this on to all the women you know. We need to get out and vote and use this right that was fought so hard for by these very courageous women. Whether you vote democratic, republican or independent party - remember to vote.
(Helena Hill Weed, Norwalk , Conn. Serving 3 day sentence in D.C. prison for carrying banner, 'Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.')
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