Category Archives: Uncategorized

09.11.14
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Inspiration Strikes When You Least Expect It

I took up playing guitar when I was 16, have written and composed many songs through the years. Even have been involved in some recordings at a very well equipped studio. Over time you learn to recognize an inspiration when one sneaks up on you.

I was driving this morning, through the rain, on a road I travel frequently and there is this enormous field, must be at least 200 acres. It was a corn year in west Tennessee this year, more corn than I have seen since my last trip through Iowa. Anyway this enormous field had been recently harvested and the memory of the once proud field of corn stood in stark contrast to what the combine left behind, and this hit me.

I promise this won’t happen often 🙂 I doubt this effort would get a C- on a high school English project, at least it is short and sweet,  but here it is:

 

The Harvest

Only recently, so full of life.
Now barren and cold.
The measure of your bounty
counted, and sold.
Now you may slumber
through the dark winter’s cold.
As beside the fire,
tales of men are told.

09.10.14
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A Fantastic Resource!

At the suggestion of a noble friend, /waves @ Mak, I started a journey into Robert Ingersoll’s world. Starting at that point where we all tend to, the mighty Wiki I found a link to what is called “The Open Library” Therin a compilation of Ingersolls works of which I hastily gobbled up 40 pages before I realized this resource must be shared. With no further ado:

https://openlibrary.org/ Edit: This next link takes you directly to the series I have been reading and commenting on.

https://archive.org/details/worksofrobertgin01ingeiala

This one is worthy of a bookmark high on the bookmark list! So far there have been no attempts to pry any $ from my pockets, no credit card requirements, I do hope that remains to be the case. Although I already feel a little guilty for taking advantage of the resource. Not so much yet to want to open the wallet, but hey you never know.

Edit: After my initial enthusiasm for this site, in freely reading Ingersolls works, I thought I’d try a search for something more modern, and quickly found its limitations. It appears that only really old stuff is made easily accessible. Or that which has been perhaps released by the author or publisher to hit the free market. Still trying to figure out what’s what here, but it is still promising, at least for a while 🙂

There are indicators such as “Daisy”, which looks like audio recordings for the deaf. “Borrow”, for books that you can actually borrow for a couple of weeks, and precious few “Read”, which are instantly available.

 EDIT : This post and its comment content are kind of a carry over from the Quote of the Month, so it might be more contextual to take that into consideration. I must apologize for such a post that required so many edits. But when you venture into a new area of study, in a new and strange land, it takes you places you did not see coming.

09.07.14
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Quote of the Month

This month let’s visit this quote by the unsung free thinker of his time, Thomas Paine.

“The study of theology, as it stands in the Christian churches, is the study of nothing; it is founded on nothing; it rests on no principles; it proceeds by no authority; it has no data; it can demonstrate nothing; and it admits of no conclusion.”

As true then as it is today. But the lure of a wisp of justification to support ones belief in the non existant sells many books today. Fills many pews.

This one fact remains regardless. Only those who have bought the magic beans cannot see it.

http://freethought.mbdojo.com/foundingfathers.html

09.05.14
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We Are Part Of Something Bigger

I don’t mean that in some ass backwards magical woo woo way of thinking. I mean that in a grand cosmic sense. If that makes sense… We are the atoms that make up the matter that makes us. We interact with and manipulate all kinds of other objects and conglomerations of other bits of matter every day. We are material things in a material world (damn I said that?) Our world as we know it is a huge complex and diverse system, where all of the parts make the whole. All that we know is contained on a tiny little planet, in a tiny little solar system, in a tiny little galaxy, in a tiny little galactic cluster, that… whew! Is part of an enormous super cluster.

If you have been around the web in the last couple of days, you have probably seen this video.

That is an amazing video, with some incredible science.

What gets me is, for a long time we suspected a huge gravity well at the core of our galaxy, now we know it is there, (black holes) and we strongly suspect they are at the core of every galaxy, as well as spread out here and there throughout the universe. Now what this finding shows, and it concerns my little mind a little bit, is there is some kind of enormous gravity well that is attracting most of the galaxies in our super cluster. Now what in the heck could be the source of that gravitational attraction? One so large it is pulling much of an entire super cluster of galaxies to its center?

…and the grander question, is this entire scenario a small part of something much much bigger? Where does the infitismal accumulate to the exponential conclusion, that point to where there is no going beyond? Where does it end exactly? What is the end of the line of that always growing place in our understanding, of that which we are such a small part of,  which could be infinite?

I guess if it is infinite, we will never know. But dammit I want to know where it goes from here. 🙂

 

 

09.04.14
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Duck! Near Earth Asteroid to Miss Us by 25,000 Miles!

Holy cow that’s close!

http://time.com/3267989/asteroid-earth/

25,000 miles is 1/10 the distance to the moon. Considering how big space is that is a razor close shave.

This asteroid was discovered by the Catalina Sky Survey at the University of Arizona over the weekend. It is estimated to be around 60 feet in diameter, and is supposed to pass over New Zealand when it comes through. The article points out it will not be possible to see naked eye, but a telescope should resolve it. I am sure someone will get a good pic of it that will make its way to the internet.

You never know when you get up in the morning, what kind of day it will turn out to be. Imagine if that thing were to hit close to home. Man I am sure glad it is a miss…this time.

09.03.14
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Andromeda

One of my usual blog stops is over at Phil Plait’s Bad Astronomy blog, and this morning he has an exceptional astro photo and a small write up on this enormous galaxy. Andromeda has been one of my favorite objects to view through a telescope for many years, and I can spend up to 30 minutes at a time observing it before I move on to other night sky treasures. His blog post got me to thinking about Andromeda, so I thought I’d throw some cool Andromeda stuff out there.

What is the farthest object you can see with no optical aid? Andromeda of course. It lies 2.5 million light years away and is visible as faint smudge in the sky on a clear night.

(EDIT EDIT EDIT: My big dumb ass just came in from outside (it’s dark) and the moon is past 1st quarter which I should have checked on before I went all smartypants with this post. You see it takes a moonless night for these naked eye objects to be easily seen. As well it helps to dark adapt your eyes for 15 or 20 minutes before you attempt to hunt them down. Also it helps a LOT to be far away from city lights, a fairly dark location is very helpful. So keep these things in mind if/when you decide to take a shot at finding them.)

Where do I look? To the NE sky anytime around 9-10 PM will do. This location won’t be too far from the horizon this time of year at that timeline. Later in the night it will climb higher in the sky. Here is a wide look at the region. Just about everyone knows the familiar constellation of the beautiful goddess Cassiopeia. There is a handy pointer built into Cassiopeia pointing you in the general direction.

 

Andromeda

Cassiopeia to the upper left, with it’s built in pointer pointing towards the constellation Andromeda, which just happens to border, and share a star with the Great Square of Pegasus. I always have looked at the Andromeda constellation simply as an extension of Pegasus, being the mighty winged horse’s back legs. That isn’t how it is supposed to be, but if you look at it that way it gives a nice fluidity to the Pegasus constellation that I like.

Now that we have a sense of where we are looking and what we are looking at, follow those hind legs of Pegasus halfway out from the Great Square. There is a pair of easily visible stars lined up there, these two stars are my line of sight to finding the Andromeda galaxy. Take note of the separation between the two stars, and double it (heading upwards in this chart.) Bingo! There lies the galaxy. The chart shows the location of one of Andromeda’s companion galaxies, M110, but not the location of Andromeda itself (M32) which is odd. The location for M110 will be roughly the same for M32.  However when you are looking at that part of the sky all that matters is those two stars, double the distance, and you will hit Andromeda. 🙂 …You have no idea how difficult it was to find a chart that was useful for pointing out this location. Sure there are hundreds of charts out there, but many with too much info such as gobs of constellation lines, and gobs of stars, and such. And many with too little information, or too close in of a view, or a view too far out. This post was an exercise in dedication! Anyway…

On a good clear night the Andromeda galaxy is just a small fuzzy spot by naked eye observation. But, knowing that what you are seeing is a huge galaxy 2.5 million LY away makes it a pretty neat experience. Move up to a pair of binoculars and it really comes alive, becoming a much larger fuzzy spot. (yeah, us astro geeks get thrilled when a small fuzzy spot turns into a larger one) but now you can identify a brightening core at the center. Moving on up to a small telescope more details can be teased out of the view including a dust cloud in one of the spiral arms. Using my 12.5″ Dobsonian telescope the view is breathtaking. The galaxy is huge, requiring the necessity of slewing the telescope around to take it all in. Now 2 dust lanes are easily visible instead one one, and there are two companion galaxies close by that are always on the target list. Like I said before, I can spend a lot of time observing this object, it is easily one of the top 3 objects us amateurs enjoy.

More cool stuff…

Oh my gosh, it’s heading right for us! (South Park reference) But it really is, at about 70 miles per second! (or if you prefer 250,000 mph!) They believe in around 4.5 to 5 billion years it will collide with our galaxy. By that time our sun will have gone red giant anyway, so this collision will doubtless go unnoticed by us puny humans. At least from the perspective of this planet, and that notion is probably far too optimistic for our species, given the state of the world today.

Will 2 enormous galaxies colliding make for all kinds of star collisions, and orbital dysfunction? Probably not so much. You have to understand the vastness of space, think about standing atop a hill. Now imagine a guy with a shotgun that has gravity defying pellets. This guy is standing 100 miles away and shoots the shotgun right at your location. Will you get hit? By the time those gravity defying pellets spread out over 100 miles it would be extremely unlikely you would get hit by one. Same for the stars in our galaxies, they are so far apart the likelihood of a collision is small.  Following the shotgun with gravity defying pellets analogy, now imagine two shotgun wielders pointing their shotguns towards each other at a 100 mile range. Again the pellets will be so widespread, there is very little chance of any colliding. There will however be an interaction between the the dust, and gases that both of our galaxies harbor. These dust clouds would interact very agressively,  making for a huge burst of star formation, too bad we won’t be here to see it…

The Andromeda galaxy was huge in Edwin Hubbles research. First he discovered that Andromeda was actually another galaxy like our own, and not another object within our own galaxy. His observations also helped us to understand the distances between our two galaxies, and distances between other objects. Later in his career, by making critical observations, and submitting a paper on the subject, he was credited with the observational proof that our universe is expanding. At an incredible rate to boot. His work also led to our understanding of redshift velocities being consistant with Einsteins Relativity Theory. Which in turn led to observational support for an expanding universe. A notable distinction between a hypothesis with no evidence, and one with verifiable evidence!  No wonder this guy got an incredible space telescope in his honor.

Well, if you have followed me this far, there is another smudge in the sky you can also see with no optical aid. It is known as the Double Cluster. Find Cassiopeia again, and follow the constellation lines from right to left on the chart. Those last two stars will help you spot the cluster. Use those two stars to form a slightly elongated triangle, (heading SW on the chart. Note that the chart may not line up exactlywith the sky you are looking at, you have to adjust your point of reference to the chart.) There lies the smudge. This object is a star cluster within our galaxy. Actually two small clusters. You will need binoculars or a small telescope to resolve them beyond a smudge.  But you can see it is there with the naked eye.

Well that wraps this one up. I hope if anyone gets a chance, go have a look. Looking up has its benefits.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

08.26.14
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Fairy Circle

I was walking the d*g (I still don’t know why we even have a d*g I am cat people) and saw this fairy circle. Well, semi circle really, I assume on the day the spores were sent on their journey there was a mild westerly wind, spreading the spores to the east rather than in a nice circular pattern.

DSC02120

I am absolutely certain there was a wild fairy party there the night before. It is just that those crafty fairies removed every trace of evidence of having been there!

P.S. Yes, I know the lawn needs mowing. About the time I realized it needed mowing we had 2 days of rain followed by the last 6 days of oppressive heat. I am talking heat indexes ranging between 101 and 111 degrees F. Absolutely miserable conditions to even walk to the mailbox, let alone try to get anything done.

Yesterday evening I could no longer stand how dirty the car was and washed it (I do not use car washes, they are evil. Have you ever seen a car that frequents car washes?) It was 101 heat index at 5-0-clock in the afternoon. I looked like I had done the ALS ice bucket challenge, and was totally wiped out from the experience. Ain’t as young as I used to be…

08.17.14
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Venus and Jupiter Dance In The Early Morning Sky

Check your forecast. If you have any chance of clear skies in the early morning, get up outta bed and look to the eastern skies, just before sunrise. Venus and Jupiter will be as close to each other in the sky as they have been in a long time. How close? Less than a 1/2 a degree apart. How close is that? Damn close. If you have a telescope you will easily fit both planets in the field of view.

If you don’t have a telescope, do you have binoculars? Binoculars will give a great view of this event. If you have neither a telescope or binoculars you don’t need them! All you have to do is look to the east in the morning twilight. You will see two very bright “stars” quite close, this will be what you are looking for. Venus will be the planet on the left, Jupiter on the right.

There is a bonus! Just to the left of Venus there is a well known cluster of stars known as the Beehive (a.k.a. M44)*  in the constellation Cancer. If you are early enough you should be able to make it out pretty well before the sun starts to wash it out. You will need optical aid to see the cluster most likely. It can be seen naked eye as a small fuzzy patch, on a really clear night when it is further from the sun than it is now. As it is right now, probably not a naked eye object. Binoculars should be able to tease it out.

* After the great comet hunter Charles Messier who documented many objects in his hunt for comets. The Messier Catalogue is a list of many objects he kept track of, that to him just were not comets. To astronomers today both pro and amateur these objects are treasures in the sky that we make efforts to seek out and observe.

08.16.14
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Rick Perry Responds to Indictment

…by claiming that the indictment, which claims Perry engaged in an abuse of power, was itself an abuse of power. That kind of reminds me a a schoolground argument among 3rd graders. “You’re a poopyhead.” “Nuh uh, you are a poopyhead.”

Which given the history of this guy does not surprise me much. To think he was a candidate for president a few years ago is almost laughable, if it weren’t such a sad state of our political climate. Guess what? It looks like he is/was planning another stab at being a presidential candidate! If he does, I hope it ends twice as disasterously as it did the first time. The guy is a buffoon.

According to what I know, Perry tried to persuade a D.A. who got a D.U.I., and is also a political rival that runs a public integrity unit, to retire. He used the threat of withholding some 7.5 million dollars earmarked for the public integrity unit, as leverage to get the D.A. to do just that. Imagine that, a republican opposed to public integrity.

The article (here: http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/16/politics/rick-perry-indictment/index.html) goes on to say Perry will have to report to the Travis County jail to be booked, fingerprinted, and get a mugshot. Pardon me for a moment while I lol. After observing the antics of republicans for the last 8 years, I am of the opinion they should ALL report to be booked, fingerprinted, and get their mugshots taken. Losing touch with reality may not be a crime, but it should be. Dividing our country among political lines, and refusing to cooperate on anything sponsored by a democrat is not a crime. But it should be. Participating in damned if you, damned if you don’t politics is not a crime, but it should be. By that I mean this…

For a long time after Obama took office, all you heard every day of the week was “bring our troops home.” Our troops, thank goodness were brought home. Then a militant group ran amok across Iraq and Syria. As far as I know our president had nothing to do with that. Now I am hearing republicans clamoring about how Obama should NOT have brought the troops home! “What on earth was he thinking?” “He should have left troops over there!”  Damned if you do, damned if you dont. Having the audacity to partake in such slimy politics is not a crime…but it should be. If anyone is curious why I no longer support the republican party, there you go.

 

08.16.14
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Current Events

There has been a lot going on. 

A kid in Missouri getting gunned down in the street. I do not care what this guy may or may not have done, no one deserves that fate in this country. If the policeman that gunned him down does not get jail time, there will be riots in the streets like none seen in a very long time. I am not sure I would blame them.

Robin Williams is dead, suicide. Just wow. I have been too close to two suicides, (One a very good friend of mine, the other my first wife and mother of 3, who like RW had addiction problems in the past and a mental diagnosis) and it is a devastating event for the survivors. From my experiences, and I am sorry if this offends anyone, but a suicide is an act of complete selfishness, with no consideration for those around you. If all you can think about is me, me, me, and all of my issues, you are not seeing the big picture, and how your suicide will affect those who know and love you. This is my conclusion, based on my experiences. My condolences to the family and we have lost a good one in Robin Williams.

The Jews and the Palestines are still sporadically killing each other. I have to wonder if this one will ever be settled, or if there will ever be anything resembling peace in the region.

ISIS taking over a large swath of Iraq and parts of Syria. This is not going to end well. They will have to be dealt with and there is only one way to do that, it does not involve fine stationary and a cup of tea. They cannot be allowed to continue with what they are doing. The things they are doing to people are right out of the pages of the dark ages. This is what happens when those in power look to their good books for guidance. Religion is the biggest problem we face as a society and the biggest obstacle to peace everywhere. As long as shallow minds continue to believe they are better than everyone else because of the religion they adhere to… war and strife will prevail.

The Russian supported rebels shot down a civilian plane with nearly 300 people on board. Looks like no one will ever have to answer for that one. Ludicrous!

I actually saw a piece yesterday, Kim Kardashian has published a book of…selfies? This is news for who exactly?

In all of this, the one thing that nags at me, is what the hell ever happened to the search for the Malaysian plane that disappeared? Just goes to show you how damned short our attention spans are. And how short sighted the media can be. Every new tragedy seems to take precedence over the the previous. Given enough time, no one even asks what happened about what occured a few short weeks ago.

Can I get off at the next stop please?

 

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