Scattered Thoughts . . .

Sheila nudged me awake in the middle of the night last night...  I thought she was waking me because I was having another violent nightmare again (which, unfortunately, happens too often)... and I immediately said to myself, "...wait a second... I wasn't having a nightmare."   I was thinking, "This must be serious..." All she said was, "I need you to... " and I jumped up out of bed to see what was wrong.   She was about to vomit... she couldn't move... she couldn't focus her eyes as they darted violently back and forth... she wanted me to get a bucket. I ran for the bucket and a plastic bag while all sorts of first aid techniques were running through my head... and, as I wondered why this was happening.  She kept saying, "I can't move... I can't move... I think I'm going to be sick..." and she looked terrible. She was stiff yet she seemed to be only as flat as the contour of the bed and pillow as though she were

Every year we expand and improve our landscaping and gardens and this Spring was no exception. Each year, things are a little bit different in our yard with different plants and slightly different gardens and we seem to add a little more each year as well.   I'm not at all into having little figures and figurines in our gardens and backyard, in general,  but we do have our frog, Dawn, perched on our front step to greet all visitors. This frog is named after Sheila's lifelong friend, Dawn. If you were fortunate enough to know Dawn, you'll understand why our frog is named Dawn... We added cedar planters and window boxes this year and hope to add more to more windows in the future... As always, our stone walls, stone paving, and timbers tend to expand and artistically spread as well. This stone walkway to our backyard and back door , lined by wildflowers and stones,  is one of my favorite features (and required a lot of back-breaking work for someone with extensive

The upgraded Celestron 70mm telescope.           I've already written a few times about rebuilding this particular little telescope but I added another part recently so it is worth writing about again.  As purchased, this scope was a hunk of junk. Celestron should be embarrassed by all their sub-$400 telescope packages because they are all worthless as sold. I suspect a lot of people end up getting turned off to astronomy as a result of being disappointed by purchasing a lousy, frustrating telescope. Only the very determined will continue this hobby after becoming frustrated beyond belief. I bought a Celestron 114EQ for our son a number of years ago. We quickly realized that this particular scope was not ideal for a beginner and we never got any decent views out of it so, the next Christmas, I purchased a simpler Celestron 70AZ. This telescope wasn't much better than the 114EQ but I felt it had potential for various reasons not worth explaining here.  This telescope