Scattered Thoughts . . .

Introduction T his blog entry is a little different than my usual entries.  Then again, my thoughts are often a bit scattered so there isn't really a consistent theme to this blog.  I do sometimes write about my hobbies including astronomy but this blog entry is not one of my typical short blog entries about viewing this or that or about some small astronomy project.  This is more along the lines of a casual review of my thoughts about a telescope.  If you are more interested in some astrophotography images rather than read about a boring telescope evaluation, then just scroll down to the closing of this blog entry (about halfway down this page). Quite often, people who are wanting to get involved in backyard astronomy for the first time ask other astronomers which telescope would be best to purchase as their first telescope.  This is a very common question that is asked at least once a day.  As a result, I find myself trying to provide advice to astronomy beginners a few times eac

Early last week was quite lousy as far as my health goes.  I was down doing absolutely nothing for three days.  As the week progressed, I started to feel a bit more like myself.  By Friday, I was feeling better than I had in recent memory.  Unfortunately, that was short lived, very short lived, as it usually is.   Feeling as good as I was, I actually did think that maybe my health was about to crash.  This is the usual thing for me.  I feel better than I have in a long while and then, usually within hours, my health suddenly plunges into anaphylaxis.  This time I felt really good through Thursday, then even better on Friday...  I must have been feeling pretty good on Saturday because I don't remember any remarkable problems.  I think I was thinking that with all the extra medications I took earlier in the week, I should be feeling better than I have in quite a while so I sort of pushed this old pattern out of my thoughts.   I'm still hobbling around with my knee injury.  Even t

I had mentioned in a previous blog entry that I had a photo of Kenzie from nine years ago that shows the same expression I captured on Ace last week.  I went digging for that old photo this morning. Here is Kenzie at four months old in 2012... And, here is Ace at two months old in 2021 with the same expression in the same living room...  Although there are distinct differences in their facial features, the expressions are the same.  Even more interesting is that I vividly remember this particular afternoon with Kenzie nine years ago.  When I saw Ace with the same expression, it immediately brought me back to 2012. I thought this was worth sharing here so here it is!

A s I am laid up with a bad knee...  oh yeah...  I don't think I wrote that I have a pair of crutches now.  I got tired of being set back to Day 1 of recovery every time we went grocery shopping or if I walked across our lawn so I broke down and ordered a pair of crutches so I can keep most of my weight off my right knee.   I don't use the crutches around the house but I do need them whenever we leave the house.  Leaving the house means a lot more walking than I do inside our house.  I haven't cut the lawn in about a month now because the last time I cut the lawn, I was set back to Day 1 again.  I definitely do not want to be set back to Day 1 of recovery yet again so it was time to be a bit more careful and allow my knee more time to heal before testing it.  The year is actually coming to a close and I started this year with an ankle injury which lead to this knee injury on the opposite leg.   This has been one of the most miserable years in my life already as far as my he