Scattered Thoughts . . .

W e had Lukey and Kenzie staying with us for a few days about a month ago but I don't think I wrote about that time spent with them.  It's always nice to have them visit for a few days and this visit was no exception. We kept busy while they were here and Gee was even on leave from work so we could do whatever we desired.   Below are some photos from one night in our backyard during this visit... I'm not sure what was going on here but it sure does look like confession time... Gee photo-bombed one of Kenzie's selfies... After Gee's photo-bombing, she tried a selfie again... Lukey shot this next photo.  It's nice that I am finally able to get into some of the photos!  In this shot, I think Lukey was purposely trying to get the string of lights in the photo with me as well as the golf flag on our new putting green in the background.  He may even have wanted the sailboat in the background too!  Anyway, it is nice to get a shot of me in this group of photos. As alwa

S heila and I recently headed up to Burlington for another visit to Oncology at The University of Vermont Medical Center.  This time, however, our visit was for Sheila's last follow-up appointment after five years of treatment for her latest bout of breast cancer so it turned out to be a good visit because this visit marked a definitive end to this long five year period of our lives.   The doctor did some ultrasound imaging of Sheila's breast and thoroughly examined her.  Everything looked good!  The discussion with the oncologist included diet, exercise, acupuncture targeting Sheila's specific cancer issues, and how this post-treatment care works.  The doctor made it clear that Sheila isn't being dropped completely.  If she has any problems whatsoever, she can call and get back in to see someone on her oncology team.  This latest course of treatment is behind her now though so we're hoping for a nice long break from this stuff.   Although some cancer was found in s

W e finally had an opportunity to get together with a couple of close friends this Labor Day weekend.  We haven't socialized with friends in three years due to the pandemic.  These two friends were actually the last couple we socialized with prior to the pandemic and that was for a Christmas dinner in 2019.  We were long overdue for some quality time with these friends! I should point out that the reason we hadn't seen these friends in so long wasn't strictly due to being cautious about the pandemic.  Certainly, that played into it but it was not the sole reason for not seeing them for so long.  At times Sheila and I had the virus...  other times our friends had the virus...  and other times we both had scheduled commitments with our respective families and grandchildren.  So, health concerns and family commitments also delayed us getting together sooner.   We were out in our backyard until after midnight which was the latest Sheila and I have been up and awake since last s

I haven't written in a while so I'm long overdue for an update.  I was going to write about a few different things in this blog entry that have kept me away from typing here and I actually started typing but I quickly realized that the first thing I was typing about really should have a blog entry of its own so I'm going to stick with this morning's topic...  my latest computer upgrades.  I'll write about other topics in separate blog entries sometime later.  My primary desktop computer that I use every single day is now about five years old.  It is still a powerful computer even by today's standards but it needed some preventative maintenance as well as a few upgrades.  Five years of daily use is a long time.   The primary issue that needed to be resolved is that my C: drive was almost full.  It was so full that just browsing the internet for a few days would collect enough temporary files that my C: drive would move into the red warning area (less than 10gb&

This morning, we did a short hike in Montpelier to Hubbard Park.  I'll write more about that and share some photos in another blog entry.  After our hike, we went to lunch at Sarducci's.  Next to Sarducci's is a single railroad line used primarily for transporting granite.  The kids were hoping we would see a granite train coming through the city while we were there.  The chances of this happening are very slim but, who knows?  Maybe we could get lucky... While eating lunch, we heard a train coming through.  Unfortunately, we were seated on the porch overlooking the river on the opposite side of the building where the railroad tracks are located so we couldn't see the train.  We did hear him...  we heard the rumble of the engine...  we felt the vibrating building as the train passed by...  we heard the horn...  and we heard the clanging bell as it slowly crept across streets.  The kids were kind of bummed that we couldn't see the train making its way through downtow

My summers over the past few years have been mostly completely lost summers of poor health and it looks as though this summer will be the same.   I had been sick all through the last three weeks of July with what was likely and presumably COVID, yet again, and now I have the terribly inflamed joint problem starting all over again just like after the first two times I had COVID.  As if that is not enough, either I am developing a mild case of shingles or those shingles-like symptoms are related to my inflamed joints.  If so, rather than having inflamed joints lingering for months, it is more like inflamed nerves.   About five days ago, I started developing pain from my right brow up across my forehead and across my scalp to the back of my head.  It is definitely burning, overly-sensitive, and irritated skin as opposed to something under the bone like in the brain.  We initially figured that maybe the latest bout with COVID triggered shingles.   I've had the better and newest shingle

M any  nights before heading to bed, I continue to try to refine my workflow for processing my solar imagery data.  I'm definitely beginning to understand what needs to be done in this process because I feel my resulting images are getting better and better.  This photo, below, is a photo I compiled and processed from data collected just a couple of days ago on July 31st.   I've found that when I black out the disk/sphere of the sun, everything on the limb of the sun really stands out.  The fine hair-like spicules of red-hot plasma are clearly visible all along the limb.  In this particular shot, there is a rather large prominence too which really is the main subject here.  This is red glowing plasma consisting of hydrogen and helium.  This prominence is flowing and looping along magnetic fields about 24,000 miles into the corona from in front of the limb to back behind the limb in this photo.  Generally speaking, prominences can flow and loop into the corona upwards of tens of

I did some mower blade sharpening and balancing this morning.  That little bit of activity started another coughing bout which helped to clear out my lungs a bit so I guess that is a good outcome.   This illness/virus just won't go away though.  My O2 level is at 94% now which is not great but better than it has been.  I've been as low as the mid-80s.  So, I suppose I am improving...  slowly...  very slowly.  I suspect that the low oxygen intake is adding to my usual overwhelming fatigue.  Anyway, I did a little bit of very light work in the yard this morning. Oh yeah...  before I did the blade sharpening, I also sheared a bush in the yard that was far too shaggy.  Shaggy, sloppy landscaping drives me crazy.  There is rarely a good excuse for it so I hate seeing it.  Shaggy, sloppy landscaping is more often due to laziness and I hate laziness and procrastination as well.   The most strenuous part of cleaning up that one tall bush in our yard was pulling out a step ladder and c

I am still feeling rather lousy and lacking energy so I didn't think it would be wise to do much today.  My plan was to lay low and recover.  I want this virus behind me...  once again!  (Perhaps the third time is the charm.)   The lawn is in need of mowing but I have been putting that off for the past few days in an attempt to recover.  This morning was a fairly clear day outside though so I mustered up the energy to drag one of my telescopes outside to do some solar observing again for a short while.  This wouldn't require nearly as much energy as mowing the lawn or any other project that needs to be done so solar observing was the thing to do this morning. This time I grabbed my longest telescope so I could do some closeup observing. I haven't used this telescope in a while.  This telescope is fairly long at 1000mm.  When we combine that with the internal Barlow lens of the Quark Chromosphere hydrogen alpha solar filter I was using, that put my total focal length at 420

I 'm still feeling rather lousy and coughing whenever I move so I'm laying low at home.  This morning, however, I accomplished a few small maintenance tasks on my astronomy gear.   First, I wanted to install a better saddle on my newly converted EXOS2 manual mount (photo at right).  I don't care for saddles with a single bolt holding my telescope on the mount.  I prefer two pressure clamps holding my telescopes.  I had ordered an appropriate saddle a few weeks ago and it arrived this past week.  I just needed to drill a hole and then assemble it so that was a small and easy task that proved to be unremarkable.  Then I moved to my best telescope.  My Explore Scientific 102mm APO refractor recently developed a sticky focuser.  It wasn't sticking to a complete stop but it was not as smooth as I like it.  Any bit of stickiness in the focuser causes some vibration in your view so I new I wanted to resolve this little problem before I got worse.  This task was a little more i