daisy's got a new motor!

nice!

a most excellent hauling all our telescope gear, etc. up mountains turbo-charged steed. our first astronomical trip will be to our astronomy club's public star gaze to be held at:

C.M. Crockett Park in Fauquier County, Virginia

NOVAC invites you to the largest public star gaze in the Washington DC area. Learn about astronomy while enjoying the night sky with hundreds of telescopes, binoculars and homemade projects. Many experienced astronomers will be on hand to answer questions and share their knowledge.

> > >>> >>A sobering thought for us all?



A sad story.

A friend sent this photo of a horrible highway accident inGermany.
The picture may be kind of hard to take for some of you. If you
look closely you can see what appear to be some survivors of the
accident still in the wreckage.

Although the picture is quite graphic, it makes you realize how
quickly our loved ones can be taken from us.

My friend stayed on the scene to help and even though he performed
mouth-to-mouth on quite a few of them, none apparently survived!

no way is evolution true...man is the work of god...

bet the discovery institute's downing a few glasses to this discovery...

haven't been blogging much since the desktop's still with alienware being fixed, and i don't like blogging using our thinkpad.

not bad, alienware; our computer went down on july 3rd...

he's a bit handy

what a race. more overtaking for the lead in this one race than in the whole of the formula 1 season...sensational.

pluto - put in perspective

there seems to be a lot of people that somehow 'overvalue' pluto as a planet and have asked me what i think about its 'demotion. i have always thought that it should never have been called one in the first place. we, as humans, attach starnge affections to members of our solar system, where in fact the only other world visited by man is the moon.

perhaps this celestial scale puts everything in perspective best.

arcturus shines over 100 times as brightly and releases approximately 215 times more radiation than does our sun, which is an astronomical commoner, a yellow dwarf. so we, in our present state could not survive if arcturus replaced the sun in our sky.

i wonder how much the mark brunell medallion will be going for on ebay?

i 'over sported' yesterday. starting off with the formula one italian grand prix, in monza. i've never been schumacher's biggest fan, so i shall not be mourning his absence from the grid after this season is over.

then it was world superbikes, from germany. er, what was troy baliss doing, coming off the track, twice!

then, nfl game 1, eagles at houston.

then game 2, jacksonvilee at dallas,

then game 3, indianapolis at new york giants.

exhausting!

and it's a double-header for monday night football!

bought to you by:

the partnership for a drug-free america

crikey!

well, at least he wasn't knocked down by a number 9 bus...

walker the stalker wins his first world superbike race

now that's what i call blokey!

anyone 'fortunate' enough to have actually ridden their bikes to assen, to wait and watch chris walker of britain, show how to ride in world superbike racing in atrocious weather conditions, was treated to a heroic display of the head-shaking-in-disbelief impossible. last on the grid to first, in absolutely appalling weather.

one of the best rides i have ever seen.

i guess he's secured his contract for next season...

blokey!

whose line is it, anyway?

i read today in the new york times that george bush is linking the war on terror (aren't you completely sick of this phrase by now?) to the former battles against nazis and soviets.

r u kidding, w? correct me if i'm wrong, but i thought that both the nazis and soviets represented their respective countries' governments . even the notorious taliban can't claim that.

on september 11th, america will quite rightly, somberly remember the 5th anniversary of 9/11, especially those 2,752 lives lost in the world trade center tragedy. at such a poignent moment, george bush might perhaps cast a respectful thought to those tens of thousands of innocent iraqi civilians whose lives have also been lost since he decided to invade iraq at no one's asking, stripping the people of their government, and plunging their country into a never-ending daily intolerable nightmare. i wonder what the headlines would be over here, if 64 americans were killed by militia and a further 286 were wounded in a single day?

the tens of thousands of iraqi dead, and countless more mutilated and wounded, also have family and friends, too. does bush actually think that there will be no lasting legacy for those left behind?

not only would it appear not, but amazingly, he doesn't even know modern history and the difference between acts of terrorism and world wars. better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool, george, than to open it and remove all doubt.

meanwhile, the free world waits in vain, and pain. the victims' families of 9/11 move on slowly (or not) with the passage of time - this unassailable facet of time applies to everyone, as equally relevent to the families and friends of those that have lost lost loved ones in the service of this country and also to the families and friends of the civilians of iraq.

'stay the course'? this is a course, george?

5 days and a tent

daisy and i had a great time leaving the city behind and living at 4,800ft in the mountains of west virginia for our astronomy club's annual star party. there were some 200 people armed with scopes of all sizes. the skies were incredible for 3 of the 5 days, and we can't wait to go to our next star party.