alberio

this may look like two points of light.

that's because they are.

but it's also my first ever image of a star (actually the double star, alberio) i captured last night from our 5th floor apartment window, smack in the middle of light-polluted washington, d.c.

alberio lies some 380 light years away. that's 2280 trillion miles away!

travelling at a nice leisurely 100mph, it would take 15,600,000,000 years to get there.....

i'm not saying how long it took me to get this image.......



at the head of the constellation cygnus is the famous star, alberio. considered the most beautiful double star in the sky

the worst movie ever made

just when you think that the film 'armageddon', with bruce willis, can't get any worse, it does. and continues to do so, ad nauseum, to the very end.
- which is two hours too late.

this has to be the most arrogant piece of crap ever put onto 35mm film.

letter to the democratic party

i just sent this e-mail letter to the democratic party after reading that bush will not increase taxes to pay for the cost of rebuilding new orleans. i bet the poor can't wait for those budget cuts.....

you will never have a better opportunity to defeat the republicans than the one that has now been presented to you on a plate by that irresponsible idiot living a few blocks from where i live.

get yourselves organised and find a true leader. you don't need a nice
guy, you need a pit bull. stop trying to please everyone and stand up
for what you truly believe. the country is waiting for you to do just that.

if you can't win the next presidential election by a landslide, i suggest
you give up and disband your political party, and let another form. one
that really does speak for the masses.

i don't think for one minute that this e-mail will be passed to anyone
in a position of authority in your party. how about you prove me wrong
and send me a non-automated response?

i'm posting this to my blog, so every democrat that happens to stumble
upon my thoughts reads this.

this is what you see after you post a message to the democratic party:

Thank You

Thank you for contacting the DNC. We'll forward your comments to the
appropriate person.

we'll see....we'll also see just who is deemed appropriate by the response
i get. i'll post the reply as soon as i get it.

when home plate umpires go mad

i'm no new york yankees fan, but you have to wonder what home plate umpire fieldin culbreth was on when he tossed randy johnson from tonight's game against toronto.

, bush, f.e.m.a and this evening

president bush is to address the nation tonight at 9pm.

this is what i want to hear answers to:

1. why wasn't michael brown fired instead of being allowed to resign.

2.why did president bush say that everyone was doing 'a heck of a job'? is he mad?

3. is president bush going to appoint an independent commission on what went wrong, and why?

4. will he publicly admit that his administration's funding cuts forced federal engineers to delay improvements on the levees, floodgates and pumping stations that failed to protect new orleans from hurricane katrina's floodwaters.

5. why was he the last person to know what was going on? perhaps because he refuses to read the newspapers and watch the news on television. he had to have his advisors tell him.

6. what does his administration plan to do in order to tackle the problem of poverty, especially in the light of new orlean's poorest ctizens who had no means of evacuation, and were so miserably failed by their commander in chief, fema, their governor, and mayor. just who was doing a 'heck of a good job'?

7. and on the seventh question, i rested.

41%

from the new york times front page:

president's job approval ratings hit a low

'....41 percent of respondents approved of mr. bush's performance in office...'

the times omitted to mention that those 41% were also recommended for immediate psychiatric evaluation, and admitted that the only way they would not approve of mr. bush's performance was if he raised their taxes.

feet

just throwing this out, as i don't know the answer. i don't know why i even thought of it, but:

for every other part, or limb of the human body, you have the singular, then the plural. for instance:

one eye; two eyes.
one arm; two, or both arms.
a shoulder; two, or both shoulders.
one elbow; two elbows. etc.
one leg; two legs.
one ankle, two, or both ankles.

but why, when it comes to the foot, do you have one foot and two feet?
i'm using foots from now on to describe two feet until i find out.

anyone know the answer to this, or can give another example of the human body?


i'm off to five, now to see ltj bukem. see ya :)

aaargh!

just went to the gym. decided to weigh myself after. 208lbs. oh dear.....

target 200lbs by sept. 30th. not going to weigh myself until then.

nothing like stupidity + ltj bukem (not related)

a special thanks to eric, who doesn't have a blog for the spam. why don't you try again :) best of luck on the brain-builder.....

and on a much more positive note.....ltj bukem's at club five tomorrow night.

keep blogs spam free!

please don't spam my blog.

the last (very serious and charged) post received a totally subject-free comment from some moron (yes. you, maggs), solely posted in order for me to check out some lame jewellry site, for which i presume, they receive some small pittance for me clicking on to. that's a really great display of intelligence and thought maggs , given the subject of the post.

any more spam will result in the filtering of comments via e-mail first, before allowing posting to this blog. i don't want to be spammed. that means i do not want to be sold to.

this is directly aimed at all you "hey! check this great site out... i found a great deal on boring, boring, boring... ." weak excuses for people.

i have a brain; if i want to buy something, this blog will not be the conduit for that purchase.

er, unless it's with regard to telescopes, of course..... ;)

thank you!

nutty

Subject: Fw: Eyewitness report from New Orleans

this was forwarded to me.

whatever the final outcomes of this ongoing tragedy, let's hope that the experiences described below are not replicated in this country. it's a sobering read, and one that clearly is at odds with what the politicians were saying.....of course it's biased. i can't imagine how it couldn't be, given what we all saw on television.

if the democrats can't win the next election after this, they should just give up and disband their party. any other result will clearly indicate that it's time to do so. just when will the candidates actually represent the working class and the poor?. the senate , 40% of which is comprised of millionaires did not prevent this disgrace. democrats: stop trying to please everyone and bring some humanity and common sense back to this country - if the american people care, let them vote for candidates that will speak out and force the change that is so evidently needed. the rest of the world cannot believe what it has seen, especially after all the rhetoric about protecting it's citizens and making the world a safer place. the shocking reality is disturbingly different.

here's the account:

Two friends of mine-paramedics attending a conference-were trapped in New
Orleans by Hurricane Katrina. This is their eyewitness report. --PG

Hurricane Katrina-Our Experiences

Larry Bradshaw, Lorrie Beth Slonsky

Two days after Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, the Walgreen's store at the corner of Royal and Iberville streets remained locked. The dairy display case was clearly visible through the widows. It was now 48 hours without electricity, running water, plumbing. The milk, yogurt, and cheeses were beginning to spoil in the 90-degree heat. The owners and managers had locked up the food, water, pampers, and prescriptions and fled the City. Outside Walgreen's windows, residents and tourists grew increasingly thirsty and hungry.

The much-promised federal, state and local aid never materialized and the windows at Walgreen's gave way to the looters. There was an alternative. The cops could have broken one small window and distributed the nuts, fruit juices, and bottle water in an organized and systematic manner. But they did not. Instead they spent hours playing cat and mouse, temporarily chasing away the looters.

We were finally airlifted out of New Orleans two days ago and arrived home yesterday (Saturday). We have yet to see any of the TV coverage or look at a newspaper. We are willing to guess that there were no video images or front-page pictures of European or affluent white tourists looting the Walgreen's in the French Quarter.

We also suspect the media will have been inundated with "hero" images of the National Guard, the troops and the police struggling to help the "victims" of the Hurricane. What you will not see, but what we witnessed,were the real heroes and sheroes of the hurricane relief effort: the working class of New Orleans. The maintenance workers who used a fork lift to carry the sick and disabled. The engineers, who rigged, nurtured and kept the generators running. The electricians who improvised thick extension cords stretching over blocks to share the little electricity we had in order to free cars stuck on rooftop parking lots. Nurses who took over for mechanical ventilators and spent many hours on end manually forcing air into the lungs of unconscious patients to keep them alive. Doormen who rescued folks stuck in elevators.
Refinery workers who broke into boat yards, "stealing" boats to rescue their neighbors clinging to their roofs in flood waters. Mechanics who helped hot-wire any car that could be found to ferry people out of the City. And the food service workers who scoured the commercial kitchens improvising communal meals for hundreds of those stranded.

Most of these workers had lost their homes, and had not heard from members of their families, yet they stayed and provided the only infrastructure for the 20% of New Orleans that was not under water.

On Day 2, there were approximately 500 of us left in the hotels in the French Quarter. We were a mix of foreign tourists, conference attendees like ourselves, and locals who had checked into hotels for safety and shelter from Katrina. Some of us had cell phone contact with family and friends outside of New Orleans. We were repeatedly told that all sorts of resources including the National Guard and scores of buses were pouring in to the City. The buses and the other resources must have been invisible because none of us had seen them.

We decided we had to save ourselves. So we pooled our money and came up with $25,000 to have ten buses come and take us out of the City. Those who did not have the requisite $45.00 for a ticket were subsidized by those who did have extra money. We waited for 48 hours for the buses, spending the last 12 hours standing outside, sharing the limited water, food, and clothes we had. We created a priority boarding area for the sick, elderly and new born babies. We waited late into the night for the "imminent" arrival of the buses. The buses never arrived. We later learned that the minute the arrived to the City limits, they were commandeered by the military.

By day 4 our hotels had run out of fuel and water. Sanitation was dangerously abysmal. As the desperation and despair increased, street crime as well as water levels began to rise. The hotels turned us out and locked their doors, telling us that the "officials" told us to report to the
convention center to wait for more buses. As we entered the center of the City, we finally encountered the National Guard. The Guards told us we would not be allowed into the Superdome as the City's primary shelter had descended into a humanitarian and health hellhole.
The guards further told us that the City's only other shelter, the Convention Center, was also descending into chaos and squalor and that the police were not allowing anyone else in. Quite naturally, we asked, "If we can't go to the only 2 shelters in the City, what was our alternative?" The guards told us that that was our problem, and no they did not have extra water to give to us. This would be the start of our numerous encounters with callous and hostile "law enforcement".

We walked to the police command center at Harrah's on Canal Street and were told the same thing, that we were on our own, and no they did not have water to give us. We now numbered several hundred. We held a mass meeting to decide a course of action. We agreed to camp outside the police command post. We would be plainly visible to the media and would constitute a highly visible embarrassment to the City officials. The police told us that we could not stay. Regardless, we began to settle in and set up camp. In short order, the police commander came across the street to address our group. He told us he had a solution: we should walk to the Pontchartrain Expressway and cross the greater New Orleans Bridge where the police had buses lined up to take us out of the City.
The crowed cheered and began to move. We called everyone back and explained to the commander that there had been lots of misinformation and wrong information and was he sure that there were buses waiting for us. The commander turned to the crowd and stated emphatically, "I swear to you that the buses are there."

We organized ourselves and the 200 of us set off for the bridge with great excitement and hope. As we marched pasted the convention center, many locals saw our determined and optimistic group and asked where we were headed. We told them about the great news. Families immediately grabbed their few belongings and quickly our numbers doubled and then doubled again. Babies in strollers now joined us, people using crutches, elderly clasping walkers and
others people in wheelchairs. We marched the 2-3 miles to the freeway and up the steep incline to the Bridge. It now began to pour down rain, but it did not dampen our enthusiasm.

As we approached the bridge, armed Gretna sheriffs formed a line across the foot of the bridge. Before we were close enough to speak, they began firing their weapons over our heads. This sent the crowd fleeing in various directions. As the crowd scattered and dissipated, a few of us inched forward and managed to engage some of the sheriffs in conversation. We told them of our conversation with the police commander and of the commander's assurances. The sheriffs informed us there were no buses waiting. The commander had lied to us to get us to move.

We questioned why we couldn't cross the bridge anyway, especially as there was little traffic on the 6-lane highway. They responded that the West Bank was not going to become New Orleans and there would be no Superdomes in their City. These were code words for if you are poor and black, you are not crossing the Mississippi River and you were not getting out of New Orleans.

Our small group retreated back down Highway 90 to seek shelter from the rain under an overpass. We debated our options and in the end decided to build an encampment in the middle of the Ponchartrain Expressway on the center divide, between the O'Keefe and Tchoupitoulas exits. We reasoned we would be visible to everyone, we would have some security being on an elevated freeway and we could wait and watch for the arrival of the yet to be seen buses.

All day long, we saw other families, individuals and groups make the same trip up the incline in an attempt to cross the bridge, only to be turned away. Some chased away with gunfire, others simply told no, others to be verbally berated and humiliated. Thousands of New Orleaners were prevented and prohibited from self-evacuating the City on foot. Meanwhile, the only two City shelters sank further into squalor and disrepair. The only way across the bridge was by vehicle. We saw workers stealing trucks, buses, moving vans, semi-trucks and any car that could be
hotwired. All were packed with people trying to escape the misery New Orleans had become.

Our little encampment began to blossom. Someone stole a water delivery truck and brought it up to us. Let's hear it for looting! A mile or so down the freeway, an army truck lost a couple of pallets of C-rations on a tight turn. We ferried the food back to our camp in shopping carts.
Now secure with the two necessities, food and water; cooperation, community, and creativity flowered. We organized a clean up and hung garbage bags from the rebar poles. We made beds from wood pallets and cardboard. We designated a storm drain as the bathroom and the kids built an elaborate enclosure for privacy out of plastic, broken umbrellas, and other scraps. We even organized a food recycling system where individuals could swap out parts of C-rations (applesauce for babies and candies for kids!).

This was a process we saw repeatedly in the aftermath of Katrina. When individuals had to fight to find food or water, it meant looking out for yourself only. You had to do whatever it took to find water for your kids or food for your parents. When these basic needs were met, people began to look out for each other, working together and constructing a community.

If the relief organizations had saturated the City with food and water in the first 2 or 3 days, the desperation, the frustration and the ugliness would not have set in.

Flush with the necessities, we offered food and water to passing families and individuals. Many decided to stay and join us. Our encampment grew to 80 or 90 people.

From a woman with a battery powered radio we learned that the media was talking about us. Up in full view on the freeway, every relief and news organizations saw us on their way into the City. Officials were being asked what they were going to do about all those families living up on the freeway? The officials responded they were going to take care of us. Some of us got a sinking feeling. "Taking care of us" had an ominous tone to it.

Unfortunately, our sinking feeling (along with the sinking City) was correct. Just as dusk set in, a Gretna Sheriff showed up, jumped out of his patrol vehicle, aimed his gun at our faces, screaming, "Get off the fucking freeway". A helicopter arrived and used the wind from its blades to blow away our flimsy structures. As we retreated, the sheriff loaded up his truck with our food and water.

Once again, at gunpoint, we were forced off the freeway. All the law enforcement agencies appeared threatened when we congregated or congealed into groups of 20 or more. In every congregation of "victims" they saw "mob" or "riot". We felt safety in numbers. Our "we must stay together" was impossible because the agencies would force us into small atomized groups.

In the pandemonium of having our camp raided and destroyed, we scattered once again. Reduced to a small group of 8 people, in the dark, we sought refuge in an abandoned school bus, under the freeway on Cilo Street. We were hiding from possible criminal elements but equally and definitely, we were hiding from the police and sheriffs with their martial law, curfew and
shoot-to-kill policies.

The next days, our group of 8 walked most of the day, made contact with New Orleans Fire Department and were eventually airlifted out by an urban search and rescue team. We were dropped off near the airport and managed to catch a ride with the National Guard. The two young guardsmen apologized for the limited response of the Louisiana guards. They explained that a large section of their unit was in Iraq and that meant they were shorthanded and were unable to complete all the tasks they were assigned.

We arrived at the airport on the day a massive airlift had begun. The airport had become another Superdome. We 8 were caught in a press of humanity as flights were delayed for several hours while George Bush landed briefly at the airport for a photo op. After being evacuated on a coast guard cargo plane, we arrived in San Antonio, Texas.

There the humiliation and dehumanization of the official relief effort continued. We were placed on buses and driven to a large field where we were forced to sit for hours and hours. Some of the buses did not have air-conditioners. In the dark, hundreds if us were forced to share two
filthy overflowing porta-potties. Those who managed to make it out with any possessions (often a few belongings in tattered plastic bags) we were subjected to two different dog-sniffing searches.

Most of us had not eaten all day because our C-rations had been confiscated at the airport because the rations set off the metal detectors. Yet, no food had been provided to the men, women, children, elderly, disabled as they sat for hours waiting to be "medically screened" to make sure we were not carrying any communicable diseases.

This official treatment was in sharp contrast to the warm, heart-felt reception given to us by the ordinary Texans. We saw one airline worker give her shoes to someone who was barefoot. Strangers on the street offered us money and toiletries with words of welcome. Throughout, the official relief effort was callous, inept, and racist. There was more suffering than need
be. Lives were lost that did not need to be lost.
_______________________________________________

big new sunspot!

can easily see this huge sun spot (much bigger than the earth) naked-eye with a pair of solar eclipse solar shades.

do not look at the sun directly unless you have special solar filters or eclipse sunglasses specially designed to look at the sun. normal sunglasses will NOT protect your eyes.

very strong auroral activity is forecast, and we're off to great falls in virginia, tonight to see if we can spot some celestial beauty.

the naming of hurricanes

there's absoultely nothing wrong with the name katrina, it's one of the better, less obvious names going, but now i'm fairly confident that this name will disappear from the list of top twenty names that parents will choose to endow their female offspring with. not to mention anyone with the name of katrina now having to deal with the obvious response should they be asked their name......

what a shame. it's about time to end this ridiculous practice of giving names to hurricanes as if they were human-like personalities. a hurricane is a natural event, no matter what the scale. time also to put an end to the media's overworked phrase "...the 'wrath' of katrina" hurricanes don't exhibit human tendedncies, such as anger and wrath, we humans do.

so why do we choose to name them? if we must name them, give them made up ones, like passwords, such as 'wzhtyqf'. that'll stop the media in their tracks. bet you wouldn't see too many headlines such as "washington, d.c preparing for wzhtyqf" . or why not give them a letter and a number, followed by the date? there is no need to romanticise hurricane katrina by attributing personality; the destruction and suffering along with loss of lives and homes needs no romanticising or personlising.

until then, this is the list for 2005:

Arlene
Bret
Cindy
Dennis
Emily
Franklin
Gert
Harvey
Irene
Jose
Katrina
Lee
Maria
Nate
Ophelia
Philippe
Rita
Stan
Tammy
Vince
Wilma

cadillacs and the colour beige

it's really weird. we rent a car from budget, which turns out to be a cadillac. now, we're seeing them everywhere in d.c. these cars are truly awful (except when isaac newton's forces of motion remain unchallenged when going at a constant speed and in a straight line, zzzzzzzzzzzz).
how come there are so many of them around?

secondly; beige is NOT a colour; it's a cop-out.

our first novac trip - to spruce knob in west virginia

the roving novice reports:

our first novac observing trip.

rebecca left the apartment around 10:30am to go and pick up the rental car from budget as i continued packing. around an hour or so later she returned…with a cadillac. that’s right; a cadillac. the only car budget had available. an auspicious start, i thought.

the cadillac, or rather the huge silver barge, easily swallowed all our gear and we departed friday afternoon around 12:30pm. being a holiday weekend, i was expecting much worse traffic than encountered as we headed out of d.c, westward on route 66. armed with numerous novac and e-mail printouts i ‘phoned the number for the mountain institute (tmi) to confirm that we did in fact have a place to sleep once we got there.

after leaving a message, a lady returned my call some twenty minutes later reassuring me that everything was o.k.

the first part of the journey was identical to going to big meadows in the shenandoah, and only when we reached route 33, did the trip become more interesting, as we encountered series after series of twisting, winding roads and sharp bends. away from its natural element of dead-straight highways, the softly-sprung cadillac demonstrated the needle sharp response, pin-point steering, and razor-like handling of a bloated slug, while it gulped gasoline. this is going to be a lot of fun heading up a mountain…note to ourselves: let’s not rent a cadillac deville again for this sort of trip, even by default. luckily, i’d packed some cd’s and lee burridge’s, nubreed album provided some decidedly non-mountain music as we lurched and wallowed bend to bend, and then forced to follow slower traffic. well, at least the sound system was up to the task.

within 4 hours or so, we reached the turn to head to spruce knob and wound our way towards our destination. we easily spotted the sign for the mountain institute and parked up at the entrance. glad to get out of the car and breathe in some clean, cool, non-polluted air, we sprayed ourselves in bug-off! and walked along a path to a nearby building secluded by trees.

as we entered the unlocked door, it became obvious that this was an administrative building. a rack full of mountain bikes hung on a wall. i looked around for maps, telephone numbers, anything that might help us find the accommodation we were looking for. nothing. a nearby shack didn’t exactly look promising either, so we returned to the car and headed up a gravel and dirt road. about a quarter mile further, rebecca stopped. this didn’t seem right as the road didn’t seem to lead to anywhere, and the car was having a tough time negotiating the ever-narrowing and bumpy road. we reversed back to the entrance and headed for spruce knob. perhaps the accommodation was further up along. five minutes later had us convinced that we were still wrong and we turned around to return to the entrance we had just left.

i took over driving duties and we had another go at the only real option. a quarter-mile along, we met a car coming towards us. i was very glad when i spotted the driver wearing a woodlands institute t-shirt, who informed us we were only a half-mile away from our destination. as we approached the main building, a huge dobsonian was already set up in an observing field to our right. this was very encouraging. it was nearly six o’ clock by the time we parked up the car. dinner was to be served shortly, and we were very happy to meet a few other observers and also to see that a couple of large cooking trays of shepherd’s pie and a big bowl of salad had been laid out for all the staff and guests at tmi.

we chucked everything off in our twin-bunked room and drove back the short distance to the observing field to set the ‘scope up. i decided upon a reasonably level patch close to the big dob. way before it actually got dark, venus and jupiter put on a great show, shining brightly as they hung above a lone tree to the west. there was a fair, constant breeze blowing as the owner of the big dob returned in a white van. for white van, read complete mobile observatory. jim anderson not only has a killer 22” starmaster, but also a complete all-in-one traveling set-up. undeterred by his obvious experience, know-how and set-up, yet acknowledging to myself that there couldn’t be two people more opposite in their astronomy skills with two telescopes next to each other, we finished setting up “uhuru” and did a quick two star alignment. it was at this point that i realized that the cadillac imitated something out of star wars, courtesy lights everywhere the minute you opened up any door. luckily, jim (of course) had some blue duct-tape and i spent about twenty minutes light-proofing the car. another couple were setting up a televue refractor on a losmandy mount to do some imaging, and rob mckinney came over to introduce himself. i told him i though he looked familiar and i thought i'd seen him on the novac site...... we were all looking forward to a great night's viewing ahead.

jim proved to be an extremely friendly and helpful ally, and we chatted as we waited for the skies to darken. each minute that passed offered us a glimpse of just how great the darkening sky would reveal itself to be. way before it got truly dark, we could see the dust lanes in the milky way forming. wow! i had been blown away by the skies at shenandoah, but this promised something even better.

as a novice, living a couple of blocks from dupont circle in the middle of d.c., you quickly realize that you’re faced with the exact same problem (but opposite) when it comes to recognizing and learning the night sky. in the city, you can barely make anything out, and you’re lucky to see more than a handful of stars. away from a few hundred thousand people, under a truly dark sky, there is so much to see that only the most familiar of patterns are recognisable, and questions such as why doesn’t anyone make a big planisphere, i.e. that is bigger than a few inches in diameter, and why am i forced to perform mental gymnastics when going from the sky to a star chart and then to my sct when i look through it? given the huge numbers of sct’s, isn’t there a market for a star atlas that actually represents what you see at the eyepiece? of course, i have yet to get a decent eyepiece with a wide field of view, so i’ll see how i fare when i do manage to get one.

the goto on “uhuru” wasn’t exactly behaving as hoped for, putting some objects bang in the middle of the eyepiece and then not being close to others. i put this down to operator error setting up, this being only our third night with the telescope out actually observing. jim came over and together we battled the set up. he has an older lx200 12” that makes even more noise than ours (lx’s are not quiet telescopes) and is full of good advice. eventually, we got it pointing reasonably well and we were off. i can’t remember exactly how many of us there were that first night, but i guess around a half dozen. there’s something incredibly peaceful about being under a pristine night sky, whether you know your way around it or not. within a couple of hours, rebecca was all burned out having been up the night before doing school work, and was very happy to have the cadillac’s generous seats parked up within a few feet to crash on.

while i struggled to find objects, jim was calling me over to have a look through the starmaster. wow! shocking is the term i’d use to describe the view. the perception of 3d depth was overwhelming compared to the 8” sct. star clusters that looked very pretty in “uhuru” transformed themselves into neighbourhoods of sparkling beauty. so different a view does it offer, that when i kept returning to my ‘scope to compare the views, i could easily be convinced that i was looking at a completely different object. rob couldn’t resist the temptation either. is wow! the first word uttered the first time a person gets to view a deep sky object through jim’s starmaster? the view of the veil nebula was simply amazing and i was more than pleased to get a pretty decent view through the 8”. i had prepared a rough list of sorts to have as targets for the weekend. of course, the unexpected luxury of having jim’s generosity with his starmaster close at hand was too enticing to pass up, and i quickly forgot about the list and was just very happy to be where i was, when i was. it was getting pretty cold and if it wasn’t for the thermos flask full of coffee rebecca had made at the institute, i wouldn’t have made it through as long as i did. rob came over to chat and he pointed out the double star alberio that until then i didn’t know existed. i was also impressed by rob’s tip of defocusing the image to reveal star colour. much easier to see alberio’s gold and blue hues. he was mainly after open clusters and after a view through his scope and binoculars i could see why.

i was determined to wait up for mars though, and she didn’t disappoint. i have read many times about the benefits of regular observing of the red planet and i guess i spent about an hour with the 8” just staring, looking for any detail. cranking up the power with my cheap orion 17mm and 10mm eyepieces, and then with an orion barlow yielded a softer view, but for one brief moment, at maximum magnification available, i did manage to suddenly get a clear view, which made all the time and effort worthwhile. i was also determined to get a decent view of m42 in orion, having never seen the great nebula through a decent telescope. double wow! it was very late into the observing session by the time mighty orion rose over the horizon, but even being so low in the sky, the view was amazing. I have never seen the hunter better, seeing stars in the constellation i had never seen before. ten minutes later, i was all done, and shut down the ‘scope, turned off the dew heater, disconnected the battery pack, and covered her up for the night, and went and tried to grab some sleep in the driver’s seat of the cadillac.

i woke up to the sound of jim in his white van making his way past our car. it was a quarter past eight in the morning and breakfast was being served at the institute. hot coffee and an improvised toasted bagel with crispy bacon and a splash of tomato ketchup proved to be an excellent, if unconventional breakfast. a good, surprisingly hot shower on-site made us feel human again, and i was very happy to get back to our twin-bunked room and get some real rest on a reasonably comfortable bed, while the battery charged close by.

we didn’t do much of anything that day other than rest. i walked over to the observing field before lunch to check up on the scope and also just to get a walk we had been joined by a few others. two more big dobs, an enormous 24”, owned by bob parks was being wheeled out of the back of a trailer. i also met ralph, another very experienced observer. we were the only rookies!, yet everyone made this trip a super friendly, very community-based positive experience. when you don’t know anyone and you have very little knowledge of what you’re doing, i think there’s a natural tendency for newcomers to feel a little intimidated, and even though no-one would describe me as being a shy and retiring violet, i can say that this first astronomy club experience couldn’t have been less intimidating. i urge everyone out there who has recently joined novac, but has yet to go on a club observing trip to just do what we did; dive straight in. everyone you meet will make you feel very warmly welcomed; you’ll not only learn a lot, but have much more fun in the process than standing in the middle of a grassy area on your own for a few hours. you’ll also get to have a peek through other people’s telescopes...and go ‘wow!’

for the rest of the day, we slept and milled around the institute chatting to a few other people, including those that worked there. six o’clock came, and this time the lasagna proved to be even more popular than the previous day’s shepherd’s pie. we chatted to a few of the girls working at tmi and invited them to join us later on to observe if they felt like it. after getting ready, we drove back to the observing field. it was evidently more cloudy and hardly a gust of wind, although everyone reassured me that we wouldn’t get clouded out.

the objects i’d missed the first night were fairly easily located the next, having the huge benefit of seeing the same sky for the second night in a row. rebecca’s first ever view through a dob, courtesy of jim, was ‘oh my god!’ when she took a look at m13 in hercules, followed up with the expected ‘wow!’ i suggested to jim that he should get a wow!-ometer fitted to his starmaster to record the number of wow!’s he gets from others. it is easily the best telescope i have ever viewed through.

in a short while ominous black clouds began to creep in, doing their best to spoil the party. that and the dew. with almost a total lack of wind, dew began forming on everything early on in the proceedings. down to just the eyepiece, as i didn’t have a means to warm the finder, hunting down objects became much trickier. jim’s view of m57, the ring nebula made up for any disappointments, though.

the group of girls we had met earlier, who had just arrived to work at the institute took us up on our offer to join us, and after i showed them m13 in hercules, rob mckinney provided a mightily impressive and easy to grasp intro to the night sky for us. explaining how to use one’s fingers and hands to gauge measurement, he quickly went to pointing out key stars and how to navigate around the sky. i would say that was definitely one of the highlights for me and rebecca. and all with the naked eye.

speaking of naked eye, later on, when it was essentially down to myself, rebecca and ralph still up and observing, ralph amazed us by pointing out the planet uranus with the naked eye. one minute, it was clear as anything, the next simply disappearing from view... along with the star we were using to locate it. eventually, even we had to call it quits, and instead of sleeping in the car for a second night in a row, rebecca and i did a quick job of disconnecting the battery and pulling over the cover, and walked back the short distance to the lodging. walking back, it was impossible not to be impressed by orion rising over a dark horizon of trees. even though we were pretty cold and tired, we just stood there, taking it in, knowing we were very lucky to be where we were at that moment. it was absolutely pitch black, and we couldn’t see a thing as we blindly inched towards our bunks, trying hard not to awaken kim and ben (hope i got your names right) in the shared room.

a breakfast of bagel, sausages and hot coffee had us debating whether to stay an extra night. we decided to wait until lunch to make up our minds. kat’s most excellent homemade tomato soup and grilled cheese toast was very welcome, but sadly we had to acknowledge rebecca’s schedule, and we loaded up the car and said our goodbyes to everyone, before driving to the observing field to pack “uhuru” up for the trip home.

all i can say is that this was a very memorable trip and a great experience. a great many thanks to everyone we met from novac and the mountain institute for making it such. i learned a great deal, benefiting from the wealth of experience of others, not just on what we were looking at, but the whole process of observing.

i couldn’t have asked for more.

the bushes on vacation..

my very good friend, juliana sent this pic to me.

but let's not forget the ladies...here's barbara bush's gem of the week:

"And so many of the people in the arena here, you
know, were underprivileged anyway, so this--this (she
chuckles slightly) is working very well for them."



there's nothing quite like the rich reaching out to the poor, in times of great need to make them feel better about their lot.........

how about putting a brake on all the irresponsible tax cuts and actually do a decent job of looking after those that need it most? if this is what the largest and most technologically powerful economy in the world does for its own poor, then someone, somewhere, isn't doing a very good job, are they?

this isn't a time to point the finger and issue blame; it's about owning up to the responsibility of government to all it's inhabitants, and telling the bare-bones truth, just for once.

gmc ad

for all the reasons i am reviled by the budweiser ad, i have to give top marks for the new gmc ad, wheeled out for the opening game of the season.

what true, football-loving male could say otherwise? i mean; come on........

benny reckons the raiders by three, or so i heard in blue last night. i reckon pats by ten. we'll see who is closer.

nutty

nfl season opener

just watched the truly awful budweiser ad on the opening to the 2005 nfl season.

is this a joke?
because i just saw the most obviously big ad music, matched to a truly terrible, stereotyped ad, meant to appeal to literally every sector of society. just like the beer, the ad's a watered down disgrace so as to make it a non-event.

nutty

fox news katrina coverage and music

dear fox news,

we are not regular fox news channel viewers. however, the heroic reporting, especially from the outstanding shepherd smith had us sadly riveted and moved beyond words. we have now just returned home to washington, d.c from a weekend away this sunday evening, and now find a very different coverage of the aftermath of hurrican katrina, one that is being accompanied by 'sad' music.

how obnoxious! this isn't hollywood! i didn't hear music at all last week when the real story was unfolding before our eyes. now that people have begun to be relocated to shelters, we are left with the 'good' and the 'positive' spin. is the playing of funereal music supposed to comfort us? the american people don't need soft music to make them feel better. i thought you were a news channel, not a conduit for bad movie music. the reporting of the good now coming from this story is being totally diluted by the addition of 'sad' music.

you think it appropriate to add sad music at this time, or is this to make the american people help forget the horror of last week? either way, it's plain wrong and as far from journalism as you can get. good news and bad news don't need music. to my knowledge, you haven't been playing music when reporting death and destruction in baghdad....

i trust you will now be adopting a similar strategy for every disaster, not only at home but also abroad from now on. however, you will not be watched in this household. what a disappointment; for a week, you reminded me of the bbc.

mark solomon
washington, d.c.

katrina victims - a place to stay

urging anyone with space available to help out those who have lost their home due to hurricane katrina and needs a place to stay.

while attention is understandably focused on those still in need of rescue, there must be many, many others who did manage to get out and need help. this posting is intended for all that have been displaced from their homes.

we just posted this on craigslist.org

---

katrina victims - a place to stay

Reply to: mark.a.solomon@gmail.com
Date: 2005-08-31, 7:13PM CDT


we live in an apartment building in the center of washington, d.c. we don't have a spare room, but we do have our living space available for someone who is in need of a place to stay. this offer is open to anyone who has been displaced from their home due to hurricane katrina.

mark & rebecca

mark.a.solomon@gmail.com
cell# 202-487-8228

rcstack@gmail.com
cell# 917-304-5021

letter to the new york times

While the Governor of Mississipi is understandably under very considerable stress following the devastation suffered in the wake of hurricane Katrina, it is not alright to compare hurricane damage to an atomic bomb dropped on the population of Hiroshima, Japan.

"It looks like Hiroshima is what it looks like," Gov. Haley Barbour said, describing parts of Harrison County, Miss. What it looks like is a hugely powerful hurricane accompanied by a very strong storm surge. The images ingrained in memory of Hiroshima that disturb us the most are the ones of people's indescribable agony that have suffered horrifc burns.

While the images coming out of the worst affected areas are very disturbing and emotionally charged, let us not compare natural disasters to the deadliest of man-made bombs. I'm sure any survivors of Hiroshima or their kin living in Mississippi would agree.

Speaking of World War II, I'm also surprised that Pres. Bush likens the war on terror to that of War II, saying both were launched by attacks on the U.S. killing thousands. Really? I thought it was Hitler's attack on Poland on Sept. 1st, 1939. Not Pearl Harbour! The war began in 1939, Mr. President. A fact known throughout Europe.

homeland security... the sad reality for ordinary people

considering the enormous financial investment, the government's never-ending selling of security to the nation through the media, and massive planning in the event of a direct terrorist strike - just what do the authorities really think they can do should the terrible happen?

here's a case where the entire city of new orleans has been provided days ahead with up-to-the -minute information, meetings have been timetabled and kept, plans implemented, and actions taken.

Gov. Kathleen Blanco said Interstate 10, which was converted Saturday so that all lanes headed one-way out of town, was totally gridlocked....

should a real terrorist strike occur, the large masses of people affected will inevitably do what humans have always done and will always do in situations of mass disruption: PANIC.

do the authorities really expect to be able to effectively evacuate our cities in a sudden emergency? and if so how? because gridlock a day later is not gonna do it.

am i the only one is completely unconvinced? katrina promises to bring a lot more real terror than the citizens of new orleans may or may not have feared from any Al Qaeda plot.

sobering as it is, we can as easily put it down to luck, just as anything else, that we will not be counted among the unlucky ones.

katrina

ye-ouch!

this storm is bigger than a lot of countries.....
cannot see how this won't be anything other than devastating.

i hope the poor and the homeless (human beings without a lot in the first place) get to safe shelter and the superdome.

- and let's hope that's still standing after the hurricane....

manned mission to mars - a letter to nasa

Dear NASA,

In support of your mission to mars program, i have a suggestion that may greatly aid in the long-term development of a permanent base on the red planet.

Consider, if you will, one Mr. Wile E. Coyote. Fearless, possessing great adaptability, guile and cunning, he also recovers well from inadvertant and unfortunate misshap. Wile E. Coyote surely extols the great virtues that are evidently required for mankind to not only reach the red planet, but to enable NASA to surge again and recapture some its heyday glory of the sixties, when it held everyone's attention worldwide.

Mr. Coyote's pedigree speaks for itself. American as can be, highly adaptable, familiar with a hostile, desert terrain, he opitimises the great american adventurer. Plus, his undoubted experiences (alas, not all favourable..) with rocket propulsion systems, courtesy of the Acme Supply Co. make him an ideal candidate for the first manned mission to mars.

He is most eager to join NASA's elite staff.

nutty,

Washington, D.C.

big meadows and our new telescope

Big Meadows, Shenandoah National Park, VA.

August 3^rd & 4^th, 2005

Our very first real observing session with our new telescope!

Loaded up the Zip-Car with everything we needed (and a lot that we didn’t), and headed out west to the Blue Ridge Mountains. Leaving hot and hazy D.C. behind us, we couldn’t tell if the weather was going to be kind to us or not. Some two hours later we arrived at the Thornton Gap entrance to the Shenandoah, purchased a year-long National Parks pass for $50, and headed for Big Meadows. The observing area was easily seen upon arrival. On the same side of the road just past the large sign for Big Meadows, there is a small parking lot with a chain preventing access to non-authorised vehicles. The observing area had been recently mowed and a line of trees provided some relief against car headlights from the adjacent road (Skyline Drive).

We checked into Big Meadows Lodge to discover that they’d put us in a cabin as far away from vehicle access as possible. This was after we’d informed them that we would be arriving with telescope and equipment in the comments section when we booked online. Conclusion: comments section utterly useless and talking with someone over the telephone advisable. Changed rooms and got a decent little twin-bed room with easy access to the car.

Parked the car in the parking lot at 7pm, set up the ‘scope toward the western end of the observing field, put some tarp down, set up a fold-away table and sleeping bags to lie down on and waited for the sun to go down. Setting up at this time of day means there’s a good number of park visitors parked in the lot and walking the meadows looking for the numerous deer that appear at sunset (and sunrise). Quite a few people came over to chat and to have a look at what we were doing. This was very pleasant, and once I had explained that we were complete novices and this was our first time with our telescope, people seemed very eager to talk about what we could see. Most were aware of Mars due to newspaper articles, and were equally unenthusiastic that it wouldn’t be visible until the early hours of the morning. As I (good-naturedly) explained to one lady who complained that it was way past her bed-time: “Well; Mars doesn’t really care what time you go to bed”.

In the western part of the sky, Venus and Jupiter quickly popped into view soon after the Sun set. Those that were there were all very impressed by the views of Jupiter and her 4 visible moons. Wow! Was the most often heard phrase, and I felt very happy to be able to explain a little about what we were looking at and a little about what we hoped to see later on. Soon we were left on our own and I tried to get a GPS fix. No luck. I put this down to operator error and tried again. Went through the Autostar menu and instruction manual to no avail. Our first night would be manual operation only. A little frustrated but not downhearted, we accepted our situation with a resolve to get everything working properly the next evening, weather permitting.

Dew. Thank goodness we bought a dew heater. Within a few hours, everything started to acquire a damp film. First lesson learned; once unpacked, put everything back in the car that you don’t need. We’re rookies, but coping reasonably well. The inky-blue sky soon deepened its colour around us and the dust lanes of the Milky Way became visible long before the sky became truly dark. Amazing. At this point I forgot my frustrations with the lack of alignment and GOTO and just started pointing the telescope at a few bright deep sky objects. Armed with a planisphere, a star chart, and a little knowledge of the night sky, we began observing.

M13 in Hercules looked magnificent. Easily visible as a naked-eye smudge, the first deep sky view through the 8” LX200GPS was reassuringly impressive. All doubts about being able to find anything without GOTO were dispelled with our first view of this incredible sight. Next was Andromeda. Hard to discern any detail, nonetheless, the nucleus soon appeared in the eyepiece. Later on, when she was much higher in the sky, I discerned much more detail. Again, a naked eye smudge became so much more when viewed a decent instrument under a dark sky. Despite concerted efforts, we were unable to manually find M57, the Ring Nebula and also the Dumbbell, M102. Both were mentally put on my must find list for the next evening’s observing.

Most of the evening was spent just laying on our backs looking directly up at the Milky Way. No need for a telescope, there was something enormously satisfying at just looking up and marveling at the naked-eye detail of the dust lanes and the grand vista of the overhead sky. One very pleasant surprise was the sheer number of shooting stars we observed after midnight. Without keeping count, I estimate that we saw between 30 and 40, with at least 10 being of the “wow! See that?” variety. Warm clothing, decent footwear and lightweight weatherproof jackets are also highly recommended, even in early August as the temperature can fall quite quickly and dew forms.

To the east, Mars began her climb in the night sky in the early hours of the next day. By 4am, she was higher in the sky than I remembered her two years ago and gave very pleasing views. Lack of good eyepieces meant we were restricted in upping the power, but nonetheless, we still saw some dark detail.

Exhausted, yet happy, we packed up our dew-soaked belongings and trudged back to the car. Our summing of our very first night under the stars with “uhuru”, our new telescope – THAT WAS GREAT! :)

Night 2:

After a (hot) midday short trail to take a look at the highest point in the Shenandoah where Peregrine Falcons nested and soared nearby, we set up the telescope at the same spot at the observing site at around 7pm. If anything, the sky was clearer than the previous night and the air felt less humid and cooler. Set up this time went without a hitch and after going through the Autostar menu, we at last managed to obtain a GPS fix. Auto Align went pretty easily, with only a little bit of help centering on Arcturus and Spica. Soon after sunset, Jupiter gave very pleasing views. This time, we had a few more interested parties and again, everyone was wowed by the fact they could see the cloud belts of Jupiter as well as her 4 main moons. And again, as soon as it got a little dark, everyone disappeared. Without doubt, the seeing tonight was going to better and also, it looked like the dreaded dew was going to hold off. On our own and with the ‘scope set up and GOTO working as it should, the evening promised to repay our frustration of the previous evening. Without going into everything we targeted, I will list the following as being especially rewarding: M57, the Ring Nebula, M27, the Dumbbell, M13, in Hercules, M33 the Pinwheel, and M31, Andromeda. After prolonged viewing, I could at last make out some structure other than the nucleus in this huge smudge.

Some of the earlier visitors returned as they had promised later in the evening and we let the 6 or 7 people lay down on our tarp and sleeping bags to get a non neck-breaking good look at the Milky Way, while I found a few objects, mainly the Ring Nebula and M13 for everyone to take a turn with the telescope. I did find myself bombarded with an array of questions about the night sky. Luckily, I was also able to at least offer a reasonable explanation to most of them. The one thing that stood out was the concept of distances of space. Most had no idea of light taking time to reach our eyes and none knew of our position in the Milky Way or what indeed just were the dust lanes that filled the sky overhead. Glad that I have been studying from a number of astronomical textbooks over the past couple of years, I felt very happy to be able to be a bit of an educator, while trying very hard not to get too hung up on the physics (which, for me, is really still very hard going at anything other than a popularist level). Most of our new-found visitors stayed a fair while, seemingly content to just be around others, the telescope, and the outstanding views as I gave my little lectures.

Eventually, it was just down to myself and Rebecca and two girls we had met earlier (we later learned that they had started a business cleaning barnacles off of boats…..) who wanted to see Mars. They had also managed to lose their car key nearby in the grass in the process of joining us! By the time Mars rose high enough in the sky to take a good look at, they had both fallen asleep and would remain so for the remainder of the night. Eventually, Rebecca too succumbed to the sleep monster and I was left alone, slewing “uhuru” in a search for Messier objects. After a while, I had no option but to find a sliver of a gap on the tarp and try and get a bit of sleep. Within minutes of dozing off, I awoke to a very strange sound of non-human heavy breathing and rustling. This is not a sound I’m normally accustomed to in our 5^th floor apartment in the middle of D.C. I got up and turned the red LED flashlight on to a low setting. This woke Rebecca and I calmly announced “we’ve got company…”About 3 feet directly in front of us, a doe was looking straight at me. To the side, another (presumably) deer could be heard approaching. A fantastic experience for us city dwellers. Five minutes later, they were gone. By dawn, I awoke and started to pack up the ‘scope. A track was clearly visible where the deer had come right up to where we were sleeping.

Within minutes, the others stirred and after half an hour of packing up all our stuff and Sonia, much to my amazement, managing to find her car key, we headed off to the Wayside Grill, just across the road, next to the entrance for breakfast and hot coffee. When we pulled into the parking lot and headed for the front door, we saw the sign: 9am – 8pm. It was 7:30am. We were starving. Hot coffee, hot food; nothing less would do. To the lodge! The benefits of staying somewhere where breakfast was being served came home real good as we pulled into the car park.

Ah; civilisation.

raffy!

as i see it, raffy's either stupid or a liar. i don't really like either of these options, being a long-time raffy fan, but in the face of the positive testing, it's hard to arrive at any other conclusion. How do you test positive for a banned steroid?

while my personal thoughts must mean nothing to him, i'm sure that those of his family, his friends, his major league peers, those in congress who heard him testify, and last but not least, his fellow orioles team mates do. this reeks of clinton's line when confronted with monica, doesn't it?

as my girlfriend put it: "it's the american way". how sad.

while he can presumably do little to discount the evidence, he can stand up like a man, tell the truth, let everybody know just what he did take that would test positive, admit what he's done, and then retire. that way, raffy will leave the game not quite the sad, desperate hypocrite he appears now. 10 game suspension? major league baseball should take a leaf out of professional cycling's book.

off to the mountains!

yep. gonna leave the heat and humidity of d.c behind and head off to the shenandoah mountains for a few of days. taking the telescope of course, so this will be our first time under a decently dark sky to do some observing. we're staying in a lodge at 3,000 feet, so hopefully it will be less than 90 degrees. can't wait to see the milky way and a few other galaxies.

bullet!

that's right. last weekend we went to richmond to visit rebecca's sister. when we got there it was 95 degrees outside and a house full of babies inside! not exactly my most comfortable environment. we stayed at the radisson, in richmond. check out the bullet hole in our bedroom window.

36 years on..

on july 20, 1969, after a four day trip, the apollo astronauts arrived at the moon. i was 7, and i remember my dad getting a tv so we could watch it. i remember thinking that this was the most important thing i had ever seen.

tour de france - not in america!

is this the best ever recent tour? seems that every day there's an all-out fight for the finish line. how about the mountain stages? brutal. don't know about you, but i've been glued to the early morning coverage on oln, the only station carrying this year's tour.

why no major networks are covering this race of all races is beyond me. there's nothing else quite like it. in america, home of the texan that's dominated this race for the past seven years, i'd guess that more than 90% of americans have never even watched a stage. this is a disgrace!

the people that dream up the scheduling on the tv networks obviously know better. this will be lance's last ever professional race, and barring injury or misfortune, will surely win for a record seventh straight year. this is an incredible achievement. ata time when there's not a lot for america to write home about when it comes to world affairs, here stands lance armstrong, an ambassador respected by all in his sport and by many outside it. a texan doing more to spread a feeling of 'proud to be an american' than any bumper sticker could ever achieve, slapped on the fat backside of a gas-guzzling suv. i see a lot of nike ads featuring lance to 'just do it' if only the networks would 'just do it' justice would be served. no; what do we have right now? golf, golf and more golf.

next time an american mentions lance armstrong in a converstaion, i'll ask two simple questions: how many stages of the tour did you watch? and secondly, name two other riders in the tour.

i expect to get a lot of quiet blank responses.

telescope!

june 25^th, 2005

supposed to get up to 94° F today. rebecca and myself went to union station to pick up the rental car to head out to company 7. a gleaming plum-red chevy malibu was our steed for the day. at least things were looking better for us than the guy at the alamo (car rental) counter at union station., which is where all the trains arrive and depart in dc. he’d booked a large suv type vehicle online and when he got there to pick it up, it didn’t exist. didn’t make him very happy to hear that they didn’t carry that particular vehicle as he was using it to move stuff that day. “oh, we don’t have that here….” it’s going to be 94° and he’s moving stuff and now he doesn’t have a vehicle…

everything’s decidedly better in the chevy maibu as we crank the much needed a/c, as we head out to laurel, maryland. luckily, my records are already sorted and sitting in a bag for the concrete playground event that i’m dj’ing at in rosslyn later on that day. looking forward to playing outside on a good p.a. system.

after a couple of missed turns trying to find cherry tree court; there’s cherry tree this, cherry tree that, we pull into the correct small parking lot and park right outside company 7’s showroom. for anyone not too familiar with telescopes on sale to the public for use in amateur astronomy, they come in a range of sizes and financial outlay. places that sell telescopes range from department stores and camera shops that sell a few smaller models all the way up to the very best specialist shops that are owned and run by dedicated amateurs with a staff that actually know what they are talking about. company 7 is definitely not a camera shop.

this is our second visit out to the small showroom. last year we went and decided that whenever we were ready to buy a telescope, we were coming back here. as we’re given a very expert tour of the museum-come-showroom that has on display the very best, as well as more affordable offerings, martin cohen, who runs the small enterprise is talking to us at length about what to look for and the importance of having a good mount for the telescope. as we nod along to what he’s saying, he suddenly leaps over to a nearby astro-physics refractor (read 3-5 year waiting list and a lot of $) and smacks the huge refractor tube on it’s side with his hand, thereby demonstrating the solidity of the mount it’s on. of course the telescope doesn’t move an inch. but i’m horrified and speechless to see what is the best refractor type of telescope you can buy that costs $8,000 (without eyepieces or mount) being treated this way. i have no idea what rebecca is thinking, but together we are quietly saying to ourselves “this guy is a loony”

not quite a loony, more of an whacky individual, since it turns out he gives talks at the smithsonian institute here in washington, dc and did work for nasa when it found out it needed to repair the hubble telescope. like i said, company 7 is not a camera shop.

after recovering from this shock, he takes us to the other side of the showroom, which is no more than 25ft wide by about 35ft long and proceeds to do the same to another telescope, this time a celestron 9. 25” model!. i’m thinking, please don’t hit any more telescopes! he’s proved his point, of course. the telescopes are totally unharmed and we have an image burned in our minds forever that customers buying from other another company or online over the internet will most likely never see. turns out martin is a volunteer fireman and the name company 7 comes from his fire-fighting unit’s name. he of course, was the unit’s captain. unusual bloke…

it’s a year later and we’re back. not without trepidation, since i don’t want to see him launch an attack on a telescope and the fact that last week, i telephoned him to ask his advice on a compact telescope that they sell that wouldn’t break the bank. “oh boy” was his first words when i mentioned the telescope model. he then proceeds to spend the next 20 minutes telling me why they are looking to stop selling that model because of all the quality control issues they have with it. it should be mentioned at this point that company 7 tests each telescope they sell, regardless of price and produce a detailed report of it’s individual optical and mechanical performance. after he’d finished by telling me to “save my money”, i put the phone down and we decided that it would be best to pay another visit. so here we are:

martin’s not there and we talk to another guy instead. he’s showing us a model that we both think will work for us in terms of size, performance and budget. after giving us a very comprehensive tour of this telescope (the one we want is a little smaller, but otherwise identical), we decide to go ahead and order one and discuss accessories. there must be more accessories for a new telescope than any other product. and they are all “necessary” to a greater or lesser extent. i practically have to ask the guy to start the paperwork on this, as he seems reluctant to actually sell me anything! he doesn’t know the price and goes and picks up a magazine and flicks through it to find an advert with the price on it. company 7 is definitely not a camera shop..

he adds the bill up wrong. i look at it and point out that the figure he’s written down seems a little high. this guy can’t add up, even with a calculator, but he does know everything about telescopes. he does all the testing for the company. i point out the error. he’s out by some $800! “oh look”, he goes, “i entered that wrong and by the wrong amount, twice…” i want to burst out laughing but restrain myself and instead smile, pat him on the shoulder and say “don’t worry about it” add the bill up in my head and tell him what it should be. about 20 seconds later, after keying in the buttons on the calculator, he agrees……

in walks martin, carrying a cockatoo . this doesn’t surprise me. not sure if this is a good sign or not, but my instincts tell me that it just wouldn’t seem right to buy a telescope without at least talking with him. once I tell him that we’ve just ordered a telescope and it’s not the one I telephoned him about, he points to two sealed cardboard boxes on the floor. “DNP” is marked with a marker pen on both of them. it’s two of the very same telescopes that I had telephoned about a week earlier. “DNP” means “did not pass” and company7 is sending them back to the manufacturer and will not sell them any more. i feel relieved.

martin’s genuinely very happy about our new purchase decision and proceeds to talk about anything other than telescopes. somehow he gets talking with rebecca about the university of maryland, where she’s doing her phd. she asks him if he’s involved with the fire dept. there. he’s not, but knows who is. he’s talking about a visit to england, shortly after suffering pretty nasty burns and injuries sustained on a fire-fighting job.

while he’s over in london, on the last day of his visit, he decides to dine at a really upscale restaurant. as he’s sporting a number of bandages on his hands, arms and legs, and wearing shorts for comfort, he telephones the restaurant to ask if they have a dress code. he’s told “no”. it takes him half an hour to walk over to the restaurant where he’s greeted by the maitre ‘d, who eyes him up and down and informs him that martin will be unable to dine as he’s wearing shorts. martin protests, as he has already telephoned to ask about dress code. the maitre’d “well, where you come from maybe that’s acceptable, but not here” martin, fueled by indignation and medication for his burns responds “well where i come from, when we don’t get what we want, we start a bar-brawl. you ever seen a western?” the maitre ‘d looks at him nervously an calls over the manager. martin explains that all he wants is to dine there. they can put him in a corner away from other diners. it’s late afternoon, hardly anybody there. martin gets his table at the swanky restaurant.

i ask him about how firefighters wear all that heavy gear in summer. in the dc-metro area, it gets incredibly humid and i know those suits and equipment must be very hot and weigh a ton. and then you have to go and deal with a fire… “come on”, he says. “want to try on a jacket?, i have mine in the car”. so out we go, Rebecca and myself following martin out to his vehicle. he pops the back up. sure enough, there’s a full firefighting outfit ready for an emergency call. i try on the jacket in the already hot sun. this thing is heavy! rebecca tries it on as well. we’re impressed. – see photos.

it’s back to the showroom. he’s now bringing out the tea and chocolate for us as he proceeds to tell us about a recent trip abroad where a customer of his has a very nice house in the Bahamas. as he’s heading back to the house on his first evening, martin spots a bentley parked outside a nearby hotel. next morning he see sees two of them, one parked behind the other. turns out that the hotel has a fleet of them to take guests staying at the hotel shopping! that’s right, $250,000 bentleys to take you shopping. bear in mind that the cheapest room in this hotel is going to cost $3,000 per night. a chauffer-driven bentley to the shops is extra, of course.. the villa he’s staying at is on a plot of land that goes for upwards of $10 million. er, this is not a cheap place to stay.

there’s more. while we’re drinking our tea and looking at photos of the trip on martin’s laptop computer, the guy who handles all the admin side of the business presses martin to tell us about the initiation rite given to a young guy named greg, who wanted to become a volunteer fireman.

greg is sixteen years old at the time and wants nothing more than to become a fireman. his duties at the station include washing the trucks and cleaning the toilets. of course, would-be firemen are not allowed to sit in the fire truck when cleaning the inside of the truck. only real firemen get to do that and there is someone watching at all times to make sure that greg doesn’t sit in the driver’s seat of the fire truck. martin, who at the time is the captain, regales us with stories of his fire-fighting days. such niceties as when he once had to enter a burning woman and rescued a fat pregnant woman who was too heavy to pick up and put over his shoulder, but none the less still needed saving, had martin drag her by her legs down the stairs, and out the building with her head banging on the stairs as they went down. we look at him horrified (although we’re laughing). well, she didn’t die, he says, shrugging his shoulders.

a customer, along with his wife are being completely ignored as we’re all engrossed in martin’s stories he comes closer to the point where the guy who taken my order begins to talk about zoom eyepieces. it’s obvious this customer is an experienced amateur judging by the overheard conversation he’s after a special eyepiece that will enable him to go from high to low power without switching eyepieces. “oh no, we don’t sell that here, pipes in the other guy sitting next to martin they’re not as good as…….you’d be better off with……” the customer nods ”i know, i have that” he responds “well as long as you know that it’s not as good as…….” in the end the customer has to admit that what he wants is not as good as what he already has and at that point martin chimes in with, “oh well, in that case we can get one in for you in a few days” bear in mind that we’re talking about a $300 eyepiece from a premier manufacturer that company 7 already deals with and makes what are generally accepted as the best eyepieces in the industry. a very strange way of conducting retail business. govenment and defense contracts allow company 7 to exist as an entity unlike any other i,ve come across.

back to the greg story. the volunteer team decide that the only way they can accept greg is if he agrees to a test to prove his worth. the ‘test’ consists of being put inside a full chemical suit that is sealed with a half tank of oxygen that will provide 30 minutes of breathing time along with a gold-visored sealed helmet. there is no way that greg will be able to breath without the tank of oxygen and no way he can take the helmet off on his own to breath once he runs out of air to breath. the ‘test’ is that he must travel from the firestation to a point along the highway and back again to the station, all in 30 mins. it is not possible to do this by walking, so he must be inventive and use any means of transportation other than his own and if he does not complete this task in under 30 minutes, he will die from lack of oxygen…

just to make things a little more interesting, they inflate his suit slightly, so he’s doing a decent imitation of the michelin man, as the 16 year-old waddles out of the firestation to begin his quest. unbeknown to greg, they have also lifted his wallet, so he has no money or identification. they see him trying to flag a lift from passing motorists as he makes his way along the busy highway. eventually, a car pulls along side him and winds its windows down. it’s a police patrol car. they quite naturally ask him what he’s doing in a full chemical fire-fighting suit walking down a busy highway in the middle of the day. he explains that he’s on a test to become a fireman from the local company 7 volunteer fire fighting dept. the police officer asks him his age and for identification when greg tells him that he’s 16 years old. of course, he can’t find his wallet containing his ID, so the police officer removes the helmet and asks him to sit in the back of the patrol car after he calls in to the company 7 fire dept. martin answers the telephone. “who?, no, we don’t know a greg……how old you say he is, 16? you have to 21 to be a fireman”. “thought as much”, replies the police officer and informs martin that they are bringing him to the fire station so he can return the suit. martin and the rest of the crew now pretend to be all fast asleep as the hapless greg is dropped off at the firestation by the police officer who waits while greg goes inside to explain himself. greg doesn’t say a word as he walks in, removes his fire-fighting suit, picks up his stuff and exits quietly. the fire dept dosesn’t see greg again for a full two weeks…….”of course” martin adds, “the police officer was in on it”

at this point, i look at my cell phone to see what time it is we’ve been there for nearly 3 hours! i explain that we have to go, as i’m dj’ing at an outdoor event later on that afternoon. we shake hands with everyone and thank them for a great time and then head outside, get in the boiling hot car, crank the a/c for all it’s worth and start to head back tdc. It has to the most surreal buying experience of my life. the return journey has us laughing and looking at each other and shaking our heads in disbelief at what has just transpired.

we get back to dc around 3:15pm, ordering pizza from my cell phone as soon as we get back in the city.

it’s like a sauna. no time to get any rest, but at least the pizza is good. grab the records and head out to rosslyn, virginia, which is about twenty minutes away by car. it’s just past 5:30pm and we can hear the bass of the music as we try and find some suitable parking for rebecca to drop me and the records off and then go and get somewhere to park. there’s not too many people there, but a few have the bar-b-q’s fired up and drinking beer in the hot sun. it’s steamy hot thank goodness i think as i see eric, who has organised spinning records under a decent canopy put up to afford protection to the dj’s, their record bags and all the equipment. we wait, talking to the people we know and some we don’t. eventually, it’s my turn and as luck would have it, everything goes as good or better than i planned. moral of the story is to put some time into your set instead of pulling records at the last minute, shoving them into a bag and winging it when you get to the place you’re playing. of course; that’s not something i’ve ever done……..

i play my set for about an hour and a half and soon it’s getting dark. one more dj comes on to close everything down and i eat a couple of much -needed hamburgers. rebecca’s tired. so am i, as we say our thank-yous and goodbyes and lug the records back to the car.

it’s been a very eventful day. a big one, no doubt. it’s not every day that i get to order a 'rea'l telescope and play my best records outside on a quality sound system.

f1

considering that formula one is widely regarded as the pinnacle of motor sports with a worldwide television audience matched only by football (soccer, over here in the us), what happened in indianapolis on sunday was an impotent disgrace. 130,000 fans watched in disbelief as 20 cars completed the parade lap (fulfilling f1's contractual obligations to indianapolis motor speedway) only to see 6! cars remain on the grid for the start of the race. never mind the $100 ticket, how many had booked cars, flights and hotels for this weekend? in britain, we drive. in america, you fly, due to the distances involved in getting from one big city to another. result: a sporting nightmare.

there was no american tv broadcast for this event, except speedvision (special subscription required). this meant that the entire country had no tv access to its own grand prix. had this even been an epic race of heroic battle, bravery and fortune, only a few would have been able to witness it. what possible future can there be for formula one in the united states after this?

tofu

when was the last time you saw a man buying tofu? it's like fondue: girls are all into it, guys see it as dipping things in hot cheese. i guess it's the girlie thing of sitting around each other at close quarters. every fondue evening i've attended was always the same make up. 4 or 5 girls and 2 hapless boyfriends. hopelessly outnumbered, we struggle to maintain our manly identity.

a string quartet kind of evening

not quite london elektricity at red, more electric trams in rockville. went to see winston's latin string quartet. good to have a cultural change, but a little light for my taste to actually get enthused. hard for me get excited when everyone who's playing doesn't smile until it's finished.

london elektricity

went to red to see london elektricity last night after tiernan got out of blue from playing. billy was left to play to a largely empty upstairs. everyone was, predictably, at red.

was easily the best music we've heard since coming back from miami. banging!
:)