All this week we’ve been hearing about the transit of Venus,,,.. This is the last one for the next 105 years. Many commentators have been talking about this being the ‘last one in our lifetime’ . What a strange thought… It made me think about that great line in ‘wings of desire’ where the old man is staring at the sunset.. You hear him wonder how many sunsets more he will see.. Who knows…?
Anyway,, I had a busy day.. And worked until about 5:30. The transit was to start here at 6:09 so I had to scurry to get my telescope set up. I have an 8″ schmidt-cassegranian with computer drive.. I also have a solar filter made for a day like this About 5:45 it was raining pretty hard and overcast. Around 6 pm a bunch of our yoga friends showed up as I was frantically scanning the sky with my scope trying to find the sun through the clouds. It’s harder than it sounds because the dark filter makes everything but the sun black… . At night I could pick out a couple of stars and tell the scope to find the sun.. But in the daylight, there was nothing for me to use for alignment .So I was scanning it back and forth trying to locate the brightest thing in the sky. Finally right at 6:09 the sky cleared.. And there it was.. The sun with the tiniest bite out of the lower right as Venus started to kiss the disk of the sun. For the next half hour I had a steady stream of friends, family and passerby looking at the little black shadow of Venus as it crossed the bright white face of the sun.
It was truly amazing.. Around 7:15 the sky turned cloudy and it became to hard to manually track the sun.. So I packed up and moved in . What a cool sight ! It made me very happy to see something so pretty and so rare.. And so… Really there !!!!
Ok.. That’s it for now.. More tomorrow..
Nite all, nite Sam
-me
Just got home from Honors night at Mount Mansfield. Gabe and a bunch of his classmates were getting recognized for having decent grades this year.. The gym was packed with students and parents.. which was kind of scary, as I was the speaker tonight. Our freind Elizabeth had invited me to give the Honors talk last year, but I had to bag out due to work travel I wasn’t going to miss it again. I had 15 minutes to give the students something to think about.. a hard task really. I was more nervous about this talk than I am for most of my big work talks. i think sucking in front of a bunch of strangers is not anywhere near as frightening as sucking in front of a bunch of people you know and love..
Luckily I didn’t suck.. it went pretty well. (Thanks to great help from Diane and Gabe helping me prep) I told the students that while they did need to work hard and have goals, they need to hang on to their ability to play. At the end of the talk I did a quick demo of the newly restored musical tesla coil.. it worked great.. that is until it set off the school fire alarm.. Luckily, we didn’t have to evacuate.. but the fire department did eventually show up.. it was just a too funny way to end my talk.. I think folks thought it was part of the show..
Anyway.. it was fun giving the talk.. and we were really proud to see Gabe and his freinds get recognized.. A good night overall..
ok.. I have some work to do.. so signing off. More tomorrow.
Nite all, nite sam
-me
Very peaceful day.. We spent it working around the house.. I spent it thinking about my talk at the high school tomorrow. It’s funny how hard im thinking of what to say to high school kids in the way of advice. What would you say ??
High point of the day was when gabe had the student council kids over for a small party.. Such nice folks..
They decided to test the effect of dropping a huge super ball out of the tower window.l I was there to document the results.
Though it’s a little hard to tell for the movie, the ball bounced clear to the peak of the second story.. Not bad….
And not a bad way to spend a Sunday, I think
That’s it for today.. More after my talk tomorrow.. Wish me luck
Nite all, nite Sam
-me
9pm on a cool and rainy Saturday. It has been in the mid to low 50’s all day. I’ bait embarrassed to say that we even started the heat for a bit.. But I love days like this.. It was a perfect day for us to workin the house. I spent most of my day thinking about a talk I have to give at the high school on Monday. It’s funny.. I give talks all the time.. Sometimes to 1000’s of people.. But I’ve rarely been this nervous.. Or excited about giving a talk.. Must be the home stage …
Diane took advantage of the day to finish painting gabes old room.. It was great watching her work . As she did, she helped me tons with my talk. As she often does.
It was fun.. And I admit.. A little sad … Watching the bright green and purple of middle school give way to the stayed and elegant grey blue (snow ballet ?) that Diane has chosen.the room looks great now.. I have to admit…
Now it’s time to curl up under the down comforter and forget the fact that it shoud be hot right now..
More tomorrow..
