I've realized something of late: of all the fears that we experience in our daily lives and throughout our journey here on Earth, there's really only one. All other fears distill down to it and it alone:
The fear of the unknown.
For me, that's a helpful realization. Especially when I couple it with my personal philosophy that says things have a tendency to work themselves out. Sort of lets me approach my fears from the standpoint that they probably aren't as bad as I think.
I thought I had more to say about this but there's really not much more to it :) What else is there to say?
Friday, August 29, 2008
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Put your carts away!!!! You retards!!!
Jeez, 3 whole blog posts without any bitching going on. I must rectify.
So first off, when you go to a store and you take your shopping cart with you to load your items into your car, PUT IT AWAY!!! Walk that whopping 10 yards to the cart return corral and get the fucking thing out of my way! You lazy fuck!
There's nothing worse than approaching what looks like a great parking spot only to find that there's a cart right in the middle of it.
Now, I understand if you have small children that you may not be able to leave your car even for an instant. (shit, I'm lying...I don't believe that for a second. It takes no time at all...if your kid is buckled in, what the fuck is he going to do in the time that it takes for you to be less of a douche-nozzle?)
However, the vast majority of the shopping carts found parked on the lines between parking spaces are left there by total toolboxes that should die in a fire. In fact...die TWICE in a fire. ALMOST die once, go to the burn clinic for some painful skin grafts from your butt to your face, endure months of physical therapy and people calling you "ass-face", then go to a bar, do a flaming shot, catch your head on fire and die from brain fry for real.
So, people with small kids get a reluctant pass on this issue, but all you other lazy motherfuckers: put 'em back!!! No excuses, no exceptions...DO IT!!!
Snow on the ground? Fuck you, put it back...
It's raining? Fuck you, put it back...
Really really hot outside? Fuck you, put it back...
In a big hurry? Fuck you, put it back...
All this doesn't even address the possible damage stray carts can do to cars. I personally don't give enough of a crap about my car to worry about little dings but I always think about that poor sap with a Porsche that has a dent in his door because a cart hit it. I saw a little kid take his empty cart and with a running start, launch it across a lane or two to the edge of the parking lot but he missed and hit a nice SUV. He went over and grabbed it and moved it and then just walked off. You may say "well, that was just a kid", but he was with his mother who saw the whole thing and didn't say a word!! What the hell is up with that??
In conclusion, I'll borrow a phrase from maddox.xmission: If you disagree with me, it's because you're wrong.
So first off, when you go to a store and you take your shopping cart with you to load your items into your car, PUT IT AWAY!!! Walk that whopping 10 yards to the cart return corral and get the fucking thing out of my way! You lazy fuck!
There's nothing worse than approaching what looks like a great parking spot only to find that there's a cart right in the middle of it.
Now, I understand if you have small children that you may not be able to leave your car even for an instant. (shit, I'm lying...I don't believe that for a second. It takes no time at all...if your kid is buckled in, what the fuck is he going to do in the time that it takes for you to be less of a douche-nozzle?)
However, the vast majority of the shopping carts found parked on the lines between parking spaces are left there by total toolboxes that should die in a fire. In fact...die TWICE in a fire. ALMOST die once, go to the burn clinic for some painful skin grafts from your butt to your face, endure months of physical therapy and people calling you "ass-face", then go to a bar, do a flaming shot, catch your head on fire and die from brain fry for real.
So, people with small kids get a reluctant pass on this issue, but all you other lazy motherfuckers: put 'em back!!! No excuses, no exceptions...DO IT!!!
Snow on the ground? Fuck you, put it back...
It's raining? Fuck you, put it back...
Really really hot outside? Fuck you, put it back...
In a big hurry? Fuck you, put it back...
All this doesn't even address the possible damage stray carts can do to cars. I personally don't give enough of a crap about my car to worry about little dings but I always think about that poor sap with a Porsche that has a dent in his door because a cart hit it. I saw a little kid take his empty cart and with a running start, launch it across a lane or two to the edge of the parking lot but he missed and hit a nice SUV. He went over and grabbed it and moved it and then just walked off. You may say "well, that was just a kid", but he was with his mother who saw the whole thing and didn't say a word!! What the hell is up with that??
In conclusion, I'll borrow a phrase from maddox.xmission: If you disagree with me, it's because you're wrong.
Monday, August 18, 2008
New Moon video
As promised, here's a better video of the moon taken August 10th, 2008. It's about 3/4 full and you can see two of my favorite craters, Archimedes and Plato, in the bottom half near the terminator in the big flat expanse (Mare Imbrium). My digital camera is a piece of crap.
My latest obsession...
I've been into astronomy since I was a kid. I saved up my money and bought a Sears telescope when I was about 10 or so. It was a super cheap 3" or thereabouts reflector with a cardboard tube (think shipping tube). The "mount" was a flimsy tripod that wasn't really good for anything. The secondary mirror was on a stalk that sort of looked like a dental mirror. It was pretty neat I suppose but it came with two eyepieces and I couldn't get the high power one to focus. Most likely there was an adjustment I could have made to fix that but I didn't know how so I ended up returning and getting my 26 bucks back.
In the seventh grade, I took two classes in an "Accelerated Learning" program during the summer. The classes were Astronomy and Astrophotography. We did a couple observations in the astronomy class...the one I remember was where we projected the image of the sun on a piece of white poster board through the eyepiece of a telescope so we could see sunspots. Pretty neat... The astrophotography course was mostly about how to develop film which was cool in its own right. This was of course before the advent of the digital camera (1977 or '78...somewhere in there), so film was the order of the day.
I took a semester of astronomy in college but even though it was a night class, I only remember one night that we actually looked through the telescope (which at Brescia was a rather big one: perhaps a 12" or maybe 16" Reflector set up in a nice rotating dome observatory). I remember our professor saying "what would you like to look at?" which is a strange question for a bunch of astronomy n00bs like us. I'm not sure why he didn't just start pointing the telescope at things for us to see.
A high school (and college) buddy of mine, John King, had a little Celestron Schmidt Cassegrain that he would bring out to the farm from time to time but it was a bit underwhelming. In 1986, when Comet Halley came through, we saw it but it was rather small and indistinct. I don't remember seeing anything in it that really impressed me.
So even with all those less than stellar experiences, my interest was maintained until now, when I can actually afford to buy some cool astronomy gear. Here's the stable as it stands now...
That's an Orion Skyquest XT8 8" Newtonian Reflector on a Dobsonian mount in the background. It's been pretty tricked out with some extra eyepieces, a very nice dual speed focuser, internal flocking to reduce extraneous light reflections and thumb screw replacements (Bob's Knobs) for the standard Allen head set screws for tool free secondary mirror adjustment. In the foreground are my new Orion Giantview 15X70 astronomical binoculars on an el-cheapo tripod. They're astronomical due to the individual focus oculars. This makes for more stable and accurate focusing than the typical central focusing wheel setup.
Of course I want more more MORE!!! I want a second telescope (a decent 5" refractor) and REALLY a third telescope: a 16" reflector, but that's mostly an 1900 dollar pipe dream at the moment. I'd also like to get several more eyepieces in the Baader Hyperion line. I have the 13mm and it's great. I'd like to supplement that with the 8mm, the 21mm and perhaps the 5mm...heck, I may have ALL of them eventually. They're awesome for the money.
So, what's so great about it? There's a certain serenity to be found sitting under the stars. I don't listen to music while observing. It seems to me that it would ruin the mood. The sounds of the night are enough. I opted for the manual, non-goto scope because I wanted to learn how to find things the old fashioned way. It's a decision I'm glad I made. As I found new things, I quickly learned that they were mostly indistinct blobs in the eyepiece. So really, the fun of this is in the hunt. Most globular clusters look about the same. Most galaxies are almost invisible at the aperture I'm working with and certainly don't display spiral arms. A computerized scope would be neat I suppose but after seeing 100 globular clusters that only distinguish themselves by the contortions I must put my body in to get my eye in front of the eyepiece, the newness would quickly wear off and I'd be asking myself "is this all there is too it?". It's a hobby that is very rewarding both when observing solo and in groups. I've found people are totally fascinated by the sky and have for the most part taken it for granted or not thought much about it. SO many people think the north star is the brightest star in the sky and are surprised when I point it out to them and they see that it's quite dim. It's great fun to attempt to impart my meager knowledge to my friends. Feels good to get them interested in the sky!
This is a hobby that will keep me going til REAL old age sets in. There are thousands of objects to find and they make small scopes that even old codgers can lift.
Oh, here's a video I took of the nearly full moon. I want to take another one when it's more like half full...much more detail to work with.
In the seventh grade, I took two classes in an "Accelerated Learning" program during the summer. The classes were Astronomy and Astrophotography. We did a couple observations in the astronomy class...the one I remember was where we projected the image of the sun on a piece of white poster board through the eyepiece of a telescope so we could see sunspots. Pretty neat... The astrophotography course was mostly about how to develop film which was cool in its own right. This was of course before the advent of the digital camera (1977 or '78...somewhere in there), so film was the order of the day.
I took a semester of astronomy in college but even though it was a night class, I only remember one night that we actually looked through the telescope (which at Brescia was a rather big one: perhaps a 12" or maybe 16" Reflector set up in a nice rotating dome observatory). I remember our professor saying "what would you like to look at?" which is a strange question for a bunch of astronomy n00bs like us. I'm not sure why he didn't just start pointing the telescope at things for us to see.
A high school (and college) buddy of mine, John King, had a little Celestron Schmidt Cassegrain that he would bring out to the farm from time to time but it was a bit underwhelming. In 1986, when Comet Halley came through, we saw it but it was rather small and indistinct. I don't remember seeing anything in it that really impressed me.
So even with all those less than stellar experiences, my interest was maintained until now, when I can actually afford to buy some cool astronomy gear. Here's the stable as it stands now...
That's an Orion Skyquest XT8 8" Newtonian Reflector on a Dobsonian mount in the background. It's been pretty tricked out with some extra eyepieces, a very nice dual speed focuser, internal flocking to reduce extraneous light reflections and thumb screw replacements (Bob's Knobs) for the standard Allen head set screws for tool free secondary mirror adjustment. In the foreground are my new Orion Giantview 15X70 astronomical binoculars on an el-cheapo tripod. They're astronomical due to the individual focus oculars. This makes for more stable and accurate focusing than the typical central focusing wheel setup.
Of course I want more more MORE!!! I want a second telescope (a decent 5" refractor) and REALLY a third telescope: a 16" reflector, but that's mostly an 1900 dollar pipe dream at the moment. I'd also like to get several more eyepieces in the Baader Hyperion line. I have the 13mm and it's great. I'd like to supplement that with the 8mm, the 21mm and perhaps the 5mm...heck, I may have ALL of them eventually. They're awesome for the money.
So, what's so great about it? There's a certain serenity to be found sitting under the stars. I don't listen to music while observing. It seems to me that it would ruin the mood. The sounds of the night are enough. I opted for the manual, non-goto scope because I wanted to learn how to find things the old fashioned way. It's a decision I'm glad I made. As I found new things, I quickly learned that they were mostly indistinct blobs in the eyepiece. So really, the fun of this is in the hunt. Most globular clusters look about the same. Most galaxies are almost invisible at the aperture I'm working with and certainly don't display spiral arms. A computerized scope would be neat I suppose but after seeing 100 globular clusters that only distinguish themselves by the contortions I must put my body in to get my eye in front of the eyepiece, the newness would quickly wear off and I'd be asking myself "is this all there is too it?". It's a hobby that is very rewarding both when observing solo and in groups. I've found people are totally fascinated by the sky and have for the most part taken it for granted or not thought much about it. SO many people think the north star is the brightest star in the sky and are surprised when I point it out to them and they see that it's quite dim. It's great fun to attempt to impart my meager knowledge to my friends. Feels good to get them interested in the sky!
This is a hobby that will keep me going til REAL old age sets in. There are thousands of objects to find and they make small scopes that even old codgers can lift.
Oh, here's a video I took of the nearly full moon. I want to take another one when it's more like half full...much more detail to work with.
Why wolfganggold?
Some people may wonder where that name came from (hi mom!). Very simple really: My first "real" guitar was a Peavey Wolfgang Special with a beautiful gold paint job.
That's, alas, not MY guitar but it's the same basic deal. A single volume knob (no tone knob), a Floyd Rose locking tremolo, a very cool D-Tuna for the low E string, which allows you to go to dropped-D instantly and in perfect tune (assuming you have it set up right), and a pickup switch that's reversed from the norm, that is when it's in the up position, the bridge pickup is selected, not the neck. Eddie Van Halen, the designer of the guitar, said he liked it that way because it kept him from hitting it and switching to the neck pickup inadvertently. The only thing I didn't like about that guitar was the position of the volume knob. I was forever hitting it while playing which can make for some unintended volume changes.
I so loved that guitar. I'm really sorry I sold it, especially since I eventually sold the thing that I traded it for (an Ernie Ball Stingray).
I wish I still had all the music equipment I've sold off in the past. I've sold more guitars and amps than I own right now. At least one was a dog (my '62 reissue J-bass), but for the most part I want it all back...
That's, alas, not MY guitar but it's the same basic deal. A single volume knob (no tone knob), a Floyd Rose locking tremolo, a very cool D-Tuna for the low E string, which allows you to go to dropped-D instantly and in perfect tune (assuming you have it set up right), and a pickup switch that's reversed from the norm, that is when it's in the up position, the bridge pickup is selected, not the neck. Eddie Van Halen, the designer of the guitar, said he liked it that way because it kept him from hitting it and switching to the neck pickup inadvertently. The only thing I didn't like about that guitar was the position of the volume knob. I was forever hitting it while playing which can make for some unintended volume changes.
I so loved that guitar. I'm really sorry I sold it, especially since I eventually sold the thing that I traded it for (an Ernie Ball Stingray).
I wish I still had all the music equipment I've sold off in the past. I've sold more guitars and amps than I own right now. At least one was a dog (my '62 reissue J-bass), but for the most part I want it all back...
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