Martinis at Midnight

2007-03-24T23:35:00.000-04:00

life got busy

i haven't posted in about 7 months... dang! where does the time go?

i guess once the kids went back to school, things sorta got crazy. then before i knew it the holidays were upon us and immediately after that, it all got insane (but in a cool way).

since the beginning of january, i've been a part of FIRST

take a moment and check out the link; it'll do a much better job of explaining than i can do.

it's been the busiest, craziest and probably to most enjoyable winter i have ever had. i've been a mentor for the Creston-904 team. we kicked butt in chicago last weened and will kick more butt at GVSU next weekend. our team was on the winning alliance in chicago and will be going to the Championship in atlanta in three weeks. i'll be at both competitions, and i intend to blog the entire event. it'll be a little delayed, since i won't have immediate internet access.

anyhow, i'm back and i will post more in the near future. sorry for the absence, my life got busy...

2006-08-25T23:43:00.000-04:00

Pluto

yesterday Pluto was "demoted" (as all the press headlines read). it is no longer called a planet, but a "dwarf planet". so what? i guess why i'm writing this is the press' use of the word demoted. it seems like they are telling the world that Pluto now is less important than it was the day before. that is utterly ridiculous!

i feel that most of the most interesting places in our solar system aren't on planets at all. the moons of Jupiter and Saturn are without doubt some of the most interesting places we know of. actual liquid was recently discovered on Titan (a moon of Saturn).

so what if they change the classification of Pluto? it certainly isn't because it is less interesting, it is only because it doesn't really conform to the characteristics of the other 8 planets.

let's all get over it and move on.

2006-07-17T23:28:00.000-04:00

observation log ++

this past saturday my family and i attended the summer picnic at the graaa and had a real nice time. it was a clear evening and even though the observatory was going to be available, i decided to bring my family (and our guest) home for some observing here.

i set up my scope in the warmth of a typical july evening, only to realize that Jupiter had already moved further west than i expected. to avoid the trees i needed to move the scope down the driveway (south) . i took the tube off the mount and moved the mount + counter weights to a better position. now, sweating like a pig, i proceeded to mount the tube and balance the system. things worked out well from there, we viewed Jupiter and moons for a while. the bands shown nicely, however the red spot (and jr) were not visible. after a while of observing Jupiter i moved on to the Ring Nebula (which i can find now given a little time). i tried all my eyepieces on the Ring and decided that my 10mm worked pretty good, given the conditions. all in all it was a short/sweaty night of observing, but well worth it.

yesterday we took in the al gore movie "an incovenient truth". i'm not going to post a review, but i "got" the movie and i think people need to see it. our worlds future is at stake, we need to keep it safe. life is not all about money, but helping keep the Earth around for a while longer might be part of it.

today i watched the shuttle land; i was at work (i watched NASA tv online), it was a beautiful thing. i'm very glad that everything went well for this mission. keep it up NASA, you guys are awesome!

2006-07-05T19:47:00.000-04:00

a few months ago i told myself that i would be more committed to writing in my blog, and obviously that hasn't happened. hopefully i'll get back on track and continue to log my thoughts and adventures.

over the last few days i've kept one eye on NASA TV while going on about my normal fourth of july weekend activities. i wasn't too surprised that Discovery didn't launch on saturday or sunday, but i was hoping that i'd get the chance to watch the full coverage at home rather than secretly watching it online at work. i really hoped it would go either monday or tuesday. well, as everyone knows, Discovery took off yesterday in a flawless launch. i was glued to the tv for about 2 hours before lift off and about the same after. i did watch a little tennis and cycling in there too, so that my family didn't think i was completely nuts. before lift off, my kids would just look at me and shake their heads as i intently listened to the sporadic technical chatter and watched the shuttle on the pad; the only visible motion - gas venting out it's back end.

before launch day i learned the ISS and shuttle would both have an orbit that would allow them to be visible during the evening for the next day or two. once the shuttle launched i checked heavens-above for times and trajectories of its orbit and it turned out that we just might be able to see it.

to top off a great independence day, we went downtown to watch the fireworks. armed with shuttles local itinerary, we sat patiently waiting for the fireworks to begin, while watching the sky for Discovery. the city lights were bright and a thin layer of clouds formed around the moon and westward. my daughter sat with her camera, hoping to snap a picture of the shuttle amidst the blaze of fireworks, but the show didn't start when we thought it would and it was my son who first spotted the faint glow of Discovery emerging from the cloudy haze. the shuttle moved steadily across the sky but was too faint/small to show up on the digital camera. unfortunately we didn't get the picture we hoped and i only saw the shuttle for a few brief seconds, but nevertheless it was very cool.

the huge crowd downtown was oblivious to the event that had just taken place. would people have been interested if they'd have known what was happening, or do people just not care about science and space anymore? the fireworks started a few minutes later and were quite spectacular.

so, as NASA has returned to flight, i've returned to blogging. i hope that i'll have a few more posts before NASA launches Atlantis in late august.

2006-04-16T22:43:00.000-04:00

nothing to report

so it has been a few weeks (at least) since my last post. i've been kind of busy, but nothing unbearable, and i haven't really had a lot on my mind to write about.

i was close to posting an entry about my evening seeing nickel creek at the end of march, but i never got around to writing it. nickel creek (if you don't already know) is probably my most favorite music group (maybe of all times). i saw them in concert a few years ago and then again just a few weeks ago. i may also get the chance to see them again this summer. anyhow, this last concert was almost indescribable, and that's all i'm going to say. it was the best concert i think i've ever seen.

the breaks in the clouds we've had have come on nights that i've been too lazy to get my telescope out. the clear nights are coming a little more frequently now and hopefully i'll get back out to do some observing again soon.

thanks for reading and i'm going to try to be posting a little more regularly in the coming days.

take care my friends.

2006-03-18T23:56:00.000-05:00

back to kisses

lately this blog has been completely devoted to my feeble endeavors into the world of astronomy and astrophysics, but not this post...

today i returned to my roots (sorta). you may know that i am a self taught (extremely amateur) musician. i've been playing guitar for about 25 years, and writing some songs along the way. i am (by training) a software engineer (computer dude). i've been developing software to put food on the table since i graduated from college. i can still remember sitting in my dorm room with my commodore 64 thinking "it would be so cool to write music with a computer".

that technology came into the publics grasp not long after, however, i then heard the calling to write acoustic folky songs; i needed to be a purist, at least for a little while. i put away the amps and invested in a nice acoustic guitar. i learned some finger style guitar work and actually had a lot of nice comments on the songs i wrote. then came the drought.

for the past 3+ years i haven't accomplished anything musical; until today. today i sat down with my computer and some cool high tech software and cranked out some music. it was fun. it was a lot of fun. finally, again to be in control of what i was listening to. if i didn't like what i heard, i could change it. i could make it what i wanted.

i wrote a couple simple electronica tunes (remembering in the beginning to give them a kiss "Keep It Simple Stupid"). i can't wait to try something more complicated and maybe even play guitar along with the computer. maybe tomorrow... :)

stay tuned, more science stuff coming soon.

2006-03-04T23:16:00.000-05:00

good night

in my last post i mentioned that the next post would be about stardust @ home. well, stardust @ home is running a little late and so am i. i haven't had the time to go through the tutorial, but i plan to do that in the next week or so.

tonight i did get the telescope out and this time i had the patience to polar align it and also to set the setting circles. i'd never really taken the time to learn how to use setting circles but tonight i decided i'd give it a try. it was actually very easy once i figured out a few basic things. maybe i'll post an entry in the near future about what i learned.

after my scope was aligned, i jotted down the RA and DEC coordinates of a few objects that i wanted to find, and headed back out into the crisp, clear evening. the first thing i headed for was M1 (the crab nebula). wow, it was incredibly easy; i could have never found this without using the coordinates and the setting circles. M1 was very very faint in my slightly light polluted sky, but i could still make it out.

the next object on my list was M35 which again appeared very faint, and i am not totally convinced that i found it. however, i guess it did look something like some of the amateur astrophotography images i later found online.

since i was in the neighborhood i took a look at Saturn, and it was quite beautiful tonight. after a nice gaze, i moved along to M45 (the beehive cluster). this was again easy to find and a nice object to view. finally i located M67, which is another dense open star cluster.

all of these objects were quite easy to find once the scope was properly aligned; provided you have the coordinates.

all in all it was an excellent evening to be looking up. i found a few new objects that i've never seen before and i am anxious to get back out and try it again. there are 2 words that come to mind right now, and they are "good night".

2006-02-14T23:18:00.000-05:00

where's george?

today i learned of an interesting and unique place in the internet. i guess it's unique; i've never seen another site like it. apparently this site has been around for about 8 years. (that must have been the 8 years i spent under my rock)

anyhow, the idea is quite simple - but may have some cool scientific value. the idea is to track dollar bills and see where they go. if you have a dollar bill, you enter the serial number and the site tells you if the bill has been entered into the system and if it has it can tell you some history about where it has been. you also include your zip code when entering the information. it sounded like a fun and harmless experiment, so i entered the serial numbers of 10 - one dollar bills that i had in my wallet. then i immediately spent 9 of them. :)

apparently the site will email me when any of the bills get re-entered into "where's george", and it will tell me the general area of where it is. i suppose by now you are either bored to death because you already now about this OR you are ready to start entering your bills info. (you possibly might think it's some sort of scam for someone to try to steal your dollar bills, but i doubt it)

the web site for this project is at:
http://www.wheresgeorge.com

now for the science... it was brought up that studying how money travels between people might be a good indicator as to how viruses travel. this idea has some flaws (i usually give viruses to people i know, and money to people i don't.... go figure) but i guess the concept is pretty good overall. some scientists are quite concerned about how an avian (bird) flu outbreak might travel. i'm all for helping scientists, so i joined up. if my dollar bills end up somewhere, i'll certainly post the details.

next time i'll be posting about stardust @ home.... till then.

2006-02-09T22:53:00.000-05:00

kwajalein rockets

i'm posting the link to the blog that already has some cool information about the spacex launch.
http://kwajrockets.blogspot.com/

i'll be watching this site all day tomorrow. :)

2006-02-08T22:45:00.000-05:00

the falcon is ready to fly

the next couple days could be an exciting time for the private space flight industry. friday february 10 is the newly scheduled launch date for the falcon 1 rocket developed by spacex. spacex, founded by elon musk, is aiming to put the first privately funded spacecraft into low earth orbit.

tomorrow they will conduct a full system test of the rocket, which includes a brief ignition of the engine. the engine burns a potent mixture of liquid oxygen and purified kerosene.

december 19 was the original launch date, however that launch had to be scrubbed due to a faulty pressurization valve on the first stage fuel tank.

tomorrow i will try to have a blog source for the launch. to the best of my knowledge, that may be the only available coverage of this historic event.

2006-02-07T22:12:00.000-05:00

time is money

yesterday i posted a blurb about the state of science education in the united states. i rambled on about how most science teachers are not properly preparing our children in the areas of science and technology. go read it if you haven't.

today i want to veer off in the direction of science application in the workforce. so many times i've heard that if we don't do a better job of educating our children (in science and math) we'll be over taken technologically by other countries. then it's predicted that the next great wave of wonderful advances will not be made in the united states but by countries that have educated their children to a higher level. this all makes sense, and in no way am i stating that the united states should have the sole power to invent every last thing that mankind will ever need.

now here's the part for discussion. how many times have you heard of someone that has devoted a huge amount of time (and money) to school, only to graduate with a phd in astronomy, physics or math and not be able to find a job. what the hell?!... then they end up teaching at the university where they did their doctorate. this should make no sense at all, but it probably does.

in some ways it sounds like most kids today are smarter than we give them credit for. we wonder why more kids aren't pursuing careers in the sciences, but yet when a few of them do, they struggle to land that job they had in their dreams.

but when that science dream job never comes above the horizon, there's always the business side of the world. the united states is so incredibly in love with business and making money that it makes my stomach turn. it's all over the news (enron), it's in prime time tv (the apprentice) and it's changing the culture of america. in order to make money, you need to be a ruthless s.o.b. and not get caught. the united states is focused only on what makes money (right now) and not what makes a healthy and growing economy.

as long as our intent is immediate gratification, long term subjects like science and research will unfortunately never be rewarded. these things take time... and time is money.

2006-02-06T23:17:00.000-05:00

science in the public schools

on a recent science friday podcast (12/30/2005) [website] the argument of why the number of scientists graduating today is much less than it was in the mid 1950's, when today there are more people than ever are graduating from college. i found this topic quite interesting, since i once had the idea that it might be fulfilling to teach high school science.

the guests discussed reasons which mainly focused on students in high school not being properly prepared. this is partly stemming from a lack of teachers that posses a passion for science, and also the no-child-left-behind act forces schools to teach memorization of science terms in order to pass achievement testing (and get government funding). science classes no longer have the opportunity to teach problem solving and from my experience, high school science rarely uses the laboratory. everything is theoretical bookwork. science today forces (or makes it desirable) to always get the right answer. in real life scientists rarely get the right answer. conversely they come up with ideas (problem solve) and then try to prove each other wrong. i also suggest that it is much less clear to a young adult what career choices are available to people with highly skilled science degrees. if you lose your job, there are not many want ads in the paper for an astrobiologist.

do you have an opinion on how our public schools teach science? if you do, i'd enjoy reading your comments.

thanks.

2006-01-26T22:42:00.000-05:00

roving mars

wow, tonight i had the privilege of getting a sneak preview of the new disney / imax movie roving mars. through the entire movie i was totally taken in by the mix of real film footage and computer animation. disney did a pretty good job making the transitions to and from the animated sections of the movie, however i was hoping to see more of mars in real life. the real life stills they had in the movie seemed like shots i had already seen.

of course they had a number of cool, big, loud scenes when the delta 2 heavy put the rover on a path to mars, and topped it off with cool effects when the rovers entered the martian atmosphere and bounced to a stop.

amazingly, i think the best part of the movie was when they were building the rovers in the clean rooms. the clarity of the film was stunning and the robots were absolutely beautiful. it kind of makes me feel weird to write that. stunning, beautiful robots... (ok, i'm a geek)

the big bang for this movie will be with kids. i took my 12 year old son and he is now (or again) inspired by space and science. i think this movie has the potential to do the same thing to a lot of young people across america. inspiring young minds is an awesome thing!

2006-01-23T23:31:00.000-05:00

question of the day

lets say that in the near future we gain the expertise to travel out of our solar system and to a nearby solar system. lets also say that we travel to a planet that is inhabited with a plethora of small un-intelligent creatures (wild animals). lets add that it took us a fair amount of time to get there. the question of the day is as follows: do you think our space travelers would kill and eat these alien creatures? especially if it looked better than the nasty dehydrated food they brought with them? this has probably already been dramatized in a book or movie, but i haven't seen or read it. please post a comment if you have an opinion or know of a book or movie i should enjoy.

2006-01-18T00:00:00.000-05:00

comments welcome

the new template is done (for now). leave me a comment on what you think. i'd appreciate it!
thanks,
roger

2006-01-15T22:59:00.000-05:00

observation log - January 14, 2006

last night it was clear again and i took the scope out to more solid ground (the driveway).

the moon was wicked-bright! dang, i needed sunglasses to view it for very long. i'm going to have to invest in some sort of filter if i want to do that again.

considering the conditions, it was a pretty good night. i viewed the moon in my 2" x 35mm eyepiece and it was really beautiful. i cranked up the magnification with the 1.25" x 10mm and took a long look at tycho and copernicus. the moon is simply amazing!

during my time out i also viewed saturn with the 10mm and the 2X barlow. that seemed to be too much magnification for the sky. i spent a bit of time on the orion nebula (m42 & m43) and also the pleiades (m45).

all in all it was a good night of observing. i packed things up rather early (i hate hauling that thing inside when it gets really late).

2006-01-13T23:15:00.000-05:00

observation log - January 12, 2006

finally the clouds cleared last night. this was the first time we've seen hardly any of the night sky since mid-november. right after dinner i decided to set up the scope, only planning on viewing the moon. i didn't think there would be much else to see since the moon was full and majorly polluting the sky.

i also have a new eyepiece that i've been wanting to try out. about a week ago i ordered a 2 inch - 35mm eyepiece from orion. it's not a high end eyepiece, but i had a few $$ and wanted something that could get some nice views of the winter nebulae.

since i was only intending on viewing the moon, i set the scope up on the deck and waited for it to cool. i did view the moon as it was rising through a couple naked maple trees, but couldn't get a good clear view of this criminal that was trying to steal what could be the only clear(ish) night all winter. as i waited for it to rise above the branches, i took a quick gander at mars. i needed more power to see it clearly, but then the slight wobbles of my deck made getting a steady view of mars almost impossible.

i didn't have a lot of time or patience, and decided to cut my observation short. before packing it up for the night i viewed andromeda for a while with my new eyepiece. it was extremely faint and quite un-impressive. this was only due to the moon and the slight haze in the sky. i'm quite happy right now with my eyepiece. i can't wait for a good dark, clear, cold night. however our forecast is quite murky for the next few days.

2006-01-08T23:22:00.000-05:00

Martinis at Midnight - 2005 Top Ten List

it's been a week since the beginning of the new year, so i've waited long enough to hear of any last minute additions to this years top ten list. remember, this site is about physics, music, martinis and pretty girls, but mostly astronomy. :)

drum roll please....

10. cosmos 1
the russian attempt at a solar sail spacecraft. read more about this nifty disaster here.

9. e=mc^2 + 100 years
did you know that it has been 100 years since Al Einstein came up with all his crazy ideas? well, most of them have been proven as fact.

8. nickel creek releases - why should the fire die?
awesome third album from the trio (not counting any solo albums or the MAS release)
http://www.nickelcreek.com/

7. space elevator comeptition
a healthy competition to build a machine that will climb a ribbon and eventually walk off into orbit. if you'd like to enter the competion, go here.

6. darpa grand challenge
almost 2 years ago i watched and waited to see if teams (mostly from universities) could build an autonomous vehicle that could (on it's own) navigate through a series of GPS points on a course that covered over 100 miles in the desert of california and nevada. i was dissappointed then that none of the vehicles even made it 10 miles, but i was thrilled to watch this years race when 5 teams completed the 132 mile course. the team that did it first walked away with $2 million. find out who won here.

5. danica patrick at indy (here's the pretty girl portion of the list)
i have always been a supporter of equal rights for everyone. i firmly believe that gender should not be a factor in type of competition. danica is an awesome indy car driver. she has single handedly regained my interest in indy car racing. in the past few years i have gravitated slightly towards nascar, i bite my tounge. indy car racing rules.
http://www.danicaracing.com/

4. the 10th planet? 2003 UB313
rewrite the science books; well maybe they should wait another year or so. who knows how many planets we'll have in our solar system by the time it's all said and done. xena? really?
find out more.

3. deep impact kisses tempel 1
there were more than just ordinary fireworks on july 4, 2005. deep impact was a mission to discover the mysteries inside a comet. deep impact did more than kiss comet tempel 1, it became "best friends forever" with that dirty snowball. read the whole story on the deep impact website.

2. nasa - space shuttle return to flight
space shuttle discovery returned to flight under enormous scrutiny. there are inherrent dangers with flying in space, and somehow most people think it should be like walking to the fridge for another can of pop. in my opinion, nasa is doing an incredible job with the money they have to put humans in space. in the near future, being an astronaut will be a dangerous job. with the information gained, someday space travel will be safe for everyone.

1. cassini/huygens
in my opinion, the most amazing things from 2005 all revolved around cassini/huygens. from inserting cassini into orbit around saturn (through a tiny gap in saturns rings) to the huygens probe dropping to the surface of titan to the images we are now getting back from cassini, this mission topped the best of the best for 2005. nasa and esa make an awesome team.

read more about the european huygens probe at esa.int

2005-12-15T23:30:00.000-05:00

there's gonna be some changes around here

it just takes a good dose of Christmas to get you thinking about the past year. i don't know if its writing Christmas letters or the thought of all the new years resolutions that were not realized or if it is just the snow, but i've been thinking about the last year a lot lately. my blogging hit rock bottom. i actually thought i'd have more time to devote to writing, but that time seemed to evaporate.

i really do feel like things are back on track now. once again i have been bouncing some science things around in the old noggin'. i hope to have some new fresh posts in the near future.

being unemployed all summer was rather stressful, and starting a new job has been stressful too. however i am very glad to have had a break in my career. i think i have a jump on my holiday projects, and hopefully i won't be up till 2am on Christmas eve putting an air hockey table together this year.

i don't think i have many readers of my blog anymore, so if you have been a reader in the past be prepared for some changes. i am planning on revamping my layout and trying to start over. i hope my comments stay in tact, and i appologize in advance if they don't. i want to thank Lar for posting some nice comments. i had to go back through the archives to find everything you wrote. i hope you are who i think you are.

have a merry Christmas everyone. come back soon, there's gonnna be some changes around here.

2005-10-30T22:49:00.000-05:00

Finally...

last night i took the telescope out to the veen observatory to do a little mars observing. it was a visitors night and they were anticipating big crowds. i just wanted to see mars as something more than a red dot and my wish came true. i set up my scope in the dark and waited patiently for mars to rise above the tree tops. once it was entirely visible you could clearly see the darker middle section of the planet. even though it was early and mars was only about half way up in the night sky, i could make out more detail than i had ever imagined. the sky was pretty good for seeing, but i don't think it was as good as it could have been. needless to say, we were pretty happy with what we saw.

also, last week i became one of the non-unemployed! i started work last monday at a small software development company that i've had an eye on for a long time. they develop CAD software for designing interior layouts and my background in CAD was what helped seal the deal (i think). i'm really excited to be working with this group of engineers. i hope that this is the beginning to a new start in my life.

on may 20, 2005 i lost my job to corporate downsizing. on october 24, 2005 i started what i hope is a long term relationship with what looks like a great company. i've gotten things back on track. i've been observing with my telescope. i've finished a bunch of projects around the house. i feel like my life is beginning to come together... finally....

2005-07-07T23:51:00.000-04:00

letterboxing

today i crudly and quickly made myself a custom rubberstamp suitable for letterboxing. this evening we set out on our first letterboxing adventure.

we arrived at the park where the letterbox was hidden shortly after 7pm. we followed the clues and were quickly able to tell that we were on the right track. with every passing minute and each new bug-bite we thought we were getting really close to finding the box. our sparkling new rubber stamps were aching to find a notepad somewhere amidst the trees and bugs.

we felt that we were closing in on the target, when suddenly our clues seemed to become jumbled. when once there was order, all of the sudden things didn't quite make sense. we thought we found the place where the letterbox was hidden, but we could not find it, and we were not sure of some of the turns we made. we left without finding the box, but we were all sure that it had to be there somewhere.

we followed the clues out of the area and ended up walking for at least 2 miles. we ended back at our truck after having spent more than an hour and a half walking through the bug infested woods of west michigan.

we all feel that we were close to finding the letterbox, but we were not completely prepared for the hunt that followed once we got to the site. we will probably try this again in a day or two, but tonight it's just good to sit and rest for a little while

2005-07-01T23:41:00.000-04:00

who said being unemployed is boring

i guess it's been 6 weeks now since i was down sized, and i haven't had a boring moment yet. it seems like looking for a new job has become almost a full time job in itself. i've had a number of interviews and a lot of phone conversations, but nothing has turned into an offer. this week has been a bit slower, i suspect the upcoming holiday has dampered the prospects.

there are only about a million and a half things i need to do around the house while i'm without a job. i've already painted the living room and now i'm getting ready to clean and seal the driveway. the valve on the swimming pool filter cracked and i fixed that last week. i've got a dead apple tree in the back yard and a couple huge tree branches that have broken off that need to be cut down. not to mention, i'm now the official mr. mom.

i've made it my goal to give my kids a great summer, but in this particular area, i think i'm failing. i keep trying to do cool things with them, but all i hear is "i'm so bored..."

when i was told that my company didn't need my help anymore, i immediately saw sights of rest and relaxation in my future. i don't know where that went, i've been busier than ever the last 6 weeks. maybe one of these days i'll get a job and have the chance to relax a little again.

2005-05-30T23:15:00.000-04:00

photography

photography has been an interest of mine since i was but a mere munchkin.

i experimented a lot with cameras and techniques and took a few pictures that were published in our school yearbook. then, for the reasons of life, my purpose for photography turned from "artistic and action" to "capture every moment".

so anyhow, i've been using firefox for quite a while now, but just recently started using the plug-in stumble upon. stumble upon lets you randomly hit a website based on preferences you set i picked that i enjoyed photography.

i have been randomly hitting websites that are devoted to artistic photography and just completely loving the different sites i've found. it has inspired me so much that i've started looking for places to buy ssslllooowww film.

i really want to start trying to take some artistic picures. hopefully i'll have some in the near future. i'll keep you posted.

2005-05-29T00:25:00.000-04:00

this week

i've survived my first week of being unemployed. i went to the unemployment office, updated my resume and responded to some want ads that i found. i also posted my resume on hotjobs.com and within a few hours i had a phone call and a very promising opportunity. after a few phone conversations and had an interview on friday morning. there may also be other opportunities in the works. next week i will know more.

last night i set up my telescope, however there was an abundance of light pollution which made seeing any deep sky objects almost impossible. i did view Jupiter and 4 of it's moons for a while. i packed up early since i couldn't see much of anything.

tonight we went to the observatory to help out with visitors night. everything went pretty good, and it was nice to get back out there. i am looking forward to spending more time there this summer.

it's funny, i thought i was going to be bored and not know what to do while being unemployed. it seems like last week i spent as much time working toward getting a new job as i did working at my previous job. plus i've had the added responsibility of being mr mom. it's all good though... i think that this week was just a mere turning point. next week all of the fun begins.

2005-05-20T23:48:00.000-04:00

the end of another chapter

it's been a few months since my last post. i suppose today it's time change that.

my life has been incredibly busy and stressful and i think being completely run-down hasn't helped the situation. anymore i search for a few minutes of time to myself and i never find it until very late at night. it seemed like every day i prayed for a break from all of this, but everyday things just seemed to get worse.

last summer i was worried about having surgery. i worried that there would be scars on my face and that i would be in pain for weeks. as it turned out there were no scars and the pain monster never reared it's ugly head. then, after Christmas, i apparently came down with a sinus infection which caused a lot of swelling around my eye and played havoc with my vision again. i was worried that i may actually have to go through the surgery with all the cutting and pain.... once again i saw the sinus specialist at U of M and he perscribed some antibiotics and steroids which worked wonders and my sinuses and sight have been just fine every since.

but just when you've dodged one curve ball, life tends to throw more just to see if you're on your toes.

this morning i finally became the victim of corporate downsizing. (at least that is what they told me) i've never been laid off before, and i am still not sure how i am supposed to react. in one view i feel a sense of relief and in another i am quite worried (again, i worry a lot). i was always a misfit at this company. suckered by a bait and switch job offer, i could never get to a point to prove my worth. so in one respect i feel relieved that this is finally over, on the other hand i am worried about an uncertain future.

with more time on my hands, i'll be posting more in the days ahead.

so as the unemployment rate continues to rise in the state with the highest unemployment rate in the country (michigan), i quitely end another chapter in my life.