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Posting so I don't lose the blog.

4:45

Venus high in the south near sunset. Orion visible in the west around 6pm, strange because it was fairly light out, the nearly full moon was high and I was sitting at a stoplight surrounded by streetlights.

Saturday, January 3rd

Despite the crazy snow in Vancouver, I managed to see some planets while on Saltspring Island. Venus was nearly overhead and Jupiter and Mars were quite close together near the horizon. I wore my sunglasses at night while we were driving to the ferry so that my nightvision stayed on. It was amusing.

Saltspring has very few streetlights and is great for astronomy.

Happy New Year!

2009 is the International Year of Astronomy. Canada is participating here and you can find your country here.

Maybe I will commemorate this with a telescope. :) Although for searching out nebulae and the Pleiades, the binocs totally rock. I won't be giving them up even when I get the telescope. (Costco dropped the price of theirs from $200 to $150...I desperately need to look up the stats on it and see if it might actually be worth buying.)

10:00-10:30

5:15 - naked eye viewing of tiny sliver of waxing crescent moon, about 10 degrees above my horizon, Venus about 50 degrees and Jupiter about 10 degrees. I could see the dark side of the moon a little because it was so close to sunset, but was on my way to Costco with no camera. :(

10:00-10:30 - I've been practicing with star charts in my copy of "The Backyard Astronomer's Guide" that I got from Dave's parents for Christmas, and a library copy of "Nightwatch: A Practical Guide to Viewing the Universe". Both of them are AWESOME.

Anyway. With my Opa's binoculars tonight, I saw:
-Orion (plus identified the stars Betelgeuse, Bellatrix, and Rigel within it)

-Sirius (a star in Canis Major...the light pollution was too bad for me to see the whole constellation

-Castor and Pollux (two stars in Gemini, again with the light pollution)

-what I think was part of Taurus (Aldebaran, the second major star in that constellation. Capella was directly overhead, which meant I would have had to look through my balcony roof and several others above me)

-a freaking NEBULA in the middle of Orion (it's just below his belt. I wonder if it has a crude nickname...*snicker*)

-the Pleiades, a cluster of seven stars, although I could only make out six for sure. These ones hurt my neck...they were very up, which is when I wish I had a lawn chair or an air mattress or something.

I think the coolest part is looking up and recognising shapes out of all the bits and bobs that are out there!!! I love Casseopeia, but she's in the north and I face south...she's one of the first constellations (not counting Dippers [which aren't actually true constellations!!] or Orion.) I ever identified, way before I was interested in astronomy.

I might've seen the Big Dipper, but it was partially blocked by buildings, but there seemed to be some stars in the right spots.

Yesterday: 420

Venus and Jupiter again. Further apart, Jupiter was a lot closer to the horizon.

Saw what I thought was Mercury (close to the horizon in the south) but it was just a plane. :P Hey, it was moving really slowly...didn't realize it was moving at first. Also, I'm not used to being able to see really far along the horizon and yeah. So there.

Mental note: need stronger binocs or a telescope soon. It's awesome to see the planets, but they don't look much different through the binocs I have.

4:45

It seems like Venus is a lot lower earlier in the evening. Jupiter is a lot further away from Venus and a lot lower too. They're off the horizon a lot earlier too.

7:00 pm

Venus had an orangey yellow tint, low in the southwest, checked through binocs and it just looked like a brighter speck. Looked at other stars that happened to be out, but went inside PDQ because I was wearing my robe and it was friggin' cold after the snowfall yesterday/last night.

4:30

Clouds, clouds, clouds, clouds, clouds, clouds, clouds, clouds, clouds, clouds, clouds, clouds, clouds, clouds, clouds, clouds, clouds, clouds for like a million years.

Dec. 11, 4:30pm - During sunset on my way home from work, I saw Venus and Jupiter at about 45 degrees up in the south west. Cool. They followed me home...can I keep them? :)

Looking like a clear night tonight!! Maybe I'll see some actual...y'know...stars. I hear they're out there.

4:25-5:00 pm

Clear, some clouds on the horizon.

Southern horizon near sunset, what I this is probably Venus. Bright white through the binocs for about twenty seconds before it went behind a patch of filmy pink clouds.

Waxing crescent moon about 30% high southern sky.

After only about ten minutes, Venus and Jupiter were visible high in the sky and moving toward the west. I took some pictures of them, as well as the moon. I love digital photography. :)

If any of them are any good, they'll go up on my flickr account.

Astronomy

I've started getting into astronomy a bit...difficult since I don't have a telescope, astronomy books or anyone really close to me who knows what they're doing... and I live in a rather light polluted area. I do, however, have a pair of really nice 7-15x35 Bushnell binoculars that belonged to my Opa, the expertise of the internet and the folks at Vancouver Telescope Centre and a certain amount of stubborness. So since this blog has been dormant for months, and it's got a rather appropriate address...here we go.

Nov 29 2008, around 8pm: Naked eye viewing, (probably) Jupiter and Venus near southern horizon, (probably) Orion to the southeast (hidden by buildings)

clouds, clouds, clouds, clouds, clouds, clouds, clouds, clouds, clouds, clouds...

Dec 2 2008, around 8pm: binoculars, cloudy, but the waxing crescent moon (20% or so) was visible briefly high in the south. I saw craters!! Not sure which ones since the binocs were shaking a bit and the clouds came in quickly, but it was really cool!

Cutting Down Time Eaters

So, I've taken down my blog/webcomic links. I just can't spend that kind of time online anymore. :( I spend an hour or two every night clicking around, and that's time I need to spend doing other things.

Going insane

I spent this week basically at home...I would make a LOUSY stay/work from home person. It's not even that there are too many distractions (although there is that), but I'm just not efficient.

I also forget to eat. This could contribute to the general lack of efficiency.

Inertia is HUGE in my life. If I'm doing something, I'll keep on doing it. If I'm not doing something, I'll keep on doing that.I also have "shiny thing" syndrome where I'm all over the place. Hence why I have wet laundry in the washer, nearly burned the pancakes (as it is, there's three that are pancake crisps, only unburned since the heat was on so low) and didn't even go shopping for dinner until it was after five (good thing D's working late.)

I'm feeling...bleh. Maybe it's the rain the last two days...my Vancouver brain can't handle it after all the gorgeousness. Maybe I'm coming down with something. I've got something really important coming up on August 30th, and I'm not ready at all. I'm working every day on it, sooooooo....I've got 29 days to BE ready.

I guess I felt like I should've accomplished a bunch more stuff since I had the week off. As it was, we basically still ate out/had take out and the place is still a total disaster. Between Dave and I, we're probably working the equivalent of three or four full time jobs, so I guess it's understandable that things have slid a bit. I just had these big grandiose plans of cleaning the whole apartment, organizing a whack of things and getting all of my homework finished for the summer.

Epic. Fail.

Maybe writing it all out will make me feel better (as soon as I swap the laundry...)

Things I've accomplished this week:Train karate (every day)
grocery shopping
empty dishwasher (2x)
make banana bread
clean out fridge
put away laundry
garbage and recycling run
work on botany scrapbook (every day)
press flowers
wash bed linens
recycling depot
pickup flowers from Jen’s
get green card stock
go to school for a day (making up for a sick day
organize school binders
final exam homework
grocery shopping again

That looks pretty good actually. Huh.

I've still got a billion things on the list...but it's a little less depressing when I see it all laid out like that.

:D

I have been taking and posting pictures like whoa. So, wander over to my flickr site if you haven't been recently.

Today I was trying to catch salmon fry in a puddle (our creek overflowed, then receded). I didn't catch anything, but I got to see some water snails and some weird thing with a whippy tail that I need to post online and see if anyone can identify.

The beavers that live in our creek are still there even though there's been two days of city maintenance workers breaking up their dam. The creek has dropped a crazy amount!!

I saw a nifty neato little yellow bird today, but it flew off before I could get a picture.

School Work Can Be Fun!

There are SO MANY things I want to do someday...learn to scuba dive, various foreign languages, various art projects, various movement arts (dance, fencing, gymnastics etc). I want to be in a play someday. I want to learn aromatherapy to the point where I can blend scented relief for people quickly and easily. I have thousands of books I want to read. I have dozens of books I want to write, gardens I want to plant

Sometimes, life comes about and lets me fulfil a few of those ideas at once.

I've always been envious of scrapbookers, but I never started scrapbooking, even when I was working at Michaels. I've already got an insane stash of art and craft materials...how could I possibly justify a new (potentially extremely expensive) hobby, even if I have hundreds of printed photos from trips, special events, and so on. I would love to do a scrapbook for each year I have a class (since I have thousands of digital photos). I have always wanted to do a botany scrapbook with drawings, and pressed flowers and...ahhh... This ties in with my love of plants (I love them SO MUCH that I will cut them apart, squash them between heavy objects and keep them with me FOREVER!! A little creepy when one thinks about it...) and my love of order (not noticeable to anyone who's ever seen any place I've ever spent any time at all) which manifests itself in strange ways.

For school this summer, one of my assignments is a botany scrapbook. I've been spending the last several weeks collecting flowers and leaves, pressing them in a lovely microwave flower press I got at Lee Valley, and gluing them to bits of cardstock. Things are coming together quite nicely. Pictures of in progress are forthcoming, but I'm on vacation this week, (a post ALL for itself...I am under the impression that I would make a REALLY crappy homemaker, but I will allow you to judge for yourself when [if] I make that particular post. [seriously, horrible housekeeper. for realz.])

Meme!

One word answers only!

1. Where is your cell phone? counter
2. Your significant other? David
3. Your hair? varies
4. Your mother? teacher
5. Your father? tall
6. Your favorite thing? touch
7. Your dream last night? sick :(
8. Your favorite drink? cold
9. Your dream/goal? classroom
10. The room you’re in? diningroom
11.Your hobby? crafts
12. Your fear? spiders
13. Where do you want to be in 6 years? WAHM
14. What you’re not? healthy
15. Muffins? cranberry!
16. One of your wish list items? laptop
17. Where you grew up? Coquitlam
18. The last thing you did? massage
19. What are you wearing? pedometer
20. Favorite gadget? iPod
21. Your pets? imaginary
22. Your computer? Vaio
23. Your mood? tired
24. Missing someone? David
25. Your car? Cavalier
26. Something you’re not wearing? (ear)rings
27. Favorite store? craft
28. Like someone? many
29. Your favorite color? purple
30. When is the last time you laughed? yesterday
31. Last time you cried? today (while I was throwing up)

Home!

And thankful. There was a bitch of a storm starting just before the Coquihalla toll booth and going until Abbotsford. What should have taken about two and a bit hours took me nearly four. It was hellishly scary. I had visibility of about 2 feet for a while there.

Pictures of stuff coming later. I'm waaaaaaaay too tired. Hooray for cool air! I think it averaged around 36 degrees Celsius when I was in Kelowna (105 or so Farenheit.)

To recap: driving=bad, home=good

Because I have absolutely ZERO sense of direction...

When reading yesterday's lightning post, please read "south" as "west" and "north" as "east". Thank you very much.

...

And weirdly, I do solo road trips, usually get where I'm going, and so far also get back home from them. (knock on wood, since I'm actually still in Kelowna for another day.

I can see my fingers reflected in the screen (mental note: laptop with matte screen, and one with a card reader) and, damn, it's weird seeing my fingers just...do stuff. Nifty. I want to keep typing and watching them. Lalalalala....I guess I could watch them do homework.

Meh. :P

One more day of school!!

Sentient Weather

The lightning is mocking me.

And not only because when there's lightning I won't go swimming. I was trying to take pics of it when it was in the north, about three minutes ago, then I decided I should do work and anyway SCREW YOU CAMERA SHY LIGHTNING, so I went onto the porch where I'm facing south. Guess what? The lightning is suddenly in the south.

Stupid, sentient, mocking lightning.

It's nice and cool right now. YAY!!

Two more days of course...wow. That feels like a crazy lots amount of time, and it also feels like a crazy little amount of time.

There have been eight lightning flashes since I started this post.

Nine.

That's a lot, since I copy/pasted part of this from IM with (ten) my mom.

I think I'm going to stop liveblogging the flashes of lightning now. As awesome as they are (and they're seriously, really [eleven] freaking awesome), I really, really should get some stuff done (TWELVE! And that was a GOOOOOOOOOD one.)

Maybe I'll try takeing a couple (thirteen) south facing pics....

(edited to add: fourteen and fifteen hit just as I clicked post...sixteen...)

(edited again to add: YEAH! Southern lightning must less inhibited. I got three or four pics at the same time lightning struck, and two of them show the forks! I'm super stoked, and now I should go inside to get my WORK DONE!!! and not be distracted by a bunch of STATIC ELECTRICITY! Pictures will be posted when I get home, since I have no cord, and as far as I can tell, my mom's laptop doesn't have a card reader for my camera.)

Not sleeping outside tonight!!

Ok, holy crap...apparently there are BLACK WIDOW SPIDERS in Kelowna, and apparently there was one RIGHT BESIDE THE DOOR AT THE FRONT OF THE HOUSE today. Holy crap on a crap stick. I guess I'll just bake tonight.

Gahhhhhh....nnnnnnghhhhhuuuuuhhhh...