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Day 27: Sun
Jan. 27th, 2013 10:15 amThis is as much sun as we got today. Rain all day - good thing for the desert!
Meteors & Mishka
Dec. 14th, 2010 08:46 amSat out and watched the Geminids for a bit last night. It was nice to stare at the sky after a stressful day.
Last night was the peak of the shower but there will still be meteors visible for the next few nights. In fact, it should be interesting to watch the sky during the lunar eclipse in a week. Looking forward to that.
I think I have figured out one thing that was bothering Mishka. He would get sick now and then, and I pinned it down to after he'd eaten one particular flavor of cat food. I eliminated that flavor from the menu rotation and he hasn't been sick since! (Knock wood.)
Last night was the peak of the shower but there will still be meteors visible for the next few nights. In fact, it should be interesting to watch the sky during the lunar eclipse in a week. Looking forward to that.
I think I have figured out one thing that was bothering Mishka. He would get sick now and then, and I pinned it down to after he'd eaten one particular flavor of cat food. I eliminated that flavor from the menu rotation and he hasn't been sick since! (Knock wood.)
Monday we got snow, a day after my beloved had put up the holiday lights on our house. This resulted in a cluster of icicles glowing blue in such a wonderful, eerie way that I ran for the camera. The icicles are gone now, but they're immortalized here. Last Thursday night was the peak of the Geminids meteor shower. It was too cold, and there was too much snow on the deck, to go outside, but we sat by our french doors and watched the part of the sky we could see for a while, and saw quite a few wonderful meteors. The best one fell when I was out of the room (typical).
Warm thoughts to all of the folks who've been without power for days. We are lucky to have been spared that nightmare.
4 pages written today.
Points in The Race:
26 for short stories
8 for novels (down because my final revision for fantasy book 1 was accepted)
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34 total
Around the equinox, the change in season becomes really noticeable. The hummingbirds are leaving and the juncos are coming in, along with bunches of flickers. Sun's rising later and the nights are getting colder. Last night we had our first freeze. (So long, tomato plants!) Here's a picture of a baby aspen tree in its fall glory.We've been getting ready for winter, buying firewood and getting the chimney swept. I look forward to cozy nights with a fire glowing. Maybe not getting snowed in for three days, though. There's got to be a happy medium.
Oops! There's supposed to be a meteor shower tonight - the Draconids! I'd better go look.
4 pages written today.
Points in The Race:
25 for short stories
32 for novels
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57 total
I watched the Perseids meteor shower recently with my friends Laura J. Mixon, her daughters, and Bob Norton (and my dh, of course). Worth the lost sleep. The weather was perfect, the moon was new and the sky dark as it gets. Bob brought his telescope and we looked at all kinds of cool stuff in the sky, then at 4:00 am Laura and I participated in a test project to count meteor observations. Even with both of us in the same location, we didn't have the exact same sightings. It was cool.
There's another shower coming up on the night of August 31/September 1. The Aurigids are a comparatively young shower and will offer a concentrated burst at 4:36 AM Pacific Daylight Time. Sounds like it will be pretty spectacular.
Chris Crawford is running a study again, and wants as many observers as he can get for the Aurigids. All you need to do is install a simple program on your laptop, then while you are observing meteors, click your mouse each time you see one. (Bonus: the laptop makes a nice lap warmer in the cool early morning!) When you're done, email the log file created by the program to Chris. Instructions are available here.
2 pages written today (getting ready for Bubonicon)
Points in The Race:
22 for short stories
32 for novels
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54 total
