February 6: No green comets for me!

Switched on my alarms for 3:00, my usual work wake-up time, even though today is technically the first day of my four scheduled days off. I wanted to see if I could get a glimpse of Comet Lulin near Zubenelgenubi, a star that would have once been part of the claws of Scorpius if they had not been cruelly ripped off and repurposed as Libra's scales millenia ago.

Based on previous attempts to image this area, I'm not at all sure I'll have any luck with this comet, which is currently at magnitude 6.5 or so. But, hey, you can't win if you don't play, right?

Anyway. Got up, geared up, wrapping myself in layers and carefully shielding my eyes from exposure to bright lights. Attached camera to tripod, opened front door, stepped out onto porch, and...

Clouded out. 100% cloud cover, or so close to 100% that it doesn't make any difference.

Ah well, we'll keep trying!


Here are some dates when Comet Lulin is especially easy to find, reposted from here. And for you West-coasters, there's still an opportunity for you to catch this morning's apparition!

Feb. 6th: Comet Lulin glides by Zubenelgenubi, a double star at the fulcrum of Libra's scales. Zubenelgenubi is not only fun to say (zuBEN-el-JA-newbee), but also a handy guide. You can see Zubenelgenubi with your unaided eye (it is about as bright as stars in the Big Dipper); binoculars pointed at the binary star reveal Comet Lulin in beautiful proximity. [sky map]




Feb. 16th: Comet Lulin passes Spica in the constellation Virgo. Spica is a star of first magnitude and a guidepost even city astronomers cannot miss. A finderscope pointed at Spica will capture Comet Lulin in the field of view, centering the optics within a nudge of both objects. [sky map]

Feb. 24th: Closest approach! On this special morning, Lulin will lie just a few degrees from Saturn in the constellation Leo. Saturn is obvious to the unaided eye, and Lulin could be as well. If this doesn't draw you out of bed, nothing will. [sky map]

The Stupid, It Burns! (Phil Plait Edition)

I hope that plognark, the creator of the brilliant original image that provided the basis for this picture, does not look upon this as an actionable...errr, action. But when Phil Plait posted this image today, it was too hard to resist. So, putting my meager graphics-manipulation skills to work, I have created this combo image, mainly for the amusement of Phil and the others at Bad Astronomy.

Susquehanna Panorama, February 5, 2009

Composite of five images taken 4:10 - 4:12 PM,
Thursday, Feb 5, 2009, Nanticoke-West Nanticoke Bridge
Click on picture for much larger image.

You know those signs that say "BRIDGE FREEZES BEFORE ROAD SURFACE"? So do people standing on the bridges. Damn, it was cold up there.

Still, it was worth it. There was ice on the river, some ice, at least, covering almost exactly half the river, extending from the Northern shore. This meant I would be able to get the shadow of the bridge on the ice. As a bonus, I also got cool reflections of the trees in the water.

But, damn, it was cold.

That's Plymouth Mountain to the left, and the Nanticoke Flats to the right. In the distance the John S. Fine Bridge carries Route 29 traffic over the Susquehanna.

Panoramic pictures are pains to create. I used to think it was just me, trying to freehand these things, never getting them to line up exactly right, never getting the colors just right. But it wasn't me. I had the same problems using the tripod. I had to selectively erase large chunks of the overlapping images to get things to line up, or at least to obscure the mismatches. Ditto on the color, though there's at least one point where the colors simply didn't match. I can see it, plain as day.

This panorama covers about 150 degrees. Maybe more. Note the railing on either side of the image.

The ice in the river was incredibly cool, great folded and cracked and refrozen rafts of ice that made me think of Enceladus. Note the color of the shadows in both of these images: not black, not gray, but blue. The color of the sky, illuminating the shadowed regions and reflecting back at the observer. Maybe tomorrow I'll get a picture of what happens to shadows on snow at sunset!

Green Comet Approaches Earth!

My sister just sent this to me. It's from the NASA website, so I don't feel too bad about lifting the article in its entirety.

Everything that follows is from http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2009/04feb_greencomet.htm?list1291541

Green Comet Approaches Earth

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February 4, 2009: In 1996, a 7-year-old boy in China bent over the eyepiece of a small telescope and saw something that would change his life--a comet of flamboyant beauty, bright and puffy with an active tail. At first he thought he himself had discovered it, but no, he learned, two men named "Hale" and "Bopp" had beat him to it. Mastering his disappointment, young Quanzhi Ye resolved to find his own comet one day.

And one day, he did.

Fast forward to a summer afternoon in July 2007. Ye, now 19 years old and a student of meteorology at China's Sun Yat-sen University, bent over his desk to stare at a black-and-white star field. The photo was taken nights before by Taiwanese astronomer Chi Sheng Lin on "sky patrol" at the Lulin Observatory. Ye's finger moved from point to point--and stopped. One of the stars was not a star, it was a comet, and this time Ye saw it first.

Comet Lulin, named after the observatory in Taiwan where the discovery-photo was taken, is now approaching Earth. "It is a green beauty that could become visible to the naked eye any day now," says Ye.

Amateur astronomer Jack Newton sends this photo from his backyard observatory in Arizona:

"My retired eyes still cannot see the brightening comet," says Newton, "but my 14-inch telescope picked it up quite nicely on Feb. 1st."

The comet makes its closest approach to Earth (0.41 AU) on Feb. 24, 2009. Current estimates peg the maximum brightness at 4th or 5th magnitude, which means dark country skies would be required to see it. No one can say for sure, however, because this appears to be Lulin's first visit to the inner solar system and its first exposure to intense sunlight. Surprises are possible.

Lulin's green color comes from the gases that make up its Jupiter-sized atmosphere. Jets spewing from the comet's nucleus contain cyanogen (CN: a poisonous gas found in many comets) and diatomic carbon (C2). Both substances glow green when illuminated by sunlight in the near-vacuum of space.

In 1910, many people panicked when astronomers revealed Earth would pass through the cyanogen-rich tail of Comet Halley. False alarm: The wispy tail of the comet couldn't penetrate Earth's dense atmosphere; even it if had penetrated, there wasn't enough cyanogen to cause real trouble. Comet Lulin will cause even less trouble than Halley did. At closest approach in late February, Lulin will stop 38 million miles short of Earth, utterly harmless.

To see Comet Lulin with your own eyes, set your alarm for 3 am. The comet rises a few hours before the sun and may be found about 1/3rd of the way up the southern sky before dawn.

Here are some dates when it is especially easy to find:

Feb. 6th: Comet Lulin glides by Zubenelgenubi, a double star at the fulcrum of Libra's scales. Zubenelgenubi is not only fun to say (zuBEN-el-JA-newbee), but also a handy guide. You can see Zubenelgenubi with your unaided eye (it is about as bright as stars in the Big Dipper); binoculars pointed at the binary star reveal Comet Lulin in beautiful proximity. [sky map]


Feb. 16th: Comet Lulin passes Spica in the constellation Virgo. Spica is a star of first magnitude and a guidepost even city astronomers cannot miss. A finderscope pointed at Spica will capture Comet Lulin in the field of view, centering the optics within a nudge of both objects. [sky map]

Feb. 24th: Closest approach! On this special morning, Lulin will lie just a few degrees from Saturn in the constellation Leo. Saturn is obvious to the unaided eye, and Lulin could be as well. If this doesn't draw you out of bed, nothing will. [sky map]

Ye notes that Comet Lulin is remarkable not only for its rare beauty, but also for its rare manner of discovery. "This is a 'comet of collaboration' between Taiwanese and Chinese astronomers," he says. "The discovery could not have been made without a contribution from both sides of the Strait that separates our countries. Chi Sheng Lin and other members of the Lulin Observatory staff enabled me to get the images I wanted, while I analyzed the data and found the comet."

Somewhere this month, Ye imagines, another youngster will bend over an eyepiece, see Comet Lulin, and feel the same thrill he did gazing at Comet Hale-Bopp in 1996. And who knows where that might lead...?

"I hope that my experience might inspire other young people to pursue the same starry dreams as myself," says Ye.

more information

Comet Lulin resources: ephemeris, 3D orbit, photo gallery

Discoverer's Blog: Quanzhi Ye is following the comet across the night sky and blogging about his experiences in both English and Chinese: click here.

Comet Tails: Comet Lulin appears to have two tails. A quick lesson in comet anatomy explains why:

The green ball in the middle of Newton's photo is the comet's atmosphere or coma. It measures about 500,000 km across, more than three times wider than the planet Jupiter.


To the right of the coma is the comet's ion tail. It is a wispy streamer of ionized gas pushed away from the comet by solar wind. The ion tail points almost directly away from the sun.

To the left of the coma is the comet's dust tail. Like Hansel and Gretel leaving bread crumbs to mark their path through the forest, Comet Lulin is leaving a trail of comet dust as it moves through the solar system. Compared to the lightweight molecules in the ion tail, grains of comet dust are heavier and harder for solar wind to push around. The dust tends to stay where it is dropped. The dust tail therefore traces the comet's curved orbit and does not point directly away from the sun as the ion tail does.

From a vantage point on Earth, much of the dust tail is hidden behind the coma, with only a little bit sticking out to the left. This creates the visual impression that the dust tail is pointing directly away from the ion tail and thus directly toward the sun. It is not, but it sure looks that way! The ion and dust tails are often called the "tail and anti-tail."

NASA's Future: US Space Exploration Policy

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Northeastern Pennsylvania and the world of tomorrow

Someday every rooftop will be covered in solar cells. Every mountain ridge will sport a chain of wind turbines. Every car will be powered by Lithium-ion batteries.

Northeastern Pennsylvania has a long and proud history of industry. Coal mining. Manufacturing. People who know what it is to work hard.

All that is becoming a thing of the past. Coal mining ended with the Knox Mine Disaster, when corporate greed placed short-term profit above the safety of the miners - and the long-term sustainability of the industry. The number of manufacturers in this area has dwindled to just a handful. One of the largest employers in the area, the Tobyhanna Army Depot, was on the short list for closures on September 10th, 2001.

The economic crisis that has gripped the rest of the nation, and the world, is nothing new here. We have coped with hard times off and on for decades. Now, those hard times are mostly on.

Northeastern Pennsylvania is home to many institutions of higher education. King's College. Wilkes University. Misericordia University. Marywood University. The University of Scranton. We educate students from throughout the region and from places farther afield, and then we send them off into the world - but do not encourage them to stay here, where the primary industries have become call centers, warehouses, and distribution centers.

The world of tomorrow needs to be built somewhere. There need to be facilities for manufacturing solar cells and wind turbines and Lithium-ion batteries. These are the things that will power the future. These are the technologies that will make the future possible.

We have the industrial know-how. We have the skilled workforce and the tradition of doing hard work. We have the brainpower and management training, if we can manage to hold onto it.

The world of tomorrow needs to be built somewhere. Why not here? Why not Northeastern Pennsylvania?

St. Mary's: Past and Future

The final report is out on parish closings and consolidations in the Diocese of Scranton. Erin Moody, who wrote the newspaper article on The Stained Glass Project several months ago, also wrote a comprehensive article on the closings and consolidations for the Wilkes-Barre Citizens' Voice. The official announcement from the Diocese of Scranton can be found here.

Here is the information that pertains specifically to Nanticoke, and to my church, St. Mary's:

CLUSTER # 8 – the parishes of Holy Trinity, Nanticoke; St. Stanislaus, Nanticoke; St. Mary of Czestochowa, Nanticoke; St. Francis, Nanticoke; St. Joseph (Slovak), Nanticoke; Holy Child, Sheatown:

Holy Trinity, Nanticoke; St. Stanislaus, Nanticoke; St. Mary Czestochowa, Nanticoke; St. Francis, Nanticoke; St. Joseph (Slovak), Nanticoke; and Holy Child, Sheatown will consolidate no later than July 2010 at the Holy Trinity site. There will be an additional worship site (Masses as needed per weekend with occasional funerals and weddings) at St. Mary of Czestochowa which will be evaluated no later than two years after the consolidation, based on geography, attendance, fiscal realities and the availability of priests. St. Francis Church building will close no later than July 2009. The Church buildings of St. Stanislaus, St. Joseph, and Holy Child will close no later than July 2010.

In doing research for yesterday's entry in The Stained Glass Project, I came across an entry in The Congressional Record from Wednesday, October 17, 2001 in which Representative Paul Kanjorski of Nanticoke read into the record a statement recognizing the 100th anniversary of the founding of the parish of St. Mary of Czestochowa, which would be celebrated on October 21 of that year. The statement presents a brief history of the parish. A similar statement appeared in a souvenir book put together for the occasion of the anniversary, but the PDF of this copy of the Congressional Record appeared to be the only location where the information could be found online. In order to remedy this situation, I am reproducing this information here.

HON. PAUL E. KANJORSKI
OF PENNSYLVANIA
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Wednesday, October 17, 2001

Mr. KANJORSKI. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to call the attention of the House of Representatives to the 100th anniversary of the founding of St. Mary of Czestochowa Roman Catholic Church of Nanticoke, Pennsylvania, which will be celebrated on October 21.

At the turn of the last century, an increase in the Polish Catholic population led to the need for a third church in the Nanticoke area. The original St. Mary’s church was a simple wooden structure located at the corner of Hanover and Grove streets. It was home to a congregation of approximately 500 parishoners, although an estimated 2,000 people worshipped there.

Nearly five years to the day of its dedication, the first church was destroyed by fire. Under the leadership of the first resident pastor, Rev. Adolph E. Nowicki, a new church was built at the corner of Hanover and Field streets and was blessed and dedicated soon thereafter.

St. Mary’s present pastor, Rev. John S. Krafchak, is the eighth pastor to serve the parish, having served since 1983. He also served as assistant pastor at St. Mary’s from 1960 to 1966. During his 18 years as pastor, Father Krafchak has continued to support the efforts of the church’s organizations, the spiritual needs of the congregation and the material upkeep of the parish.

Father Krafchak’s first major undertaking was the construction of a new rectory, which was completed in 1985. A Holy Hour of Prayers for Priests was begun in 1986 and has been held once a month since its inception. It was also around that time that air conditioning was installed in the church. With the 1988 consolidation of all the parish schools in the Nanticoke area into Pope John Paul II School, St. Mary’s school became the home of Head Start, a federal pre-school program offered to Nanticoke-area children ages 3 and 4 from low-income families. St. Mary’s has also teamed with St. Stanislaus Church to promote the Renew 2000 program, a parish renewal endeavor to foster spiritual growth among their parishoners. The parishes have also held consolidated Confraternity of Christian Doctrine classes since 1996.

In preparation for this year’s 100th anniversary, the interior of the church was painted and refurbished with carpeting and most significantly, an imported replica of the famous Our Lady of Czestochowa image, measuring more than 7 feet in height, was placed on the wall above the main altar. The church organ was also reconditioned to return it to most of its original musical capabilities.

One of the portions of St. Mary’s history of which the parishoners can be most proud is that the parish has been the mother of 39 vocations, 18 to the priesthood, 20 to the sisterhood and one to the deaconate. The parish also acknowledges the dedication of another parishoner, Henry Gonshor, who aspired to the priesthood but was called to his eternal rest before finishing his preparatory studies.

Over the past 100 years, St. Mary’s has seen the formation of the following organizations, most of which are still flourishing today: St. Cecilia’s Choir, Blessed Virgin Mary Sodality, the Holy Name Society, the Sacred Heart Society, Third Order of St. Francis, Purgatorial Society, the Catholic Council of Women and the Usher’s Club. These organizations have helped unite many parishoners throughout the years toward a common cause of service to God and the Church.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to call to the attention of the House of Representatives the 100 years of dedication, faith and good works of the people of St. Mary’s Church, and I wish them all the best.

The Stained Glass Project: Saint Adolph and Assumption Mary 2

This is part of an ongoing series called The Stained Glass Project, in which I am attempting to photographically preserve the stained glass windows of my parish church, Our Lady of Czestochowa (St. Mary's) in Nanticoke, Pennsylvania.

Note: The images included in this post were taken today, using a full-sized tripod to stabilize the camera during the longish exposures. Unfortunately, I did not have the camera positioned precisely vertically, so many of the images I photographed today show a distracting tilt. I have attempted to correct this tilt by manually adjusting the images, but this has resulted in some artifacts that cause straight lines to appear broken. I will try again next week.

The sixth and final window on the South side of St. Mary's church in Nanticoke, PA depicts Saint Adolph in the left portrait and Mary's Assumption into Heaven on the right. This is the second depiction of Mary's Assumption in the windows; the first can be seen here.

There are several individuals on the Catholic roster of Saints who bear the name Adolph, or Adolphe, or Adolf, or Adolphus. The only one I could locate who was also a Bishop (as identified by the crozier he holds and the miter he wears) is Adolf (or Adolph, or Adolphus) of Osnabrück.

Unfortunately, there is precious little information available online about this individual. Curiously, the New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia doesn't appear to have an entry for him. Here is his Wikipedia entry, in its entirety:

Saint Adolf of Osnabrück (also, Adolphus, Adolph, Adolf of Tecklenburg) was a monk and bishop, a member of the family of Tecklenburg counts in Westphalia. He became a canon in Cologne, Germany but then entered a Cistercian monastery where he became known for his piety. In 1216 he was appointed bishop of Osnabrück and maintained charitable programs there, dying on June 30, 1224. Adolf is known as the "Almoner of the Poor." His feast day is February 1.

I would find that feastday a bit eerily coincidental, but other sources give it as February 11, or February 13. There is no information given here, or anywhere else that I could see, as to why he appears to be holding a miniature church (which, it should be noted, is larger than the one held by Saint Hedwig.)

Here is the information I found online for this individual:

Wikipedia entry on Adolf of Osnabrück
Patron Saints Index: Saint Adolphus of Osnabruck
Catholic Online entry on St. Adolf of Osnabrück

The next figure I identify as Mary's Assumption into Heaven, in part because of the lack of any other identifier - in its place are the words "ORA PRO NOBIS" - "Pray for us," as is the case with all images of Jesus and Mary in these windows.

While the style of this depiction is familiar, I cannot place it, and it does not resemble any of the images shown here. It does, however, closely resemble La Inmaculada de Soult (1678) by Bartolomé E. Murillo.


The full Wikipedia entry, in Spanish, can be found here.* The entry on the artist, in English, can be found here. So perhaps, despite the airborne appearance, this is actually a depiction of the Immaculate Conception, not the Assumption.

The round window at the top depicts the sword-pierced Immaculate Heart of Mary. The two five-petaled flowers at the top appear to be Hibiscus, though they may be something else. I am less certain of the flower in the middle at the top, or the chain of buds wrapping the heart as they often do in such depictions.

There apparently never was any banner or text associated with this image, as is the case with most of the other round windows.

These windows were presented by the Reverend A.E. Nowicki, Rector of the Church. Adolph E. Nowicki was the first Resident Pastor of Saint Mary's, and it was under his leadership that the present structure was constructed. And perhaps now we understand the significance of the inclusion of the relatively obscure Saint Adolph, and the reason for the church held in his hand!


*Rendered into English by Google Translate Beta, the text of the Spanish article reads as follows:

Known as the Immaculate Conception of Soult is a table (=>painting) of the Spanish painter Bartolomé Murillo in the year 1678.

Author of numerous Inmaculadas in the last years of his life, Bartolomé Murillo ideal creates a formula in which the Virgin Mary dressed in white and blue, with hands crossed on (her) chest, stepped on the moon and looking to the sky, with a clear upward momentum, very baroque, which puts the figure of the Virgin Mary in the space inhabited empyrean light, clouds and angels, and is used to combine two iconographical traditions: that of the Immaculate itself and of the Assumption.

Commissioned by Justino de Neve for Venerables Hospital of Seville, was taken to France by Marshal Soult in 1813, from which his nickname.

Exposed for nearly a century in the Louvre, joined the collection of the Museo del Prado after an exchange of works of art with the French government in 1941.

Twenty-Five Things

This is a "meme" (in the colloquial definition) that's been going around Facebook. It has grown a bit over time - when I was originally tagged here last October it was just seven things. I am including the Facebook header since this will be cross-posted on Facebook. I won't tag anybody, not really, but I will flag the people I especially want to notice this.


Create your own note, list 25 things about you that others might not know about and then tag your friends (in the upper right corner). You must tag me in it too.

1. I have (as of this writing) nearly 1,800 posts on my blog, Another Monkey.
2. If there's something I haven't told you about myself there, it's probably because I don't want you to know.
3. I drive a 1996 Toyota Tercel 4-door DX with over 300,000 miles on it.
4. My daily commute is 66.6 miles, round-trip.
5. I don't believe in killing unnecessarily, even insects. I have captured and released bees, wasps, and hornets that have been inside buildings, and I know how to lead a housefly out of a house. (They're photophilic* - they move towards light. Darken the room the fly is in and use a flashlight to lead it towards an outside door. Then let it out of the house.)
6. I double-majored in Physics and Philosophy at a Jesuit liberal arts college (the University of Scranton.)
7. I planned to get my graduate degree in Physics at Bryn Mawr, where they specialized in Non-Linear Dynamics, but Bryn Mawr put ALL graduate programs on hold for incoming students that year.
8. I knew this before the head of the Physics department at Bryn Mawr did.
9. I did one semester of grad work at the University of Delaware, but washed out very quickly.
10. I broke two cars while learning to drive.
11. I have been described as being "too intense."
12. I consider myself unintense to the point of being nearly catatonic at times.
13. I believe I have lost at least one longtime friend because of my blog.
14. I believe this is because she thought I had said something terrible about her.
15. I was actually referring to her mother.
16. I have been to Ireland three times, with a side trip to London once.
17. I have "contact memory". By touching an object, I can remember everything I have ever associated with that object. Well, almost everything.
18. This is very useful when I am trying to remember something I read in a book. I only have to touch the book, and I can (usually) remember (almost) everything I have ever read in it.
19. I use a related skill to encode memories of vacations into books that I read while I am on vacation. As I re-read the book I re-experience the events of the vacation.
20. I bought my grandmother's old house in 2006.
21. I still haven't moved in.
22. I can communicate with dogs, cats, pre-verbal children, and at least one rhinoceros.
23. My hearing is least sensitive in the range of most human voices.
24. I have mild prospagnosia prosopagnosia. I have tremendous difficulty recognizing and reconstructing faces.
25. I don't do memes. Most of the time.
    

*I think I should have said "phototropic" which can mean "tends to move towards light" as well as "tends to grow towards light."

The Stained Glass Project: Other Churches, Other Windows

Tomorrow Bishop Martino will announce, via pre-recorded message, the fates of Roman Catholic parishes throughout the Diocese of Scranton. Some will remain as they are, some will absorb other parishes, and some will be absorbed - losing their individual identities forever.

Last week I attended Mass at Holy Trinity church, which is widely assumed to be one of the only Catholic churches that will remain open in Nanticoke. It is the largest, but is also the costliest to operate and has a parking lot that is woefully inadequate even for its current load of parishioners. How - or if - the Diocese intends to deal with the logistical details of these coming mergers remains to be seen.


I was in Holy Trinity Church, sitting near the front. I had taken my camera along with the intention of getting a picture of the window that portrays the head and shoulders of Saint Stanislaus Kostka and then comparing it to a portrait window featuring the same figure in St. Mary's church. But I got there too late to do any sightseeing. So I had to content myself with snapping images of the windows closest to me.


This window, at the front left of Holy Trinity, is clearly designed with a different aesthetic in mind from the ones I have been discussing in Saint Mary's. The window is far more ornate, more like a mosaic of glass with figures thrown in. The main figure portrayed - and I have no idea who this is; it could be Saint Dominic, or Francis Xavier, or Ignatius of Loyola, or any of a hundred other saints - is in a far stiffer pose than the painted glass portraits at St. Mary's, and the child at his side - is this Jesus as a child? Could the older figure be Saint Christopher? - seems disproportionately small.


An interesting feature of this image is that as the sun set, the figures' flesh became a pallid grayish-purple, finally fading to gray entirely.

There are two figures flanking the altar, set high up near the ceiling. Only my image of Saint Peter (identifiable by the keys he holds) came out sharply.


I have been in this church probably less than two dozen times in my life. These windows hold no memories for me, no deeper meaning. But for others, they do. I wish someone from this parish - from every parish - would take it upon themselves to record and preserve these images for all to see, and would share what the windows mean to them.

I am nearly halfway done with the windows of St. Mary's. I will begin to skip around a bit now, postponing discussions of some windows until I get more acceptable images. I'd better locate my tripod soon - I may be running out of opportunities to take these photos.

Birthday thoughts

Thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes.

This doesn't seem as traumatic a day as last year. Actually, my birthday has gone mostly unremarked in the everyday world, but not due to neglect or apathy or anything like that. My mom has a pretty serious cold - has had it for about three days now, and it doesn't show signs of letting up. While I am made of titanium and diamonds and have the constitution and physique of an ox (most of the time), most of the people around me are a bit more frail and fragile. So we will wait until she is better to have a family get-together.

I took her to the doctor's first thing this morning, which on a day off is 11:00. While she was there I went grocery shopping. She called for me to pick her up as I was loading the groceries into the car. We then went to the drugstore to drop off a prescription - she may have something more than a cold, or maybe her doctor just likes prescribing drugs unnecessarily. They told us it would take twenty minutes to fill, so we did a quick tour - first to a liquor store for me to get some whiskey for traditional health tonics (this time, I'm trying Feckin Irish Whiskey), then to an ATM, then to my house for me to verify that the Calcium Chloride I spread yesterday evening had done its job, then to Sanitary Bakery to pick up my birthday cake and a dozen or so pastries that caught my eye, and then finally back to the drugstore drive-through pickup window to find that they were not quite ready with my mom's prescription.

My mom stayed in the car while I went into the store to kill time while waiting for them to fill the prescription. I didn't notice anything that really caught my eye - they seem to be all out of 2009 calendars, even though last year I was able to get a MAD Magazine calendar the day after Valentine's Day. As I approached the prescription desk, I noticed that there was only one cake of Williams Mug Shaving Soap left - and it was on clearance for 50% off. (Why is this on clearance? Is Williams not making it anymore? Is Combe Incorporated, their parent company, going out of business? If that's the case, I guess we should all stock up on Ice Blue Aqua Velva!)

Came back to my mom's house, unloaded the car, re-salted the sidewalks (which had frozen over), reheated some chicken soup as a late lunch for the both of us, put some clothes in the wash.

And that was it.

I'm not complaining. A low-key birthday was pretty pleasant for a change, and I received birthday greetings over the phone and in the mail and through e-mails and IMs and MySpace and Facebook and this blog - again, thank you everybody!

Maybe this weekend, we'll finally cut the cake!

She's coming down on her own, now

I'm fading fast. I should be in bed now.

My day started as every other work day lately when I woke up at 3:00 in the morning. Breakfast, shower, shave, all rushed because of the need to get out early due to the snow.

There wasn't that much snow this morning, but enough to make driving difficult. It was a long and harrowing drive in to work.

Work was OK. Busier than I would have liked. But I walked out with all my fingers and both hands sstill attached, though they are now dotted with callusses and burns and cuts and bruises. Most of those will heal in time. Some will leave scars.

The commute home was better. Temperatures were above freezing, so the snow had turned to slushy water on the roads, or had melted entirely.

I came into town planning to shovel and salt my sidewaaks first, and then go back and do my mom's. I have to drive past my mom's to get to my house, and the roads looked at least partially melted.

On the way across town to my house I saw several large objects dart in front of my csr. I missed them. Suddenly another object slammed into my car. Someone's recycling container had been upended by th ferocious winds that were blowing through Nanticoke.

Long story slightly less long: shoveled and salted my sidewalks, then did the same for my mom's - after first taking out the garbage and newspapers that I had had stashed just outside the garage. Dug out her car, just in case this stuff freezes solid overnight.

Then I put out new dry food for the "outdoor cats." Here's hoping they survive the Winter.

And then I ate.

I have fallen asleep nrarly a dozen times while witing this. I think it's time for bed.


UPDATE, 1/29/09: I actually spell-checked and corrected this last night. As you've probably noticed, I missed a few things. Spell-checking while passing out is only slightly more error-proof than writing while passing out. At least I got rid of all the aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaas and uuuuuuuuuuuuuuus - there were several. I've decided to leave the remaining typos in place.


Title reference: Background line from REM's "The One I Love", sung by Mike Mills under some - but not all - of the "FIII-IIII-RRRE" choruses. Ever since I first knew that was the line (in July 1997, when I got an REM concert video that included Line 21 captions for the lyrics), I have assumed that "Fire" was actually a command given by a WWI artillery captain ordering his gunners to shoot down a dirigible which, in fact, is already crashing. I'm not sure why.

This was actually a back-up title for this post. I was originally going to call it "I'm coming down fast", but I realized I would have to include the "but I'm miles above you" line, which seems arrogant. The Beatles' "Helter Skelter" which this lyric is from, was referring to an amusement park ride - not a call to anarchistic revolution through mass murder. Sorry, Mr. Manson, you got that one wrong.

300,000

On my commute home from work today, just outside of Scranton, Pennsylvania, my 1996 four-door Toyota Tercel DX hit 300,000 miles. I pulled over on an offramp on the Central Scranton Expressway to record the event.

It should come as a surprise to no one that, three miles later, my CHECK ENGINE light came on.*

I had no intention of keeping my car this long - well, not up until the events of nearly two years ago. I had planned on getting a new car after about the 250,000 mile mark, or when cars become sufficiently advanced for me to consider selecting a replacement for my sturdy, reliable, efficient (40+ mpg in the Summer) Tercel. Other cars aren't there yet, and at this time I can't afford to add a car payment to my monthly list of bills. Maybe someday.

Until then, I'll keep on driving my Tercel. Next stop: 350,000 miles!



*Really, it's probably just a milestone setpoint - though I don't remember if I had the light come on at 100,000 or 200,000 miles. But there are a few things I should have taken care of soon anyway. On Thursday I'll check everything I can check myself, especially the coolant/antifreeze level - that has set the CHECK ENGINE light off before.

Electronics ephemera

ephem·era
Pronunciation: \i-ˈfe-mər-ə, -ˈfem-rə\
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural ephemera also ephem·er·ae \-mər-ē, -rē\ or ephemeras
Etymology: New Latin, from Greek ephēmera, neuter plural of ephēmeros
Date: 1650
1: something of no lasting significance —usually used in plural
2 ephemera plural : paper items (as posters, broadsides, and tickets) that were originally meant to be discarded after use but have since become collectibles

- "ephemera." Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. 2009.
Merriam-Webster Online. 26 January 2009

I visited three different stores that are going out of business in the last week. One of them, the Waldenbooks at the Wyoming Vally Mall, was a book store. The other two were the Wilkes-Barre Office Depot, an office supply store with a heavy emphasis on electronics, and Circuit City, the electronics retailer that is folding nationally.

I never did shop at these last two stores much, so I didn't really expect to find much that would interest me now. Maybe some toner for my ancient HP DeskJet 842c. No such luck, but I did pick up a refill kit, so one of these days I'll see if I can use it without destroying my printer.

As I breezed through the aisles of each store I couldn't help but think about the ephemeral nature of consumer electronics. State-of-the-art this morning is obsolete this afternoon. Flatscreen TVs that people had mounted into the walls of their houses so they could roll the cost into their mortgages are now dinosaurs, prehistoric toys with a lower quality image than much of what is available today. 2 gigabyte memory cards are selling for under ten dollars - I paid several times that amount for my first card, which I believe was 512 megabytes.

Most of us have bought into this at one point or another, and many of us have growing collections of the electronic detritus as a result - not just the electronics items themselves, but all the associated cords, cables, adaptors, and other stuff that came along for the ride. Some of it is generally useful, but some of it has lost all associated meaning - there is no longer a Slot A for Tab B to fit into, because the gizmo that had Slot A on it is currently basking in a landfill somewhere. Yet we hold onto the cords and cables and whatnot - just in case.

New merchandise has stopped arriving at these stores. Yesterday's inventory will have to do until it is sold or the retailers close up shop. Addicts will have to turn elsewhere to get their electronics fix.

Sic transit gloria electronica.


I know I've posted this before, but here it is again. From 2000, a classic ad pushing Staples (an office supply retailer) as a major source of technology gifts.

The essential introductory Science Fiction library

One of my nephews recently turned thirteen, and I decided to get him a present that might stick with him for a while: a collection of what I consider to be essential Science Fiction books, ones every kid should read. My nephew is already a huge fan of Star Wars in all of its permutations, but I'm trying to show him that there are other things in the world of Science Fiction. These are (mostly) books that I was reading when I was his age, and I'm hoping they fire his imagination the way they did mine.

In a case of perhaps Going Too Far, I wanted to replicate my experience of these books as closely as possible by buying the same editions that I originally read, or at least editions that are as similar as I could find.

The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien. This is technically Fantasy, not Science Fiction. I was probably fourteen when I first read this book. I was already into Dungeons & Dragons, and I bought this book mainly out of a sense of necessity, like it was required reading for me. Also, I wanted to plow through The Lord of the Rings, and I knew this was a critical introduction. I had the paperback edition with the yellow-orange cover with a painting by (I think) the Brothers Hildebrandt on the cover of Gandalf, Gwaihir, and Bilbo. I bought this for my nephew as a paperback, but with a different cover.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams. This isn't just a book; it's also a membership to the global society of fans who get all of the inside jokes, a passport to a larger world of fandom. Ideally I would present my nephew with the radio series first, which is how I was originally exposed to the Hitchhiker's Guide, but I did the next best thing: I purchased an undersized hardcover copy that purports to be the seventh printing of the First Edition, in exactly the same size, shape, and cover art as my copy, which I purchased in 1981.

Dune, Frank Herbert. Heady, complex stuff, and I think I was a bit older when I read this for the first time. Still, it's a great book, and it's a cool introduction to all sorts of ideas. Pity the sequels never lived up to the original. I got this in paperback - I had the burnt-orange paperback, which was coordinated with the other books in the series at that time (Dune Messiah, Children of Dune, and God-Emperor of Dune.) Hey, my nephew will finally get all the Dune references on The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy!

Starship Troopers, Robert Heinlein. I believe this was technically written as juvenile fiction, though I was closer to thirty when I first read it. Larry Niven recommends that all kids be exposed to Heinlein by age ten. I doubt Starship Troopers was what he had in mind. Really more along the lines of military fiction or even social fiction, it is filled with plenty of original ideas and thought-provoking images. I was able to get the same edition that I bought for myself years ago, with the James Warhola cover.

The Star Wars trilogy. OK, not essential, but it's fun to spot the errors and differences - Luke flies in Gold Squadron as Gold Five, Yoda is a wizened blue figure, the ghost of Obi-Wan explains how he gave baby Luke to his brother Owen for safe keeping...

I probably should have thrown in George Orwell's 1984 for good measure, since that is essential reading for everybody. And The Hugo Winners Volumes I & II (edited by Isaac Asimov) is a wonderful collection of short stories providing introductions to Harlan Ellison, Larry Niven, Fritz Leiber, and dozens of other giants of science fiction - maybe I'll get that for him eventually, too.

That wasn't everything I got him for his birthday, but those books formed the core. I hope he reads them, and they don't just wind up tossed aside or collecting dust on a shelf.

Other people, I am sure, have their own ideas as to what books provide an essential introduction for young readers. Please share your own ideas in the comments!

Too much to tell

Today was another Big Day - which is defined as a day where I run two or more errands in sequence without touching base at home. Today I gave blood, chased a wild goose (a clearance-section child's easel at Target, last spotted nearly a week ago buy my aunt), shopped (unsuccessfully) for electronic ephemera at Circuit City, shopped (successfully) for bouncy balls at Party City, paid one last visit to the Waldenbooks at the Wyoming Valley Mall, topped off my gas tank, checked my oil, came home, ate supper, searched (unsuccessfully) for my good tripod, went to 4:00 Mass at a different church than "my" church (parking there is always an adventure, since they have parking spaces for about 30 cars and seating for about 1000 people), and went to my nephew's long-postponed birthday party.

Half of those could be blog entries themselves. But they'll have to wait. I have work in the morning, and I have several things I need to do before I can go to sleep.

Big doings today

I got up this morning, had breakfast, screwed around on the computer, checked the daily funnies online, and whined on the Comics Curmudgeon website that I couldn't find the tenth missing ping-pong ball in today's Slylock Fox.

I then took a shower, got dressed, and drove over to my (still unoccupied) house across town to drop off a 50 lb. pail of calcium chloride pellets (the best and least damaging de-icer I know of), a sack of leftover cookie-making ingredients, and several dollar-store LED flashlights. (I use them at work, and keep spares in storage.) I also took advantage of the sudden warm spell (temperatures hovering above freezing!) to nail down a loose board on my front steps. Then I drove a few blocks to do some banking, and headed out to a car wash to wash the grime and road salt off my car.

Next came the big stop of the day: tire rotation at Sam's Club. I waited an interminably long time while I watched one tire guy do his thing on a truck in the one open bay in the three- (or is it four?-) bay garage. One of the other bays was occupied by a pile of tires, while a third was being used by two other tire guys to assemble a wooden playhouse of some sort, which seemed odd. All three of the workers were arrayed so that none of them had a clear view of the window or the counter where customers would wait. Just as I was about to barge past the NO CUSTOMERS BEYOND THIS POINT sign, open the door to the work area, and shout "HEY!", one of the workers accidentally looked at the window and I began to wave vigorously.

I was told that tire rotation would take about an hour. I took this opportunity to visit the Kohl's next door - a store I had never been in before today, and after today will probably never be in again. (Not that anything bad happened, I just found the place completely uninteresting.) Next I stopped at the recently-opened Office Depot store just on the other side of Kohl's, which now sports a banner that reads "STORE CLOSING." I picked up a few discounted items which were massively overpriced to begin with.

By then my tire rotation was done. I headed to the Wyoming Valley Mall, where the Waldenbooks which has been a fixture of the mall for thirty-eight years is closing. It is closing tomorrow, actually, though the remaining books (and there are a lot of them) are still being offered at only 40% off. I didn't buy anything. (I got a copy of The Black Dossier there on Wednesday - I had never noticed it in the store before.) Maybe I'll stop in one last time tomorrow.

Came home, ate supper, went online, and read this e-mail:

Missing ping pong ball‏
From: Bob Weber
Sent: Fri 1/23/09 11:39 AM

You might want to take another look at the snake.

-Bob
http://www.kidcartoonists.com/

Bob Weber, Jr., creator of Slylock Fox (and son of Bob Weber of Moose Miller fame), had e-mailed me with a hint on finding the last ping-pong ball in today's Slylock Fox! BEHOLD THE AWESOME POWER OF THE COMICS CURMUDGEON! BEHOLD THE IMMEASURABLE COOLNESS OF BOB WEBER!

So, you know, anything else that happens today just kinda pales by comparison.

The Stained Glass Project: St. Anne and St. Peter

This is part of an ongoing series called The Stained Glass Project, in which I am attempting to photographically preserve the stained glass windows of my parish church, Our Lady of Czestochowa (St. Mary's) in Nanticoke, Pennsylvania.


The subjects of the fifth pair of windows from the rear of the South side of St. Mary's church in Nanticoke really need no introduction. Outside of the Holy Family (Jesus, Mary, and Joseph), Saints Anne and Peter are probably among the best-known figures in the Communion of Saints.

Saint Anne is the mother of Mary, and the grandmother of Jesus. The New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia notes that everything that is known about Saint Anne - including her name - comes from apocryphal sources:

All our information concerning the names and lives of Sts. Joachim and Anne, the parents of Mary, is derived from apocryphal literature, the Gospel of the Nativity of Mary, the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew and the Protoevangelium of James. Though the earliest form of the latter, on which directly or indirectly the other two seem to be based, goes back to about A.D. 150, we can hardly accept as beyond doubt its various statements on its sole authority. In the Orient the Protoevangelium had great authority and portions of it were read on the feasts of Mary by the Greeks, Syrians, Copts, and Arabians. In the Occident, however, it was rejected by the Fathers of the Church until its contents were incorporated by Jacobus de Voragine in his "Golden Legend" in the thirteenth century. From that time on the story of St. Anne spread over the West and was amply developed, until St. Anne became one of the most popular saints also of the Latin Church.

The Wikipedia entry on Saint Anne notes that a book is one of her saintly attributes, often shown in depictions of her, though no explanation is given. Nor is it clear why she is shown holding a Triregnum, or Papal Tiara.

New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia entry on Saint Anne
Wikipedia entry on Saint Anne

Next to Saint Anne is the portrait of Saint Peter. The obvious attribute shown here is the pair of keys (one behind the other) clasped in his right hand.

New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia entry on Saint Peter
Wikipedia entry on Saint Peter

There are two other items worth noting about this pair of windows. One is the remarkable similarity in pose, composition, and coloration of the two portraits: both are depicted in almost identical orientation to the viewer, and both wear vestments of rich ruby red, pale aquamarine, and wheat. (Saint Anne also has some purple in her clothing.)

The other is the fact that these windows are considerably modified compared to most of the other portrait windows in the church, missing the upper and lower openable panes and the "PRESENTED BY" tags. These modifications were likely made in the 1950's when the side door of the church (shown above) was installed. (I believe this was in 1953.) So, tragically, the names of the donors are probably lost to history - unless some separate record of these donors, or perhaps even the missing pieces of the window themselves, are stored somewhere!


The upper round window depicts a Lily of the Valley, mentioned in the Song of Songs and another element of the hortus conclusus. Additional religious relevance, from the Wikipedia entry:

The flower is also known as Our Lady's tears since, according to Christian legend, the tears Mary shed at the cross turned to Lilies of the Valley. According to another legend, Lilies of the Valley also sprang from the blood of Saint Leonard of Noblac during his battles with a dragon.

The script on the banner beneath this image is, unfortunately, unreadable.

MAD Magazine: "Obama: The First 100 Minutes"

I came home from work yesterday to find that MAD Magazine #498 (February 2009) had arrived in the mail. Talk about timing!

Check out the little details in the cover art by Mark Fredrickson, like the banner at the top of the Chicago Tribune on Obama's desk, dated Wednesday, January 21, 2009:

Pick up a copy! It's worth it for the cover alone! And the minute-by-minute chronicle of "Obama: The First 100 Minutes" makes it clear that the new President won't be getting treated any differently than his predecessors!

Watching the World Wake Up from History

At 6:00 this morning, I began work with President George W. Bush in the White House.

At 6:00 tonight, I will walk out with President Barack Hussein Obama in the White House.

A new era has begun.


Jesus Jones: "Right Here, Right Now"

Last night in the White House

President George W. Bush is seen Monday morning
in the Oval Office Jan.19. 2009, making phone calls
to current and former world leaders during his final
full day in office. White House photo by Eric Draper
(from http://www.whitehouse.gov/president/)

One day ends, and a new one begins.

Are you better off than you were eight years ago?

Tomorrow George W. Bush will become an ex-President. The set at the prop ranch at Crawford will be struck, if it hasn't already, and the now former Commander-in-Chief will retire to the loving embrace of those who are better off than they were eight years ago.

I sincerely hope someone keeps an eye on his post-Presidential adventures. What he does in the years to come may help clarify what has gone on in the past eight.

Tomorrow a new day will dawn at noon.