To the eye it was a faint grey haze. The camera got a little more colour, at least till the batteries died.
Faint, wintry aurora
So it goes
Like Vonnegut said, “So it goes.” Poo-too-weet!
Comet chasing
I went out to see if I could get any photos of C/2022 E3 (ZTF) tonight, but the moon is far, far too bright. It was kind of a relief, honestly; it’s ridiculously cold tonight (like, pushing ‑30°C before the wind gets factored in). I snapped a couple photos, but I couldn’t see anything resembling a comet in them.
It wasn’t nearly as successful an attempt as the last time I went comet chasing.
Hollow Bean 2022: The Costumes
This year’s lightly-annotated list of Hallowe’en costumes:
- Li’l tiny kitten (She was 3, maybe 4 at the outside. Rang the bell, very clearly said “Trick or treat”, thanked me for the candy. Her mom, from the sidewalk, said “You did it all by yourself! I’m so proud of you!” So was I.)
- Li’l purple dragon
- Grim Reaper
- Flapper
- Traveler (or what we might, in less enlightened times, have called a “gypsy”)
- 2 boxes of Nerds (one was grape, I couldn’t make out the other; both had the Nutritional Information printed on the backs of their costumes)
- Angel
- Bear
- Bearded dad (The angel and bear both asked if we had gluten-free bars, which—turns out—apparently Aero fits the bill. I gave their dad a Coffin Crisp because a) the kids were super polite about it and b) he seemed really patient.)
- Great Pumpkin
- Santa Claus
We shut the light off at 9 pm, having watched the Knock Knock Ghost episode where they explore the Diefenbunker, among other spooky specials.
Hollow Bean 2022
Happy Hollow Bean on this 975th day of March 2020.
“They have an important celebration,” said E.T., “called Hollow Bean. Everyone carves faces in fruit squashes and dresses up in sheets.”
—William Kotzwinkle, E.T. The Book of the Green Planet
Photo by Fredrik Solli Wandem on Unsplash
Today’s ride—Oct. 30, 2022
Today I went a bit over 13km at an average speed of 17.9km/h. The new bike is definitely faster; I didn’t feel like I was putting in any particular effort, but on my old bike I’d have been doing about 15km/h, maybe 16 on a good day.
Yard birds
…not the band but the visitors eating bugs in my lawn.
Clouded Aurora
After I watched the new Top Gun talkie, I checked the data in my aurora app while I was still in the parking lot. It looked good[1]The Bz reading was ‑11, where the further into the negative, the better; I usually see a decent show if it’s at ‑4 or so., so I hurried home, grabbed my gear, and went out of town.
Unfortunately it was cloudy to the north. I set up anyway, hoping the clouds would move off, and started snapping photos.
Long story short: the clouds didn’t move off. I gave it about 45 minutes, and then packed up and went home.
Here’s a timelapse of about 20 minutes’ worth of my attempts. Each frame is a 10-second exposure.
And here’s a handful of my favourites from the photos I got. (I think I caught a meteor in the first one, on the far left.)
Footnotes
| ↑1 | The Bz reading was ‑11, where the further into the negative, the better; I usually see a decent show if it’s at ‑4 or so. |
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Happy birthday, dad
You’d be 76 today.
7×7
I had the day off today. I took a broken chair and ottoman to the dump, I did laundry, I talked to my mom and got texts from my sisters, I wrote a few hundred words, I went for a 2‑km bike ride (first of the year!), I enjoyed the heck out of a Guinness chocolate cake my wife got for me at Chez Angela, and I taught/studied a couple foot/leg throws at judo[1]sasae-tsurikomi-ashi (lifting/pulling foot block) and hiza-guruma (knee wheel) .
I’ve had worse birthdays.
Footnotes
| ↑1 | sasae-tsurikomi-ashi (lifting/pulling foot block) and hiza-guruma (knee wheel) |
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Semantle
I’m really only saving this for my own recollection. I managed to “win” Semantle on my first try (27 guesses but it’s still a victory).
| # | Guess | Similarity | Getting close? |
|---|---|---|---|
| 27 | surgeon | 100.00 | FOUND! |
| 26 | surgery | 61.15 | 988/1000 |
| 18 | procedure | 44.05 | 890/1000 |
| 16 | proctologist | 41.20 | 844/1000 |
| 17 | proctology | 37.50 | 722/1000 |
| 15 | zoologist | 28.61 | (cold) |
| 23 | procedures | 25.75 | (cold) |
| 5 | zoology | 16.66 | (cold) |
| 12 | zoo | 14.00 | (cold) |
| 22 | procedural | 12.90 | (cold) |
| 8 | ambergris | 12.20 | (cold) |
| 13 | zoom | 10.33 | (cold) |
| 3 | [expletive deleted] | 10.31 | (cold) |
| 4 | an | 9.07 | (cold) |
| 24 | task | 8.14 | (cold) |
| 14 | zoomer | 7.36 | (cold) |
| 25 | tasks | 6.16 | (cold) |
| 6 | ontology | 5.91 | (cold) |
| 7 | zealous | 5.78 | (cold) |
| 19 | processor | 5.21 | (cold) |
| 21 | produce | 5.02 | (cold) |
| 1 | latter[1]the previous day’s word | 2.83 | (cold) |
| 11 | pork | 2.66 | (cold) |
| 20 | process | 1.95 | (cold) |
| 9 | feldspar | 1.38 | (cold) |
| 2 | sparkle | 1.35 | (cold) |
| 10 | noted | 0.32 | (cold) |
Footnotes
| ↑1 | the previous day’s word |
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