Stability For Our Time

Wow. Just wow.

"Honey, how much do you love me?"

"Why, what did you do?"

"Well, there was this auction on Ebay for a telescope that I've been wanting for years and I kinda accidentally won it."

"And just how do you "accidentally" win an auction? Did your finger slip and "accidentally" hit the lace Bid button after mistakenly entering a price?"

"Well, not really. I put the bid in on purpose but I never expected to win it for that low of a bid."

"How low was your bid?"

"Umm, getting back to my question, how much do you love me?"

"HOW MUCH DID YOU BID!?"

"$1200.00"

(Insert you own depiction of a conniption. This is a family blog after all.)

I have a feeling this one's gonna cost me several pairs of shoes. And a footrub or two.

But it's worth it. I've wanted a good scope like this for years, decades even. Mom and Dad got me a toy telescope when I was a kid, and I used it to look at the moon, and Jupiter and a couple of stars, but it was hard to really see much else with it, and there was no way I could use it to take pictures.

So now I've upgraded. The picture above was taken with a Meade 10" LX200 coupled to a Canon Rebel 300D. The focus is a little bit soft, but not too bad for a first picture. The scope is a monster, weighing around 70 pounds, not counting the tripod. I'll have some pics of it in a day or so.

Now all I need is for the weather to cooperate and give me some clear nights.

Gotta run. I'm late for a foot rub...

Billy: "2+2=4"

Joey: "No, it equals 6!"

Billy: "Nope. I checked. It equals 4. You're wrong!"

Joey: "That's just your opinion. You can't force your opinion on me! 2+2=6!"

Billy: "It's a fact, not an opinion. You can believe it equals 6 all you want; that doesn't do anything but make you wrong and stupid!"

Joey:" Waaah! Teacher, Billy said I was wrong and stupid!"

Teacher: "Now Billy, we can't be making value judgments about other people like that. Joey might have a very good reason for believing that 2+2=6, and in his eyes, he's right. We have to respect his right to have an opinion and help him build his self esteem."

Billy: " But Teacher, 2+2=4! 6 is wrong! If 2+2=6,then what does 3+3 equal?"

Teacher: "Now Billy, you're just trying to cause trouble and you're confusing poor Joey. Here's what we're going to do. When two people are opposed, we must always look for a way to compromise. In this case, we'll all agree that 2+2=5. Okay?

Joey: "I knew it couldn't be 4!"

Billy: "Sigh."

The story you have just read is all too true. The names have been changed to protect the innocent. Joey graduated college and became an accountant for Enron and is currently serving 5-10 for accounting fraud. He's still kinda fuzzy on the whole math thing, but believes he'll be out in 2043. Or something like that. Billy left school to be home schooled by his German Shepherd Einstein, and went on to graduate from MIT with a degree in math and theoretical physics. He's still sure that 2+2=4, but only in a coherent linear universe with a limited number of accessible dimensions. Teacher was widely lauded for his negotiating skills and now heads up the NEA.

"I'll brook no interference," she said as she crossed the brook, the wind blowing her hair as she watched a hare wind its way across the field.
Peter ran fast while Paul stood fast and Mary wiled the time away by going on a fast.
Wouldn't it be odd if Bea was stung by a bee at the spelling bee?
Have you ever seen a Bass sing bass?
The north winds buffet the sides of the dining hall as we eat a delicious buffet.
The two dressers were too close to close the door.
I am content with the content of the contract.
I refuse to handle your refuse. You're going to have to take out your half of the trash.
Her tears tear at my heart.
With a light heart, I told her to turn left at the light, but she turned right instead and went right to the right address, which just wasn't right.
I still think he should have stood still while I emptied the still.
I've resigned myself to resigning as president, unless you resign the contract to finance the company.
On this present occasion, I am honored to present you with this present.
The clumsy waitress spilled pate on the bald pate of the governor.
A millisecond is a minute part of a minute.
When the dove came back, Noah's sons dove off of the ark.
Bacteria multiply by dividing, which works in biology class, but not so much in math.

For the last few years, I've been suffering from a serious medical condition that was causing the shortening of my arms. It wasn't too bad, but I noticed it most when trying to read fine print, which was getting harder and harder. I told Lissa about it . She just snorted and told me I was getting old and needed bifocals.

I told her there was nothing wrong with my eyes, that it was all in my arms and I tried to prove it to her by putting my arms around her.

"See," I said," my arms don't reach all the way around you anymore."

For some reason, that didn't go over very well. I guess some people just can't handle being wrong. She started muttering something about pointing out which of my appendages were really shrinking, and while I certainly have no idea what she was talking about, I decided that discretion was the better part of valor, and went to sleep on the couch.

Early the next morning I decided to prove my point in a different way. I went down to the laundry room to grab a couple of my long sleeved shirts to show her that the sleeves were too short. What I discovered when I put them on was truly shocking. Not only had my arms shrunk, but my shirts had been shrinking as well, and at exactly the same rate as my arms!

What were the odds?

I considered sharing this new observation with her, but then the truth hit me. That lovely woman was deliberately shrinking my shirts so I wouldn't feel bad about it!

Like the old Geritol Commercial used to say, "My wife! I think I'll keep her."

Now that I understood why she was so upset I went and woke her up to tell her everything I'd discovered and how happy I was that she had gone to so much trouble to keep me from suffering the consequences of my affliction.

I'm sure you're surprise is as great as mine was when she proceeded to scream at me using words that I didn't know she knew, words I hadn't heard since I was in the Navy. The various acts she invited me to perform on myself were not only immoral, but illegal in several states, and, at least in one case, physically impossible without extensive surgery and years of training.

I think it would have gone better if I'd brought her coffee first. I mentioned something about her being grumpy before breakfast, and the next thing I remember was waking up in the emergency room. I only needed 35 stitches and while I was there, the doctor told me that there was no such thing as a disease that caused the arms to get shorter, and that probably needed bifocals.

I looked over at my loving wife and asked her why she had gone to all the trouble of shrinking my shirts if she had that all I needed were some new glasses..

She just stared at me, then asked the doctor if he was sure the anesthesia had completely worn off. He said that it had, and for some reason he had a sad look on his face. Lissa started making very strange noises in the back of her throat like steam escaping from a pressure cooker and eventually left the room muttering about there being too many witnesses or something like that. That's when the doctor told me that he'd like to keep me in the hospital overnight, "just to be safe," he said. I asked if there was anything seriously wrong with me and he said "Only if you go home tonight."

Anyway, the next morning, Lissa picked me up and we went to the eye doctor and sure enough, he said I needed bifocals. I was afraid I'd have to wear those old man looking glasses, or the librarian spectacles, but there's this thing called progressive bifocals and it's really cool. Basically, they grind different areas of the lens a little bit differently which gives each portion of the lens a different amount of correction. The part right in front of your eye is built for distance and the part right below your eye is built for closeup. One of the consequences of the variable grinding is that in order to keep the glass smooth and line free, the area right above your eye and to either side is a little bit weaker than it should be, which reduces your peripheral vision by a bit.

When I tried them on, I really liked them. My eye doctor had prescribed my contacts in monocular vision for the last year, and while it worked ok, it was a little bit annoying because nothing was ever in clear focus. BUt with my new glasses, all I have to do is look through the right part of the lens, and everything can be sharply focused and crystal clear.

Lissa asked me if the glasses helped me see better, and I said, "They certainly do! I can see every little line around your eyes!"

Fortunately, they were having a special two for the price of one sale.

In this clip, Sen Max Baucus is either roaring drunk while giving a speech on the floor of the Senate, or he isn't.


So, if you sounded like that, would you rather people think you were drunk, or sober? You lose either way.

A Harley biker is riding by the zoo in Washington , DC when he sees a little girl leaning into the lion's cage. Suddenly, the lion grabs her by the cuff of her jacket and tries to pull her inside to slaughter her, under the eyes of her screaming parents. The biker jumps off his Harley, runs to the cage and hits the lion square on the nose with a powerful punch.

Whimpering from the pain the lion jumps back letting go of the girl, and the biker brings her to her terrified parents, who thank him endlessly. A reporter has watched the whole event. The reporter addressing the Harley rider says, 'Sir, this was the most gallant and brave thing I've seen a man do in my whole life.'

The Harley rider replies, 'Why, it was nothing, really, the lion was behind bars. I just saw this little kid in danger and acted as I felt right.'

The reporter says, 'Well, I'll make sure this won't go unnoticed. I'm a journalist, you know, and tomorrow's paper will have this story on the front page... So, what do you do for a living and what political affiliation do you have?'

The biker replies, 'I'm a U.S. Marine and a Republican.' The journalist leaves.

The following morning the biker buys the paper to see if it indeed brings news of his actions, and reads, on the front page:

U.S. MARINE ASSAULTS AFRICAN IMMIGRANT AND STEALS HIS LUNCH

That pretty much sums up the media's approach to the news these days.

This shot of the moon was taken using a Canon Rebel placed against the eyepiece of a Jason refractor telescope that my parents gave me for Christmas about 30 years ago. (Dear Lord, 30 years ago...I'm old!). I couldn't couple the two together, so I just got the telescope aimed and focused, then set the camera on a tripod with the lens up against the eyepiece and hoped for the best.

The focus is a little bit off, but I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. For those of you who want the numbers, I used a Canon Digital Rebel at ISO 1600, f 5.6 1/60 shutter. The telescope is a 60 mm Jason model 313 refractor, focal length 910mm and I used a 12mm eyepiece. I'm going to practice my technique, then see if I can get some pics of Jupiter or Saturn.

Of course, this would all be much easier if I could upgrade me telescope. (Hint. Hint. Hint.)

Probably because I find stuff like this hilarious...


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