March 2010

Welcome to the month of March! I did my stretches, ran a mile, lifted weights, and rode my bike.
Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 44 and 64 degrees, light breeze, humidity around 35 percent, mostly sunny skies.
According to the National Weather Service: “Tuesday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 67. West wind 7 to 17 mph becoming south. Winds could gust as high as 25 mph. Tuesday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 46. West southwest wind between 9 and 14 mph, with gusts as high as 20 mph.”
Called the insurance company to see when my settlement check would be sent. They said it was sent out Friday and gave me the FEDEX number. I went online to look it up and the website said it was out for delivery, cool! So I did a bunch of needed sorting and filing of mail and put most of the stuff that has been scattered the house around making a mess, away.
When I was over at Mac’s house yesterday I failed to mention in my journal that there were Humming birds flying all over his yard. So today I filled up the Humming bird thingy with sugar water and hung it outside. No Humming birds yet but soon I hope!
Genie from FEDEX arrived later in the day with my settlement check, fantastic! Now I can really start working on fixing the Gross Polluter!
I went for my evening walk listening to Astronomy Cast Lecture: Ep. 164: Inside the Atom that I will listen to again because it was full of interesting stuff like quarks and bosons.
I watched “Bangkok Dangerous” (2008) starring Nicolas Cage. About a hit man with four rules:
“One: Don't ask questions. There is no such thing as right and wrong.
Two: Don't take an interest in people outside of work. There is no such thing as trust.
Three: Erase every trace. Come anonymous and leave nothing behind.
Four: Know when to get out. Just thinking about it means it's time. Before you lose your edge, before you become a target.”
It was a very intense movie and very disturbing to me, but it was a very well done movie that kept me glued to the tube!
I did my stretches; practiced my guitar; wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Tuesday 02- I did my stretches. I have a loose tooth and tried to setup an appointment with a dentist but they didn’t have room for me until next week. I asked them to call if a spot opened up because if it took till next week they’d lose the money because my tooth would have fallen out on its own by then.
Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 46 and 64 degrees, S winds of 2 to 11 MPH, humidity around 37 percent, sunny skies.
According to the National Weather Service: “Wednesday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 64. Calm wind becoming southwest between 10 and 13 mph. Wednesday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 43. West southwest wind between 6 and 14 mph, with gusts as high as 20 mph.”
Mac is taking me down to town so I can cash my settlement check and do some shopping. I drove over to his house and then we took his truck to my bank. We stopped off at the Harley shop so Mac could get a manual for the Harley 883 his working on. We then went to WalMart and Stater Bros. to get supplies and I bought some fried chicken for us to dine on later when we got back to his house. Driving with Mac is a real pleasure because he always has some biker story to tell me, many biker stories! Unfortunately I can’t print them here. We arrived back to his house and ate the fried chicken which was mighty good. Fed some chicken to his little rat dog, too!
I was back home yakking to friends when I got a call from Ginger telling me that she won’t be home till late and asked if I could feed Princess. It was dark and I had to ride my bike down with a flashlight; Princess was happy to see me! I gave her a carrot and a couple of lemon drops and fed her a bunch of hay.
I watched “NOVA: Pluto Files” on PBS. It asked the question: is Pluto a planet. I myself think that we should leave Pluto as a planet out of respect for Clyde Tombaugh who found it in 1930.
After the program I called Andrew and we yakked for two hours about boats and everything else under the Sun.
I did my stretches; practiced my guitar; wrote my column for the newspaper and sent it in; wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Wednesday 03- I woke up and immediately grabbed the phone and called my dentist to see if there were any cancellations. The lady said if I could be here at 10:45am she could fit me in. It was 10am, and I told her I’d be right down. I hurriedly got dressed, brushed my teeth, combed my hair and I was off. I first had to drive to Stoney’s so I could use his car for the drive into town; remember I can’t drive the Gross Polluter because of no headlights. My dentist is in Twentynine Palms so it took about a half hour to arrive. The dentist was new there and I jokingly said “Oh No! He laughed and said not to worry. His name is Justin Polanco D.D.S. and the reason I telling you his name is because he is very good at what he does and is very caring. There was no pain involved with the extraction, he even wrote me out a prescription without me asking in case I have any pain afterwards. When I went to pay the bill I told the receptionist that I thought he was very good and she told me that he is really good with children. When he goes to stick the needle into their gums he tells the kids to lift their right leg and then the left which distracts them and they didn’t even know he had already had given them the shot! I will make him my permanent dentist
Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 43 and 64 degrees, SW winds of 8 to 14 MPH, humidity around 38 percent, sunny skies.
According to the National Weather Service: “Thursday: Sunny, with a high near 59. Breezy, with a west northwest wind 15 to 18 mph increasing to between 26 and 29 mph. Thursday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 39. West wind between 11 and 14 mph becoming calm. Winds could gust as high as 30 mph.”
I got back home with a numb mouth that stayed that way for the better part of the day. I didn’t have any breakfast because I had to leave early and couldn’t eat anything for a spell, so I busied myself doing small chores around the house and watered the plants outside. I can’t do any exercises for a couple of days until the hole where my tooth had been heals. Also I’m supposed to rest today so as not to put any pressure on the hole. So I just kicked back, went online, and read articles on Wikipedia. I’d be reading one article, find something of interest, click on that, and read it until I found something else. It’s amazing some of the places you end up at. I was reading about Liberty Ships and ended up Tramp Steamers that had a link to a website for traveling around the world in cargo vessels, cool! I spent hours doing this and went to many interesting sites.
At 6:31pm I went outside to watch the International Space Station do a flyby! It came out of the WSW and slowly worked its way across the sky, which was cool too! I cooked up and ate some oatmeal; I was really hungry!
I watched “Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith" (2005). I’ve never seen it before and actually never heard of it! I borrowed Episodes 3-6 from my friend Mac and I wonder if I haven’t seen any of those yet. I guess I’m really behind on my Star Wars movies.
I practiced my guitar; wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Thursday 04- I did light stretches.
Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 39 and 64 degrees, NW winds of 14 to 21 MPH, humidity around 37 percent, sunny skies.
According to the National Weather Service: “Friday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 64. Calm wind becoming southeast between 6 and 9 mph. Friday Night: A 10 percent chance of rain after 4am. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 44. South southwest wind between 7 and 10 mph becoming calm.”
I’m still kicking back after the tooth extraction because I don’t want to put any pressure on where the tooth came out. I think I’m just going to take a break from everything for a few days and begin my routine again on Monday; sometimes it’s good to take a break, relax and gather your thoughts.
I went for a walk down to Ginger’s to feed Princess an apple and carrot. I then drove over to Mac’s house to get the bag of bird seed I left over there after we went to WalMart a couple of days ago. We sat around telling tales for a spell.
I went over to Stoney’s to take a shower and collected a rent check from his tenant. I’ll give it to Jimmy when he comes with his family this weekend. I’m supposed to keep an eye on Stoney’s house for his family but it feels so lonely there without Stoney that I don’t stay that long.
I got back home and called Sprint to change my rate plan to one that has more minutes and I can call for free after 7pm instead of 9pm when no one really wants me calling, also it has Sprint to Sprint so I can call Kevin anytime because he also has Sprint.
I watched “Star Wars” (1977). I remember when the first week it came out and me and my friend Bob Lee and his two sons went to see it at a theater in West Los Angeles. The lines were wrapped around the block and we almost didn’t make it inside because the theater was getting filled up. What a great film! Way ahead of its time!
I joined this website called “Day Zero” the other night that is about creating a list of a 101 things you want to do in the next 1001 days. Now I have to decide what 101 things I want to do. The first one on the list is going to be making up the list so at least I’ll have one completed when I finally get the list made up!

Friday 05- I did light stretches.
Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 43 and 64 degrees, SE winds of 6 to 14 MPH, humidity around 23 percent, sunny skies.
According to the National Weather Service: “Saturday: A 30 percent chance of rain, mainly after 10am. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 62. West wind 5 to 10 mph becoming south. Saturday Night: A 50 percent chance of rain. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 43. West northwest wind between 5 and 8 mph."
I updated the Copper Mountain Mesa Website and its calendar and sent out the Newsletter. After that I didn’t do much of anything except surf the web. I found a site that sells solar panels pretty cheap but you have to buy two of them and they ship it by truck freight. After 7pm I call a few friends now that my evening minutes start at 7pm instead of 9pm; makes a hell of a lot of difference! I mean you don’t want to call to late in the evening.
Joel brought me my mail. I was waiting for an envelope from Andrew that had a 4Gig SD drive in it and the letter finally arrived. He recorded a MIT Biology class video for me! Maybe that will help me understand that molecular biology text I been reading.
I read aloud from the textbooks: “Astronomy Today", more about the Moon and Mercury; “The Cell: a Molecular Approach”, about gene transfer in plants and animals.
I watched “Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back" (1980). In the summer of 1979 I was in Sweden on a train coming back down from Norway when one of the locals pointed out the window and said that they filmed part of the movie right there in the mountains. I thought that was pretty cool!
I did my stretches; practiced my guitar; wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Saturday 06- I did light stretches and ran a mile.
Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 42 and 62 degrees, SE winds of 2 to 8 MPH, humidity around 28 percent, cloudy sunny skies.
According to the National Weather Service: “Sunday: A 50 percent chance of rain. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 55. North northwest wind between 3 and 7 mph. Sunday Night: A 30 percent chance of rain before 10pm. Partly cloudy, with a low around 41. West northwest wind around 5 mph."
I was just completing my run when Jimmy Stonebraker (Stoney’s son) drove up with his daughter Angela and nephew Ryan. They were going to town to cash the renter’s check that I got for them the other day. I told them to call me when they got back. They are down for the weekend and I was glad to see them!
I called Family and Friends and did a little online work and around 2pm gathered my computer fix-it-kit and drove over to Stoney’s; they have a laptop and a desktop for me to repair. Clarice and her mother Mary were in the kitchen cooking barbecued ribs and it smelled mighty good. I brought my Netbook and let Angela play with it; she is thinking of getting one. Roger Smith was there, too. I started working on the computers while yapping with Jimmy. Ryan was tired after going to Knox’s Berry Farm the night before with Angela and was sleeping on the couch. Mary helped me setup the computer. Sherry came over for dinner as did Johnny (Stoney’s grandson). It was really nice having them there at Stoney’s because it has been a lonely place for me since Stoney’s passing. The ribs were excellent! We all sat around and jawed for a mighty long spell while the computer was downloading some programs. Just before dark I had Jimmy follow me home and drive me back (I still don’t have any lights on the Polluter). I stayed there until 9:30pm or so yapping with my good friends; we had so much to talk about.
Jimmy brought me back home and I watched “Star Wars VI: Return of the Jedi” (1983). What a fantastic movie, all of them! Watching these movies the past few days have taken my mind off the past few months and having Jimmy’s family come out for the weekend made me feel so much better and is just what I needed!
I did my stretches and lifted weights; practiced my guitar; wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Sunday 07- I did light stretches and that was it because of rain! It finally rained! It rained until 7pm!
Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 40 and 52 degrees, WNW winds of 4 to 12 MPH, humidity around 71 percent, stratus clouds bearing rain and lots of it.
According to the National Weather Service: “Monday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 62. Southwest wind between 3 and 9 mph. Monday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 42. West southwest wind around 9 mph.”
After making a few phone calls to friends and family I drove on over to Stoney’s where Jimmy and his family were preparing to leave around 3pm. I had lunch with them; it was leftover barbecue rib that we made into sandwiches, yum! There was some of that sour cream chocolate cake left over that we smothered with ice cream. Sherry was there earlier and brought some cookies but I missed out on those. Roger Smith brought his friend Mike Bayes over and Mike lecture everyone (except me because I hid in another room) about the state of the Union. I called Dana to tell him that he should come down and talk to Jimmy about removing some of the iron and car parts from the property so he can recycle them. He arrived about a half hour later. Jimmy and Dana went out to the yard in the rain while I explained to Angela how to play Free Cell solitaire on the computer. The rain was coming down pretty hard at the time. I stayed around long enough to help them pack up their car for the trip back home. I gave everyone hugs and we said our goodbyes and I left for home. As they pass my home about a half hour later they honked as they drove by. Jimmy called me up about two hours later to say they had made it home okay. I hope they come back soon!
I spent the rest of the evening going through Wikipedia articles and reading anything I thought was interesting. Two nights ago I mentioned that I was on a train going through Sweden. Well I made a mistake; it was Norway where "Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back" was filmed on the glassier called Hardangerjøkulen. I came across that in my journey through Wikipedia. Funny that I remember the guy that told me about the movie being filmed there; he rolled his own cigarettes and gave me one to try. It was a European brand that was really strong and not very good as our American brands are that I was used to at the time. I don’t smoke anymore. I quit that nasty habit many, many years ago. He also pointed out a town called Hell in Norway, and now I knew where the saying “Cold as Hell” came from! I did travel through Sweden though on my way back to Stockholm where I took the ferry over to Helsinki Finland and traveled around there for a spell.
I did my stretches; practiced my guitar; wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Monday 08- I did my stretches and ran two miles.
Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 42 and 58 degrees, SW winds of 6 to 16 MPH , humidity around 37 percent, A few clouds.
According to the National Weather Service: “Tuesday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 55. Windy, with a northwest wind between 23 and 32 mph, with gusts as high as 48 mph. Tuesday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 36. West northwest wind between 13 and 21 mph, with gusts as high as 31 mph.”
Ron Dehart came by with his camera so I could take the pictures off, reduce them, and put them on his thumbdrive. We sat around yakking for a spell about how bad both of us did in high school. I did the worst and I showed him my high school permanent record that I had recently found to prove it. It’s funny that we both excelled in college after having such miserable grades. Now if I could only get that algebra down!
I went and did my Wikipedia thingy where I go from one subject to another until I find something of interest. This time I found that Earth has a second moon, well it’s a quasi-satellite and there are actually three of them: 3753 Cruithne, 2002 AA29, and 2003 YN107. They all are under the Earth’s gravitational influence. 3753 Cruithne is 5km in diameter and on closest approach to Earth is thirty time the distance of the Moon to Earth. Well this is surely something I didn’t know before!
I went for my evening walk re-listening to an Astronomy Cast lecture: Ep. 164: Inside the Atom.
I drove the headlight less Gross Polluter over to Stoney’s to pick up his car so I could drive it to the board meeting tonight. While I was there I stopped by Roger’s to put Avast anti-virus on his computer.
Once at the board meeting I sat down and took notes. There were 46 adults and 6 children who ate at our first Saturday breakfast, and 86 folks who picked up food at the USDA food distribution. Steve Tuttle told everyone that he and some neighbors are going to fill the potholes on the paved part of Winters Road; I’ll be there to take pictures and help if needed. Annelies Kuiper is still trying to write a Welcome to the Community letter for newcomers to our area and asked for any suggestions. She also said that the Spring Newsletter will be ready to send out to our 125 members at the end of March. Rob Reese is still looking for ways to get addresses of the new folks in our area. We also talked about having an Easter egg coloring contest for the kids at the next breakfast; they will let me know ahead of time so I can write it up in my column. Katherine Quinn is still waiting on info for her Local Resource List and once that is done will be put into a packets and left at the front desk so that folks can have access to them.
I got home and watched “Above the Law” (1988) starring Steven Seagal. IMDB Tagline: “He was a covert agent trained in Vietnam. He has a master 6th degree black belt in Aikido... and family in the Mafia. He's a cop with an attitude.” The movie was kind of dated but had some fine fight scenes.
Then I started reading “Alien” by Alan Dean Foster. I had actually read this before the movie came out in 1979 and I thought it might be fun to read again.
I did my stretches; practiced my guitar; wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Tuesday 09- I did my stretches and lifted weights.
Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 36 and 53 degrees, NW winds of 23 to 36 with gusts over 50 MPH, humidity around 31 percent, sunny skies.
According to the National Weather Service: “Wednesday: Sunny, with a high near 58. Breezy, with a west northwest wind 16 to 19 mph increasing to between 26 and 29 mph. Winds could gust as high as 44 mph. Wednesday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 39. Breezy, with a northwest wind 26 to 29 mph decreasing to between 17 and 20 mph. Winds could gust as high as 44 mph.”
I was going to go to town to get Stoney’s tire fixed, it has a slow leak, but because of the winds gusting up to 50 MPH I didn’t feel like driving, in fact after my accident I don’t feel like driving much at all. So I dropped his car back at his place.
So I watched some of the MIT Biology videos that Andrew sent me. Unfortunately most of them are only half recorded and cut out in the middle of a lecture, dang! But I did get some of the pronunciations on some of the words I’ve been struggling with lately.
Way too windy for an evening walk today so I did a little webwork.
I read aloud from the textbooks: “Astronomy Today" more about the comparisons between the Moon and Mercury; “The Cell: a Molecular Approach” about introducing mutations into cellular genes.
I watched “I Robot” (2004) starring Will Smith. Then I read a chapter in “Aliens”.
I did my stretches; practiced my guitar; wrote my column for the newspaper and sent it in; wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Wednesday 10- I did my stretches and lifted weights. Dang too windy again to go for my run! I’m getting restless!
Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 38 and 54 degrees, WNW winds of 15 to 27 with gusts of 45 MPH, humidity around 37 percent, sunny skies.
According to the National Weather Service: “Thursday: Sunny, with a high near 62. North northwest wind between 9 and 14 mph, with gusts as high as 21 mph. Thursday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 38. Northwest wind between 3 and 7 mph.”
I wanted to go to town today but decided against it because of the wind, but hey I’m in no rush to go anywhere. I spent the day going through files on my computers, and doing some research.
Again way too windy for an evening walk today so I read aloud from the textbooks: “Astronomy Today" about the rotation of Mercury where one day takes two Mercury years or 176 Earth days; “The Cell: a Molecular Approach” chapter 3 review.
I did some webwork until late into the evening.
I did my stretches; practiced my guitar; wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Thursday 11- I did my stretches; still dang too windy again to go for my run! I’m really getting restless now!
Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 36 and 54 degrees, North winds of 6 to 12, humidity around 26 percent, sunny skies.
According to the National Weather Service: “Friday: Sunny, with a high near 67. Calm wind becoming east southeast between 4 and 7 mph. Friday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 44. West southwest wind between 5 and 8 mph.”
UPS delivered a Samsung Slim External DVD Writer, and a US Robotics USB 56kps modem that I ordered a few days ago from Amazon.com. So I played around with them for a spell.
The new modem said that it was compatible with Linux so I took the SSD 8Gig drive contain XP out of my Dell Mini 9 and replaced it with a 4Gig SSD drive that didn’t have anything on it and installed Ubuntu 8.4. I tried the modem once I got the system loaded but it didn’t work. It seems to need a USB modem driver (CDC ACM) compiled onto the Linux kernel. The instructions say that once I install that driver it will be plug and play. Okay, now where do I get that driver? I’ll have to do a search online later tonight if I have time.
When I tried to install the modem on Win7 I had to go to the US Robotics website to get that. But there wasn’t a Linux driver listed, dang. I downloaded the Win 7 driver and got it working just fine.
I read aloud from the textbooks: “Astronomy Today" about why air sticks around Earth and not Mercury and other planets or moons, which has to do with mass, the size, and the escape velocity of the planet and how excited the particles become to reach the escape velocity. Lighter molecules like hydrogen have already left Earth’s atmosphere because they have a molecular mass of 2 and can accelerate to 11.4kps that is faster than 11.2kps of Earth’s escape velocity, whereas heavier nitrogen is still hanging around; “The Cell: a Molecular Approach” beginning of chapter 4: the Organization and Sequences of Cellular Genomes.
I watched an old Lee Van Cleef movie “Commandos” (1968) that I had borrowed from Mac; it was riddled with lots of mistakes but entertaining all the same. It was made in Italy and the voices were dubbed over into English.
I did my stretches; practiced my guitar; wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Friday 12- I did my stretches, ran two miles, and lifted weights.
Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 43 and 65 degrees, calm winds for a change, humidity around 22 percent, sunny skies.
According to the National Weather Service: “Saturday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 65. Calm wind becoming west between 11 and 14 mph. Winds could gust as high as 20 mph. Saturday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 41. Breezy, with a west northwest wind between 16 and 23 mph, with gusts as high as 32 mph.”
I cleaned up the house some; I just don’t know how it gets so messy. It seems like someone else is living here and dirtying up the place while I’m away or asleep, but I guess that’s a lame excuse.
I walked over to Stoney’s to check out and keep an eye on it (I did this yesterday too but forgot to post it) and on the way there and back listened to an Astronomy Cast lecture: Ep. 174: Mysteries of the Solar System, Part 1about the Pioneer spacecraft not being where they are suppose to be, the strange axes of Uranus and Venus, and what is underneath the ice on Europa?
I tried again to setup the USB modem on Ubuntu but the instructions were written wrong on the Help file for installing a dialup modem, dang! I got a reply from US Robotics about setting up their USB modem which basically said to go to the Linux Forums which wasn’t much help because I’ve been searching the forums but thought that US Robotics would have had the driver to just download and install.
My friend Kula called and we yakked for a spell. Then Seimi called and yakked some more.
I updated the Copper Mountain Mesa Website and sent out the Newsletter. And then settled down for the night and read a few chapters of “Alien”.
I did my stretches; practiced my guitar; wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Saturday 13- I got a call at 8:30am from Steve Tuttle telling me that the road crew will be down on Winters Rd at 9am, so I did my stretches and headed down there to take pictures and help out. When I arrived, the Crew of Volunteers: Steve Tuttle, Patrick Whalden, Don Taylor, and Ray Gram were already at work filling in those potholes that have gotten so bad that when you hit one you just hope your axle doesn’t fall off. We would dig them out first, heat the hole up with a propane torch, fill it up with asphalt, heat that up, and then pound it down and drive over it with a truck. Unfortunately we couldn’t get to all of them potholes because we ran out of asphalt. It was hard work but it felt good to help out doing something for our little community and be with friends. Since I was down that way I collected my mail. The salvage certificate for my truck was among the mail, yes! Now I can start putting things in motion to reregister the Gross Polluter.
Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 40 and 65 degrees, WNW winds at 9 to 22 MPH, humidity around 33 percent, sunny skies.
According to the National Weather Service: “Sunday...Sunny. Highs 61 to 65 in yucca valley to around 66 in twentynine palms. Northwest wind 10 to 20 mph. Sunday Night...Mostly clear. Lows 40 to 44. Northwest wind 10 to 15 mph.”
Denny and his two friends both named Bob arrived at Stoney’s last night so I went over for a visit. These guys have been friends for a long time and it was very interesting listening to them swap their tales of old cars and pranks they did in high school. I guess that being in the desert away from their spouses really loosened them up. I had lunch with them and they invited me back over for dinner and I couldn’t pass that up!
I got back home and spent the next few hours calling Family and Friends. Then it was time for me to go back over to Stoney’s for dinner. I walked on over listening to an Astronomy Cast lecture: Ep. 175: Mysteries of the Solar System, Part 2. When I got there Denny was barbecuing ribs, yum! I helped him out while the other Bobs were going through the junk in the yard looking for anything of use and gathering it all into the back of a flatbed trailer. Dinner was ready a little while later and we sat at the table each with our own half flank of beef ribs! I couldn’t eat all of mine I got so stuffed. After sitting around the kitchen table telling more stories we retired to the living room to watch some comedy on TV. Denny is real lucky to have such good friends as these two Bobs.
Denny drove me home a few hours later. Once home I reset all my clocks for the time change back to daylight savings time so when I wake up tomorrow it will appear normal to me sort of I hope. I did my stretches; practiced my guitar, I’m working on a new song I made up a few days ago; wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Sunday 14- I did my stretches. Attempted to run but the wind and cloud stopped me so I went for a short walk instead.
Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 41 and 66 degrees, NW winds at 9 to 13 MPH, humidity around 20 percent, sunny skies.
According to the National Weather Service: “Monday: Sunny, with a high near 70. North northwest wind between 6 and 9 mph. Monday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 48. Northeast wind around 6 mph becoming calm.”
I jumped into the Gross Polluter and headed down to see Princess with an apple and two sticks of carrots; she was happy to see me because I haven’t been there for a spell. Then I headed over to Stoney’s where the “boys” have collected all the junk that they thought was worth something and were tying it down on the flatbed trailer to haul away tomorrow morning. Dana was there to figure out with Denny what he can scrap when they are gone. Anything left over after Dana is done will be put in the dumpster. I stayed for a while jawing with them and a little latter we had lunch together. We said our goodbyes; I won’t be seeing them for a long spell but maybe next month when they come down for Stoney’s memorial.
I got home and messed around until I decided to go for my evening walk. I re-listened to the last two Astronomy Cast lectures from the previous two days. One of the mysteries of the solar system is Saturn’s northern hexagon that still baffles scientists; click on the link it is pretty amazing!
I went online to do some webwork and then I did my stretches; practiced my guitar; wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Monday 15- I did my stretches and ran two miles.
Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 47 and 70 degrees, light breeze, humidity around 20 percent, sunny skies.
According to the National Weather Service: “Tuesday: Sunny, with a high near 73. Calm wind becoming east southeast between 4 and 7 mph. Tuesday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 49. Southeast wind around 6 mph becoming calm.”
Chris came by with my groceries from the USDA food distribution. I think he said that there were 94 folks showing up whereas last month there were 83; times are getting rougher I guess except for bankers and our political leaders, but they don’t live here.
I went for a visit to Ron Dehart’s but on the way I stopped off to feed Princess an apple. Ron complained that it is getting crowded around his part of the desert. There is a new house that was built to the north of his and it blocks the view, plus they keep their lights on all night, bummer!
Then I went over to Mac’s to see how he was doing after his fall a few days ago. He was in bed when I got there and his wife let me in. She is taking good care of him.
I got back home to start digging around under the cement piers that hold up my shop roof on the east side of my home. I wanted to lower the whole structure so that when it rains the water doesn’t build up and just flows off. I spent around three hours digging out dirt underneath the piers getting cuts and abrasions on my right arm and hand; I wasn’t going to use my left guitar playing hand in case the pier fell down. I lowered the whole wall about five inches! I’ve been meaning to do this for a while now and just decided to do it today because of the nice weather. I was sore all over when I got done, I could feel every muscle in my back and shoulders, but it’s done!
I didn’t feel like it but I went on my evening walk and took my camera along.
When I got back I was mighty hungry and cooked up dinner; home fried potatoes, a sausage patty, and two eggs. That did the trick!
I spent the rest of the night going over emails and reading stuff on the web. I was too tired to do anything else.
I did my stretches, practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Tuesday 16- I did my stretches and ran a mile.
Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 49 and 74 degrees, light breeze, humidity around 25 percent, sunny skies.
According to the National Weather Service: “Wednesday: Sunny, with a high near 79. North northwest wind around 5 mph becoming calm. Wednesday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 51. Southeast wind at 7 mph becoming west.”
I did a few things on the web for a spell; someone made a racist remark on a website I like and I made a few anti-racist comments right back when I replied to their post. The web is no place for racism! I updated some security patches on one of my Netbooks running Windows 7. I’m still very tired from yesterday’s digging.
I took a picture of a dove I’ve been feeding. She has a nest in the shop which has two eggs. I give her a hand full of seed every now and then. She is kind of getting used to my coming and going when I work out there. I can wait till her eggs hatch and I’ll take a picture of her babies!
I went over to Stoney’s to do my laundry and make sure everything was okay. I ate the rest of my barbecued ribs that Denny made and that I couldn’t finish Saturday. Two minutes in the microwave was all that was needed to heat them up, yum!
I went for my evening walk listening to a lecture of Professor Bloom: The Big Bang part1; there are three in the series, each over an hour and twenty minutes.
I read aloud from the textbooks: “Astronomy Today" about the surface of the Moon; “The Cell: a Molecular Approach” about the complexity of eukaryotic genomes.
I watched the movie “District 9” again. It was just as exciting as the first time I saw it!
I did my stretches, practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Saint Patrick’s Day- I did my stretches, ran a mile, lifted weights, and rode my bike. I’m feeling better today..
Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 50 and 77 degrees, light breeze, humidity around 22 percent, sunny skies.
According to the National Weather Service: “Thursday: Sunny, with a high near 76. North northwest wind between 5 and 8 mph. Thursday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 51. Breezy, with a northwest wind 8 to 11 mph increasing to between 20 and 23 mph. Winds could gust as high as 34 mph.”
I wrote my column for the newspaper and sent it to them.
I went to work on the headlights on the Gross Polluter and spent about an hour or so trying to figure it all out. I gave up on it because I haven’t got something to compare it to and I have to have it adjustable when I take it down to have it certified. I’m thinking maybe of getting a fuel efficient small car and putting the Gross Polluter on non-op for a spell. All the hoops I have to jump through with the DMV to get the Gross Polluter registered will take a while and I’d like to go visit my parents soon.
I went for my evening walk listening to a lecture of Professor Bloom’s Berkeley Course - Astro 10P: The Big Bang part2. If you’d like to listen to the whole astronomy course they are to be found here: LearnOutLoud.com.
I practiced my guitar and then read aloud from the textbooks: “Astronomy Today" more about the surface of the Moon; “The Cell: a Molecular Approach” about Introns and Exons that are in eukaryotic genes (except yeast and a few others) and a very few prokaryotic genes.
I did some webwork; I enrolled in a HTML CSS class. I read another chapter in “Alien”.
I did my stretches, practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Thursday 18- I did my stretches and ran two miles.
Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 51 and 79 degrees, NW winds at 6 to 19 with gusts up to 33 MPH, humidity around 23 percent, hazy skies.
According to the National Weather Service: “Friday: Sunny, with a high near 70. Breezy, with a north northwest wind between 20 and 24 mph, with gusts as high as 36 mph. Friday Night: Clear, with a low around 48. Northwest wind between 6 and 14 mph, with gusts as high as 22 mph.”
I mostly cleaned around the house and cleaned the kitchen really good. Did a little webwork and downloaded Adobe Reader 9.3 that took a long time over my dialup connection.
I went for my evening walk listening to a lecture of Professor Bloom’s Berkeley Course - Astro 10P: The Big Bang part3.
I practiced my guitar and then read aloud from the textbooks: “Astronomy Today" about the surface of the Mercury; “The Cell: a Molecular Approach” about repetitive DNA sequences, hopefully some of this will sink into my tiny brain.
I read another chapter in “Alien”.
I did my stretches and lifted weights, practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Friday 19- I did my stretches.
Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 48 and 74 degrees, NW winds at 6 to 13MPH, humidity around 15 percent, hazy skies.
According to the National Weather Service: “Saturday: Sunny, with a high near 73. Calm wind becoming east around 6 mph. Saturday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 45. East wind around 5 mph becoming calm.”
Due to conflicting statements from the insurance company about the salvage of the Gross Polluter, I just found out a few days ago that I was supposed to present my license plates and registration to the DMV ten days after the settlement. Well it’s been a lot more than ten days, so I went down to the DMV today and found out that it is closed on Fridays, dang! I tried dropping them off at the CHP office but they didn’t want them, oh well I’ll try again at the DMV next week.
I stopped off at a used car lot to see what they had to offer. They had one car that I was interested in but it was sold as-is and I’d have to get it smogged. I called and left a message for Dana and see what he has to say about the car.
I was driving Stoney’s car which has bags of his clothes that Denny wants donated. So I stopped off at the Hospice in Joshua Tree, unloaded the bags, and got a Charitable Contribution Disclosure Form so Denny or whoever can declare it on their taxes. I then traveled to WalMart and then to Staters Bros to get some needed supplies.
The car needed gas so I put $25 into the tank and then went to the library across the street where I found a used book I might enjoy reading.
I dropped the car back off at Stoney’s when Dana returned my call and would meet me back at my house after a spell. I got home and had just put my groceries away when Dana drove up. First thing he told me about the car that I was interested in was it was a good model, but that it was up to the seller to get the car smogged. He took a look at the headlights on the Gross Polluter and told me what I needed to do and said he’d help. He also smoothed my anxiety about the DMV and me being late on turning in my plates. He told me to go down to the DMV with what I got and get a thirty day permit so I’ll have time to get the Gross Polluter fixed and just forget about that other car.
I went for my evening walk. Then I practiced my guitar and then downloaded some lectures: MCB 110 General Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, and Astro C10 / LS C70U Introduction to General Astronomy. I listened to DNA Structure, and Variation in DNA Structure and Recognition.
I read “Alien” and finished it well into the night.
I did my stretches, practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Saturday 20- I did my stretches and ran two miles.
Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 45 and 72 degrees, light breeze, humidity around 14 percent, hazy skies.
According to the National Weather Service: “Sunday: Sunny, with a high near 74. West wind at 8 mph becoming east. Sunday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 49. South wind around 8 mph becoming west northwest.”
I called Family and Friends to yak at them for a spell.
I did some yard work cutting the dead fronds from the two palm trees. The palms are doing very well. I can believe that when I got them about six years ago I could hold them in the palm of my hands they were so small. Now they tower over me! My cacti have little buds all over them which will be blooming sometime next month. They have beautiful red flowers that attract many buzzy flying critters.
While I was doing the yard work I was also downloading some new astronomy lectures that I later put on my iPod. I went on my evening walk listening to the first one in the series by Professor Alex Filippenko called: A Grand Tour of the Cosmos. Only the last 17 minutes contained any lecture; the first part was spent discussing class policy.
Ron Dehart called and we yapped for over an hour mostly on the scientific method- if you can believe that.
I watched “Cloverfield” (2008). It’s about a monster that attacks New York City. This is the third time I seen it; it really is that good. The first time was at the theater with Ron. The way they filmed it, as if someone was filming a home movie with a small video cam, made it jerky and Ron got motion sickness. But watching it on a small screen is a lot better and Ron agrees. The film is one of the better Sci-Fi flicks I’ve seen. The special effects are fantastic and I always wonder how they did it to make it seem so real. On the DVD there is a link I could click on to find out, but that would spoil the illusion for me; some things are better left alone.
I did my stretches and went for a night run, practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Sunday 21- I did my stretches and lifted weights.
Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 49 and 73 degrees, calm breeze, humidity around 15 percent, very hazy skies.
According to the National Weather Service: “Monday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 75. West northwest wind between 4 and 7 mph becoming calm. Monday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 52. West wind between 10 and 16 mph, with gusts as high as 23 mph.”
I went over to Stoney’s to check on the place and take a shower. When I got back I went online to make an appointment with the DMV and the earliest on I could get was the middle of next month, dang! Then I downloaded some more astronomy lectures.
I messed around in the computer room cleaning it up some. That old HP laptop that Joan gave me that fell on the floor and stopped working a few months ago miraculously started working again when I plugged it in to give it one more try; strange! So I played around with it for a spell trying to see if there was anything loose by bumping it softly; it kept on running. I didn’t want to spend time on it if a little bump would make it die. Now I’ll just load on an operating system, maybe Win95 or even DOS (it’d make a fast DOS system). I like playing with the old operating systems!
I went for my evening walk listening to an astronomy lecture: Journey Through Space and Time. Most of the stuff covered I already knew.
I called Friends and Family and then messed around on my computers until late into the night.
I did my stretches, practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Monday 22- I did my stretches and ran two miles.
Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 52 and 77 degrees, SW winds 7 to 13 MPH, humidity around 15 percent, hazy skies with a few clouds.
According to the National Weather Service: “Tuesday: Sunny, with a high near 70. North northwest wind between 10 and 15 mph, with gusts as high as 22 mph. Tuesday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 46. North northwest wind between 9 and 15 mph, with gusts as high as 21 mph.”
I did a few things around the house; you know those little things you do to keep the house tidy. Spent the rest of the afternoon gathering everything I need to do my taxes; downloading PDF tax forms from the IRS, finding my 2008 tax return to use as a template, and making sure all was ready so when I sit down to do the taxes everything will be at hand.
I went for my evening walk listening to Astro 10: General Astronomy: Journey Through Space and Time, and The Supreme Informant. These lectures are mostly review for me but I like going back over the basics and sometimes I find something I had forgotten, or didn’t know, or another way to explain some difficult concept in simpler terms.
Paula called and we chatted for almost an hour catching up on events in our lives. I then talked to Roger T. for a spell, so I didn’t have time for my reading aloud from the Astronomy and Molecular Biology text books.
I have an online friend called Ami who has written a sci-fi book called “To Sail Beyond the Sunset”. I believe this is her first book and she wanted a few of us to read and comment on it. I am happy that I’m one of them! Her book is a page turner and written very well. I found two mistypes and pointed them out to her. I’ve only read two chapters but so far it read like a well tuned machine. I think this gal is going places!
I did my stretches and lifted weights, practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Tuesday 23- I did my stretches.
Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 46 and 77 degrees, NW winds 10 to 16 MPH, humidity around 17 percent, hazy skies with a few clouds again.
According to the National Weather Service: “Wednesday: Sunny, with a high near 72. West northwest wind around 5 mph becoming calm. Wednesday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 47. South southeast wind 6 to 14 mph becoming west southwest. Winds could gust as high as 18 mph.”
I’d thought I take a rest day today and got caught up on my emails and reading of news articles. I did my Wikipedia thingy where I pick a random subject and follow links until I come to something interesting. I was all over the map from rockets; the V2 and Robert Goddard, who “On March 16, 1926, he became the first person in the world to build and launch a liquid-fueled rocket.” To computers: John Vincent Atanasoff was the “inventor of the first automatic electronic digital computer, a special-purpose machine that has come to be called the Atanasoff–Berry Computer.” Making him the Father of computers, very interesting!
I went for my evening walk listening to Astro 10: General Astronomy: Blackbody Radiation.
I continued to read and finished my friend Ami’s “To Sail Beyond the Sunset”; her first book. I have to say that her book did a very good job at keeping me entertained for the past two days. Like I said yesterday she is going places!
I did my stretches, practiced my guitar, wrote my column for the newspaper, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Wednesday 24- I did my stretches, lifted weights, and rode my bike.
Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 47 and 72 degrees, NW/SW winds 4 to 14 MPH, humidity around 12 percent, mostly clear skies.
According to the National Weather Service: “Thursday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 70. Breezy, with a west southwest wind 6 to 9 mph increasing to between 21 and 24 mph. Winds could gust as high as 33 mph. Thursday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 49. Breezy, with a west wind 26 to 29 mph decreasing to between 17 and 20 mph. Winds could gust as high as 40 mph.”
I went to download the new version of Firefox but the internet was really slow for some reason and the webpage wouldn’t load; dang! In fact I couldn’t get into Gmail to read my emails. I thought at first that it was my dialup connection, so I went about to trouble shoot it. I’m on dialup and it’s slow to begin with but not this slow! I found that some websites weren’t affected and would load like Yahoo and a few other sites, but most didn’t. I walked away from it for a spell after trying everything I could think of to get it going, even tried my MacBook and a Bluetooth modem but nothing worked.
I sat down and spent the rest of the afternoon doing and finishing my taxes; at least I got something done today! All I have to do now is copy them over to the tax forms I’m sending in.
I went for my evening walk listening to Astro 10: General Astronomy: The Fingerprints of Atoms. I walked down to visit Princess the horse and brought her an apple and a carrot. She was very happy to see me!
I went back to working on the problem with the internet. Ron Dehart called telling me he has the same problem. He said that he’s been trying to get on EBay all day but wasn’t able to and that AOL was down. I told him that about all I can get is Yahoo. I don’t know if it’s just affecting our area, our dialup service, or if it’s a major outage. I told him to try later in the night when traffic is slower to see if it’s any better.
I tried getting on later and it’s still slow but I was able to get into Gmail using the HTML settings. I also was able to get my blog sites where I post but just barely; MySpace took forever! Lifehacker.com wouldn’t load at all. I hope by morning this is all fixed!
I did my stretches, practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Thursday 25- I did my stretches and ran two miles.
Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 49 and 72 degrees, W winds 4 to 20 MPH with gusts to around 50, humidity around 22 percent, clear skies.
According to the National Weather Service: “Friday: Sunny, with a high near 69. Windy, with a northwest wind 29 to 32 mph decreasing to between 20 and 23 mph. Winds could gust as high as 48 mph. Friday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 46. Breezy, with a northwest wind 20 to 23 mph decreasing to between 9 and 12 mph. Winds could gust as high as 33 mph.”
The internet is back up and I was able to complete some of the stuff I wasn’t able to complete last night; yea for me! I still don’t know the reason why it went down yesterday and I am puzzled that I was only able to load some websites but not others.
The wind picked up during the day so I stayed inside working on that old HP laptop and loaded MSDOS onto it. I like playing around with old operating systems but I’m a little rusty at the command prompt.
I went for my evening walk listening to Astro 10: General Astronomy: Tools of the Trade.
I read aloud from the textbooks: “Astronomy Today" starting chapter on Venus; “The Cell: a Molecular Approach” about chromosomes and chromatin.
I started the new book “Chasing the Dime” by Michael Connelly. It is mystery about a guy who created a high tech company and loses his girlfriend because he’s always working in the lab. She kicks him out and he gets a new apartment with a new telephone number that had previously belonged to a hooker. He keeps getting calls from men visiting her website and he wonders why the number is still on her website and what has happened to her. So he goes to investigate and does a very sloppy job of it: leaving fingerprints all over her apartment that’s been vacant for a few months, opening her mail, and not notifying the police. One error I found was that he has a twelfth floor apartment in Santa Monica that looks onto the ocean. In his book he is awaken by the light of morning Sun shining on him from the window; the Sun rises in the east and his apartment window would face west. There are other errors, too!
I did my stretches and lifted weights, practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Friday 26- I did my stretches and ran two miles.
Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 46 and 71 degrees, NW winds 14 to 25 MPH with gusts over 50, humidity around 22 percent, clear skies.
According to the National Weather Service: “Saturday: Sunny, with a high near 70. Northwest wind between 10 and 14 mph, with gusts as high as 18 mph. Saturday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 45. North northwest wind between 6 and 8 mph.”
My friend Mac came over for a visit and we sat around joking and telling stories for a spell. I like having visitors once in a while. Afterwards I did some chores around the house.
I went for my evening walk listening to Astro 10: General Astronomy: Lunar Phases and Glorious Eclipses.
I read aloud from the textbooks: “Astronomy Today" about Venus’ orbit and rotation which is backwards from the other planets; “The Cell: a Molecular Approach” more about chromatin.
I’ve been meaning to get into drawing for quite a while and I got inspired by a drawing by my online friend Ami. So I sat down and started drawing a picture of me, my telescope, a turtle, a palm tree, with the mountains in the background with the Sun setting. It looks very amateurish, but hey it’s a start. Maybe when I’m done I’ll scan it and post it, or maybe not.
I read a few chapters of “Chasing the Dime” by Michael Connelly. The more I read of the screw ups that the main character was making, he’s supposedly a genius, the more embarrassed I got for him; I really had to put the book down.
I watched “The Cave” (2005) about a bunch of cave divers that are called by a biologist to dive in a cave that was covered by an ancient church; there are large winged monsters down there, yikes!
I did my stretches, practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Saturday 27- I did my stretches, ran down to feed Princess and back- about one mile, lifted weights, and rode my bike.
Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 45 and 69 degrees, N- NW winds 10 to 14 MPH, humidity around 15 percent, clear skies.
According to the National Weather Service: “Sunday...Sunny. Highs 72 to 74 in yucca valley to around 75 in twentynine palms. Light wind becoming southeast around 10 mph in the afternoon. Sunday Night...Mostly clear. Lows 45 to 49. South wind less than 10 mph in the evening becoming light.”
I called Family and Friends and yakked them to death for a spell. While I was doing that I was downloading AVG anti-virus ISO boot disk that when ripped to a CD and booted onto a computer will run a virus check before the OS loads; never know when I might get someone’s computer to run this on.
I made stuffing with raisins for potluck and went down to the community center. There were around fifteen folks there ready to eat the delicious food waiting on the table. Dyane Carrol brought these fantastic tacos and a bundt cake made from an old family recipe. Dyan got mad at me because I kept calling it a butt cake. Dorothy Jacobsen’s spaghetti squash black bean casserole and quinoa salad was mighty good. Chris Jonas brought his famous potato salad instead of his famous macaroni salad this time. Marie Morrison’s baked beans with bread were a hit. Rose Matich brought her peas and carrots. And Marcie Hines made a vegetable tray full of carrots, tomatoes, celery, and broccoli, with Ranch Salad dip. Marcie also brought her three grandkids along and it seemed to me that they were enjoying the festivities. All is well in our little community for a change.
I went for my evening walk listening to Astro 10: General Astronomy: Celestial Phenomena.
I read aloud from the textbooks: “Astronomy Today" about Venus’ atmosphere; “The Cell: a Molecular Approach” about Centromeres that play an important role with distributing chromosomes during mitosis- when a cell divides.
I continued drawing the picture of me, my telescope, a turtle, a palm tree, with the mountains in the background. Kris, a dear online friend of mine, wants me to put it up on the web when I get it done. I guess I’ll have to now but I’ve seen better from a third grader.
I just starting to read “Chasing the Dime” by Michael Connelly when I was saved by a call from Stuart and Debbie who used to live out here but moved to Oklahoma to live on a Indian Reservation. They been gone for three years now, we had a lot of catching up to do; one hour and thirty three minutes to be exact.
I watched “Cobra” (1986) starring Sylvester Stallone. I had to laugh at Stallone and his manly ways. It was about a slasher who leaves his victims in a public area. The whole LA Police Department is at a loss to find this murderer and as a last resort call in Cobra. But it turns out to be a group of crazed criminals, and they are after the only women who can identify them. Cobra (Stallone) kills them all in the end; about a hundred of them. I thought that was funny too!
I did my stretches, practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Sunday 28- I did my stretches and ran two miles.
Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 49 and 72 degrees, N- NW winds 10 to 14 MPH, humidity around 12 percent, clear skies.
According to the National Weather Service: “Monday: Sunny, with a high near 76. West wind 5 to 7 mph becoming southeast. Monday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 55. West wind between 11 and 13 mph, with gusts as high as 18 mph.”
I found something very interesting while surfing the web; “Star Set to Collide with Solar System.” It’s an orange dwarf star called Gliese 710 whose path through the galaxy will bring it into the outer part of our solar system called the Oort Cloud and possibly into the Kuiper Belt. This could most likely bring comets and other debris raining down on the inner planets causing catastrophic damage. Gliese is 63 Light Years away and will take some 1.5 million years to get here, so I guess we don’t have to worry for a while.
I went for my evening walk listening to Astro 10: General Astronomy: The Copernican Revolution.
I read aloud from the textbooks: “Astronomy Today" about Venus’s surface; “The Cell: a Molecular Approach” about Telomeres that form loops at the ends of chromosomes protecting them from degradation, and plays a crucial role in their replication.
I continued working on my drawing. It’s starting to look a little better.
I read a few chapters of “Chasing the Dime” by Michael Connelly where our genius hero gets himself deeper into a muddle with the darker side of prostitution and the thugs that run it. He also lies to police about things he’s done and the methods he used to trace down leads into the whereabouts of the missing prostitute; he may now be a suspect in her murder.
I did my stretches and lifted weights, practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Monday 29- I did my stretches.
Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 52 and 79 degrees, SW winds 3 to 18 MPH, humidity around 13 percent, hazy skies.
According to the National Weather Service: “Tuesday: Areas of blowing dust after 11am. Mostly sunny, with a high near 78. Windy, with a west wind 9 to 12 mph increasing to between 35 and 38 mph. Winds could gust as high as 55 mph. Tuesday Night: Areas of blowing dust before 11pm. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 52. Breezy, with a west southwest wind 26 to 29 mph decreasing to between 9 and 12 mph. Winds could gust as high as 40 mph.”
I went over to Mac’s to get the headlight casings off one of his junk trucks and banged my knuckle on some sharp metal causing it to bleed, dang.
I finished my taxes, wrote a check for my property tax, and wrote two more checks for my trucks registration and insurance. I put a stamp on each and drove to the mailbox and sent them on their way.
I went for my evening walk listening to Astro 10: General Astronomy: On the Shoulders of Giants. Lecture about Newton’s three laws and other accomplishments of Newton’s.
Miss Kula called and we yakked for a spell. Then Kevin called. He said that the Moon was just rising in the east as I watched the Sun set in the west. I checked my calendar to see if it was a full Moon but it said that it would occur tomorrow on the 30th. Something wasn’t right I thought. So I went online to my website that said it was a hundred percent full. The problem is that the calendars used the Universal Time for the Moon phases and we are 8 hours behind and it would be the 30th in Europe where the current Moon would be full but on the 29th here where we live.
I read aloud from the textbooks: “Astronomy Today" about Venus’s volcanisms; “The Cell: a Molecular Approach” about the sequencing of Prokaryotic Genomes.
I didn’t work on my drawing tonight because I need to consider how I’m going to complete the coloring.
I read a few chapters of “Chasing the Dime” by Michael Connelly. Now it’s getting interesting for me. The porn thugs finally caught up with our hero and smashed his face in with a telephone, hung him over his twelve story balcony, and kicked him and broke a few ribs which punctured a lung. He ends up in the hospital for a few days having plastic surgery and is visited by a homicide detective who accuses him of murdering the missing prostitute that he was trying to find. He hires a criminal defense lawyer who tells him not to meddle in the case anymore, but does he take her advice: NO! Meanwhile at the company that he formed, a big investor is coming for a meeting to look over the technology that our hero created. And if this investor catches wind of the trouble our hero is in with the police, could pullout leaving the company in ruins.
I did my stretches, practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Tuesday 30- I did my stretches, ran a mile, lifted weights, and rode my bike.
Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 52 and 79 degrees, west winds 11 to 18 MPH, humidity around 18 percent, hazy with a few clouds here and there.
According to the National Weather Service: “Wednesday: Partly sunny, with a high near 61. Breezy, with a light wind becoming southwest between 22 and 25 mph. Winds could gust as high as 39 mph. Wednesday Night: A 30 percent chance of showers, mainly before 11pm. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 41. West southwest wind between 16 and 21 mph, with gusts as high as 31 mph.”
Naomi and her mother Linda dropped by for a visit and wanted to know if I wanted to go to church tonight. I told them that my truck still needed headlights. They offered to pick me up, I thought that was sweet of them, but I declined the offer.
I went for my evening walk listening to Astro 10: General Astronomy: The Earth: Our Home.
I read aloud from the textbooks: “Astronomy Today" about Venus’s Greenhouse affect where 96.5 percent of its atmosphere in carbon dioxide; “The Cell: a Molecular Approach” about the sequencing of Yeast Genomes.
Andrew was at his property all day picking up some stuff to move to Juniper Hills. He surprised me with a short visit that actually lasted for a few hours. It was good to see my old friend again.
I read a few chapters of “Chasing the Dime” by Michael Connelly. Our hero (I don’t really like the guy) now has a Los Angeles detective convinced that he murdered the prostitute and is trying to secure a search warrant. His lawyer is begging him not to do anything rash. Someone has planted a keycard for a storage unit in his backpack (probably where the body is hidden) and he is headed down there to check it out when I decided to put the book down. What makes me mad is that he is doing things completely different than I would, plus he is an arrogant sort of guy.
I did my stretches, practiced my guitar, wrote my column for the newspaper and sent it in, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Wednesday 31- I did my stretches and ran two miles.
Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 41 and 61 degrees, west winds 12 to 34 MPH, humidity around 33 percent, cumulonimbus clouds here and there but no rain for us.
According to the National Weather Service: “Thursday: A 30 percent chance of showers after 11am. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 58. Northwest wind between 6 and 14 mph, with gusts as high as 21 mph. Thursday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 39. West northwest wind between 8 and 11 mph.”
As soon as I was done with my run the wind started to blow really hard and the temperature dropped ten degrees or so. I decided that I’ll just stay inside, kick back, and mess around online surfing the web.
I came across some articles on old computer that caught my interest. A few of them I had or still have. I like old computers. I have a Radio Shack TRS Model 100-one of the first laptops. This is my third one that I bought five years ago. The first one I sold, and the second one I bought in the late 80s is still around and running but has a broken keyboard. Over at Club 100 they have a new device that plugs into the TRS 100 that accepts SD cards! That way you can put all your programs and files on it and transfer files to other computers. Pretty cool, but its $195, yikes! I don’t think I’ll be getting one of those soon. There is a chip I might get that is called the Ultimate ROM II that has a word processor and other productivity software I might get for $35.
I read and finished “Chasing the Dime” by Michael Connelly. Somehow our hero gets out of his predicament: murder, burglary, obstruction of justice, and an assortment of other crimes. It seems like the big pharmaceuticals had set him up so they could steal his formula that could change the way drugs are made by using molecular biology. It was well worth the read!
Ginger dropped me off a new book to read by Clive Cussler called “Skeleton Coast” and I read a few chapters of that. Cussler is one of my favorite authors.
I did my stretches, practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night. Goodbye to March!