[sweetliberty]

"On Friday and Saturday, Venus will be extremely close -- less than 1 degree in astronomers terms -- from the brightest Pleiad, 3rd-magnitude Alcyone, with the brilliant light from Venus almost overwhelming it."

This is one of those times I wouldn't mind being back in Colorado. I'll bet the astronomical society has one of their star watch thingies going on. We used to go to them sometimes....all the astronomers in the area would set up their telescopes someplace for prime viewing, usually in the mountains where there was no distraction from city lights, and they were always more than happy to share the experience with any who who showed up with interest. Those events were great fun.

[Conservababe]

My mother retired and bought a log house on a canal in the Atchafalaya basin. It was not a retirement community by any definition. It was no rules, as in crude camps beside nice homes. And it was a menagerie of all kinds of folks, from toddlers to older adults.

A man named Art lived there. He had retired from a job in Lafayette in the helicopter industry. He was a skinny old coot. He drank beer and smoked cigarettes from the time he got up until he went to bed. He used to tell the children to go play in traffic and other assorted unsocial suggestions. And all were used to his antics and loved him. One time he swam across the canal into my mother's deck with a knife in his mouth. She told him to lay down on her deck and sleep it off. He did. They were good friends.

Anyway, a friend found him dead in his home the other day. He had been estranged from his family for a number of years. When they finally were able to contact a son, the son said that he would be arranging a military funeral. The friend was surprised and said that he had never known that Art was in the military.

Seems that Art was a demolition expert in the Navy (I assume before the name of Seals was adopted) and a survivor of Pearl Harbor.

And he never said a word about it, ever, to us.

[Conservababe]

My mother retired and bought a log house on a canal in the Atchafalaya basin. It was not a retirement community by any definition. It was no rules, as in crude camps beside nice homes. And it was a menagerie of all kinds of folks, from toddlers to older adults.

A man named Art lived there. He had retired from a job in Lafayette in the helicopter industry. He was a skinny old coot. He drank beer and smoked cigarettes from the time he got up until he went to bed. He used to tell the children to go play in traffic and other assorted unsocial suggestions. And all were used to his antics and loved him. One time he swam across the canal into my mother's deck with a knife in his mouth. She told him to lay down on her deck and sleep it off. He did. They were good friends.

Anyway, a friend found him dead in his home the other day. He had been estranged from his family for a number of years. When they finally were able to contact a son, the son said that he would be arranging a military funeral. The friend was surprised and said that he had never known that Art was in the military.

Seems that Art was a demolition expert in the Navy (I assume before the name of Seals was adopted) and a survivor of Pearl Harbor.

And he never said a word about it, ever, to us.

[restornu]

Venus Revised
http://www.space.com/

NightSky
http://www.space.com/spacewatch/