Happy Birthday, Mother

Here is a picture of my mother, age 2, when they were living in Akron, Ohio - 1924. I don't think she wanted her picture taken.

And then a picture of her atop Monte Solaro on Capri, on the big European trip they took in the early 1980s (I don't remember if it was 1981 or 80). Below that, one of the last pictures of her before her strokes. It's on her birthday, 2001.

I do miss her, still.

Pretty pair

These are Eastern towhees (if you're my age, you may still think of them as Rufous-sided towhees), a large and striking sparrow. The male is black on top, his mate deep brown where he is black.

An Olympic observation

See, I understand that they want to reward the attempt but I just don't like that a quad where they fall on their butt is worth exactly as much as a perfect triple.


(photo of Nathan Chen in team short program Feb 8, 2018, from Washington Post)

Christmas Past

The Ghost of Christmas Past - Long past? - No, your past.

Well, my past.

I don't think so

So yeah, technically he's not a (D). But really, CNN?

Christmas deer

Here's a gorgeous shot by Sue Vruno, in Eagan, Minnesota.

My father

Back in June I posted this, in which I said

My father ... turned 92 on his last birthday. He's got a few aches and pains and treatable ailments, but on the whole he's still going strong.

Well, amazingly shortly after I wrote that - not two full months - everything changed.

Feeling a bit run-down and thinking he wasn't "bouncing back" from his February bout of pneumonia, he went to his GP. Who did some blood work... and sent him to an oncologist. Stage IV cancer, in liver, cecum, spleen and femur. Untreatable. The oncologist talked with him and they decided to do nothing but palliative care. "I'll tell hospice six months," he said, "but I don't think it will be that long, to be honest. Go do what you want to do."

So my father went home and my sisters and niece took time off work and family to stay with him while I went back to Maryland and sorted out what I was going to do. My retirement's in June, 2016, and I briefly considered just retiring early. But my job allows me to use accumulated sick leave for family care, so I did that instead, and came home to stay with my father as long as it took. If it outran my sick leave allotment (480 hours, or 60 work days) then I'd take my accumulated annual; if it outran that (which was my fervent hope), then I'd retire early. But it didn't.

Nine and a half weeks later, on November 4, my father died. He was at home, with his daughters there, and it was quiet.

And I miss him so much.

Which is why my blogging has been sporadic of late, and may continue to be, a bit.

at the water

Sunday evening my father and I got some takeout from Panera and drove down to the waterfront to eat it. Then we walked around a bit and took some photos. These are mine unless labeled his.

Ducks

Kildeer

A cormorant

These are his

The clan gathers

Labor Day weekend cookout. First photo is my father and his great-grandchildren, second is all of us.

Inside looking out ...

I took the card out of my father's camera to look at some pics I took of a cardinal and found this on it - from February.

Maple in Ice

Father's Day

My father (left in roughly 1960; I remember well the sweet smell of his pipe; and below with some fellow shutterbugs at about the same time) turned 92 on his last birthday. He's got a few aches and pains and treatable ailments, but on the whole he's still going strong. I won't be there today - though I called - but I get home a couple of times a year for longish visits - I'll be there in just over a week for the summer one.

Sometimes I hear coworkers talk about their fathers and know: I got so lucky with mine. So lucky.

Happy Father's Day - I love you.

I said to ignore this, but

I know I said to ignore this, but I decided to leave this picture up because it tickles me.

This is Hennadiy Moskal', governor of the Luhansk Oblast in Ukraine, where some of the worst fighting is going on. His name is from the Polish world for "Muscovite"; it's also used to mean anyone from Russia and is a mildly negative slang word.

His t-shirt reads Головний Москаль України (Holovnyy Moskal' Ukrayiny, Ukraine's Main Moskal), which cracks me up.

Babysitter

One of the livestock dogs at my sister's place, with some of her charges.

Because we all need cuddles sometimes!

They simply cannot.

This is just hilarious. It really is. They so cannot handle it right now.

For example, "This wolf has just had ENOUGH of today and wants it to be over."

There are 43 others. Go now!

Happy Tenth, Cassini!

Cassini has been at Saturn for ten years now. Ten years! From among my favorites:




As always, see the Cassini home page for more.

Happy Tenth, Cassini!

Cassini has been at Saturn for ten years now. Ten years! From among my favorites:


Wow... sunlight filtering through and reflecting off the rings to illuminate Saturn's southern hemisphere while the north remains in darkness. Note how dark the B-ring looks, its density blocking the sun's light. Below lurks Tethys, barely visible.

We keep seeing wondrous things through Cassini's eyes. Prometheus (102 kilometers, or 63 miles across) is seen here with two long streamers of material that it has pulled out of the F ring. When Prometheus comes close to the F ring in its orbit, the moon's gravity tugs on the ring particles. The disturbed particles, now pulled into orbits slightly closer to Saturn and therefore faster, shear out during successive orbits, creating the long and delicate streamers seen here.


Three of Saturn's smaller moons and its rings - from Mimas (at the top outside the rings altogether, 397 kilometers, or 247 miles across) to Pandora ( outside the F ring and 84 kilometers, or 52 miles across) to little Atlas (to the left, between the F and A rings and only 32 kilometers, or 20 miles across). This picture was taken from below the rings by Cassini in September 2007; doesn't it appear as if we're looking down, though? But we're looking up, so Pandora is closest to us, not farthest!


As always, see the Cassini home page for more.

Happy Tenth, Cassini!

Cassini has been at Saturn for ten years now. Ten years! From among my favorites:

There are four moons here:



The most obvious one is Dione, of course, bright and in the center of the shot. Behind Dione is giant Titan. Off to the right, at the tip of the rings, is little Pandora, an F-ring shepherd. Did you find the fourth one?

Look at the rings. See the dark gap? That's the Encke gap. Look closely. See the bright speck? That's Pan - tiny, tiny Pan, only 35 km (21.7 miles) across. Pan is a ring shepherd, and helps maintain the Encke Gap, keeping it clear of ring particles.

Here's a truly stunning image from Cassini, Rhea and the rings. It's raw, unprocessed - and amazing.



What moon is that? How can a moon of Saturn be so centered on the A Ring?

Well, it can't. That's no moon, folks, that's a star! And it's behind the rings.

It's Mimosa, aka Beta Crucis, the bright left-hand star in the Southern Cross. The rings, being particles, let light through, and this star's so bright it looks as though it's in front.


Cassini took this picture in infrared (which is why it's dark) just as Rhea moved behind Saturn. Further out along the rings are Tethys and Enceladus at far left.

As always, see the Cassini home page for more.

Happy Tenth, Cassini!

Cassini has been at Saturn for ten years now. Ten years! From among my favorites:



Oh. My.


Cassini was above the ringplane when it took this picture - a slice of the entire ring system.

The rings are lit by sunlight from below; the light scatters through the rings' particles, but much of it bounces off their undersides and illumines Saturn's southern hemisphere. It also casts a shadow of the inner rings across the northern hemisphere - and Saturn's own shadow slices across the rings on the left side of the photo.

Oh. Wow.

Check this out. Looking down from above - Saturn and its shadow, the entire set of rings, one moon (Janus - center, outside the rings), and two stars (lower down, flanking the outer F ring) ... There are some "spokes" - cloudy irregularities - in the B ring, the darker section of rings in the center.

As always, see the Cassini home page for more.

Happy Tenth, Cassini!

Cassini has been at Saturn for ten years now. Ten years! From among my favorites:


This moody true color portrait of Saturn shows a world that can, at times, seem as serene and peaceful as it is frigid and hostile. Saturn's unlit-side rings embrace the planet while their shadows caress the northern hemisphere.
Janus (181 kilometers, or 113 miles across) is a mere speck below the rings, just left of the terminator. The view was obtained from about 15 degrees above the ringplane as Cassini continued its climb to higher orbital inclinations.

Dione and Atlas and the rings... Atlas? Yes - select the picture and look just below and to the left of Dione and behind the rings.

From 24 degrees above the unlit rings, Cassini gazes down at the A Ring, with tiny Pan in the Encke Gap and the F Ring at the far outside (the bottom of the shot). Saturn is visible through the ring.

As always, see the Cassini home page for more.

Photo 17

Wow. Just found some photos of the Ukrainian election - here are a few. The first two are a soldier and his daughter in Lviv and a family in Kyiv.





This one - a polling place in a town called Kodra, near Kyiv - is honestly kind of creepy. A little bit like a lot of pictures you can see here on voting day, toy gun and all. For the old USSR seal, just imagine a Confederate battle flag...




That last one? Number 17 in the gallery? A guy in jail, life sentence, voting.



Felony disenfranchisement is part of the way we destroy participatory democracy in this country, in my opinion. Voting from jail may be too far in the other direction (though a couple of states allow it), but it beats losing the right forever - especially in a country where incarceration rates vary so wildly by factors unrelated to the actual crime.