I’m on my way back home. Typical commute. Flight delays, short connection, scrambling for carry-on baggage space, hoping for an upgrade to that last seat in 1st class. Bleh. Thank goodness for the Admiral’s club. 🙂
I’ve been using the in-flight wireless on most of my business travel legs. It helps me keep from getting behind on email and todos.
On this flight, I decided to knock off early. Well, i *is* 6PM on a friday night!
I was taking photos out the window after we had leveled off at 35 thousand feet. I had a nice view of the moon above the clouds, and some pretty blue sky, and then I had the brainchild … hey, i should just post it now while I’m online. 🙂
As I was driving past Concord on the way to my hotel on Tuesday night, I saw signs for Walden Pond. THE Walden Pond. You know, Henry David Thoreau’s Walden Pond, from his 1854 book Walden. I remember reading that book back in high school, over 30 years ago. It made a deep impression upon me at the time, but I haven’t thought about it again since then. Thoreau decided to live in the woods and did so for over 2 years, from 1845-1847. He later wrote the book from his notes and observations from the time he lived simply amongst nature.
“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived” – Henry David Thoreau
I really wanted to see Walden Pond for myself. So, after my last meeting today, I drove there before closing time and took a walk. It was interesting to see how close the pond is to town, and actually in his book he says that even back in the 1840’s the lot where he built his 1 room cabin was only about 1 mile away from neighboring farms.
There’s a walking trail around the lake, about a 1 3/4 mile loop. The pond is now a state park and when I arrived it was packed with people sunning on the banks and swimming in the lake. A little bit more bustling than when Thoreau lived here.
I walked to the site of his cabin. It’s not there anymore, but the foundation is marked, and there is a huge pile of rocks next to where it stood. A pile that visitors have been adding to over the years – one rock at a time. I placed my rock atop the pile before I left.
The picture above is a view from the edge of the pond closest to where his cabin stood – about 100 feet behind me. I like that I accidentally captured the gibbous moon in the top left corner.
The picture below is one that I took looking up as I was standing in the spot that would have been right outside the front door of his cabin.
Very beautiful.
This is a quote from the park brochure:
“…my friends ask what I will do when I get there. Will it not be employment enough to watch the progress of the seasons?” – Henry David Thoreau
You got that right, Henry.
I’ll have to dig up a copy of Walden to re-read, for old time’s sake.
While it was possible for us to see the transit by looking through our welder’s glass. It really wasn’t useful for taking a picture – it was too small. Monte mounted a pair of binoculars on a tripod and used that to focus an image of the sun and the transit of venus on a piece of paper. That’s what these are images of.
The transit started right on time. If you look just to the right of the top of this image, you can see Venus just starting to show up. You can also see 4 or 5 sunspots in each image.
It begins.
A little while later, Venus is clearly visible on the face of the sun.
A little while later.
This was one of the last images, taken shortly before sunset.
June 4, 2012 partial lunar eclipse, through a hazy sky.
The moon is full today – the Strawberry Full Moon. This morning there was also a partial lunar eclipse. The sky was covered with clouds, so I didn’t think I would be able to see it. But when I walked out a little after 5 AM I was pleased to see that there were several brief breaks in the clouds through which I could get a glimpse. This is one of the few shots I was able to take. Not great, but you can see the little bite taken out of the moon.
In honor of the occasion, I’ll leave you with Grover Washington, Jr’s Strawberry Moon.
We headed to the lake today to raft-up with Marty & Sue on Caribbean Hug, Lori, Dave & Jake on Camelot, and Mike and Kathy on Soul Healer. Julie joined us for the night, and Laura dropped by for a couple hours, too.
I paddled the kayak to shore to tie a stern line and saw these pretty little weeds growing in the rocks on the shore.
One view of Arky @ night
Mike had a pair of military grade night vision goggles, which everyone passed around for a while. This is a shot I took through the goggles. Just thought it looked cool.
And, finally, this is a shot off the stern, of the last moments of dusk.
..and another shot of Arky at night.
A good time was had by all.
Today a solar eclipse occurred right as the sun was setting. Farther west in the US, the entire eclipse would be visible. But, in Austin it started about 45 minutes before sunset, and by the time the sun was to set, it would only be about 50% eclipsed.
A few weeks ago, monte ordered #14 welder’s glass so that we could view it safely. We scoped out a high enough perch that would allow us to see the sun for the longest time before it slipped below the horizon.
We decided on the Iguana Grill above Lake Travis. The view was pretty great. A bunch of friends joined us to watch it occur. This is a shot right before the it slipped away.
Today is Friday the 13th. It passed without incident.
After work we headed over to Lori & Dave’s house – several friends of ours make an annual visit to Austin, and it’s always a big party when they get here. Lots of laughs…and lots of mob dancing to 80’s tunes. 🙂
The car in the center of the picture was what I was trying to get a shot of… an old timey volvo or something. Didn’t turn out, but I like it anyway.
Tonight I went out to dinner with some friends to celebrate a couple of birthdays. We picked a place in East Austin for tonight – Justine’s on E 5th – a casual french bistro. It was my first time here. The food and wine was delicious. I recommend the scallops, though the sauce was a tad bit spicy.
The place was crowded and hopping after about 8 o’clock. And it got very noisy by the time we left about 9:30. Apparently this is a hot spot hangout for lots of the beautiful people in town. 🙂
It’s starting to get warm these days, but it was still cool enough to sit outside. In their courtyard they had a huge neon sign of a burlesque dancer that I wish turned out better, but here ’tis.
Wow, the last day of the month already! March is a beautiful month, here in Austin. Everything pops to life. I’m always sad to see it go.
We had a very busy day today, on monte’s first day of retirement 🙂
We hit the backyard early…mowing and raking and de-thatching and weeding. Tomorrow we will hopefully get fertilizer down to help nurse the lawn along.
At the end of the day, we headed to a friend’s house for dinner. As we were driving down Mopac, a huge, shiny sunset was teasing me with glimpses of it between buildings as we passed. I took about 10 shots, and finally got a good one! Or, at least one without any buildings or cars in it. Not bad for going 65 miles an hour, through the car window.
I am in New York this week for some meetings. It is unseasonably warm here, as it is in other parts of the country this winter. It was in the 50’s and 60’s today. No snow on the ground. This tree, outside of my hotel, is covered with big buds already getting ready to pop.
February has 29 days this year. I’m going to savor each one!
Today is Chinese New Year’s Day. 2012 is the Year of the Dragon. The dragon symbolizes power and good fortune. Of all the 12 Chinese zodiac animals, the dragon is the mythical one, and therefore the most powerful & mysterious.
I was born in a Year of the Dragon. I am a dragon. I hereby declare 2012 to be my year.
We went to dinner at Rob & Jen’s tonight. Their friend, Matt, who we met at their wedding, was visiting from out of town. Rob baked up a delicious batch of stuffed lobster. And, we were treated to post-dinner fireworks, as is the custom on Zyle Road. 🙂 I guess you could say we were celebrating January 14th!
This afternoon, though it was very chilly, we headed to the lake for some fishing. We picked up Joe, Kurt and Wally and motored over to the docks across the lake. Wally caught the first bass, and Monte caught 2 more.
We headed back to the marina as the sun was slipping away. I love the light at this time of day on the lake. It is the golden hour. The shot above is of monte’s 2nd fish, lit up by the golden sunset.
The shot below is of the sun as it was setting.
Sunset.
The shot below is from the cockpit of the catboat, after the sun has set. I love the colors of the sky at dusk.
Dusk.
And this last shot is of the crescent moon, with Venus to its left, as viewed from B-Dock, through the Christmas lights on Allegro’s rigging, as we were heading for home.
Well, I ended up working all day yesterday, and most of today. An “emergency” set of meetings came up out of the blue. At least I didn’t have to travel to New York to attend in person.
One of my goals for this vacation is to get back on a normal sleep schedule. I would really like it if the sleepy leg syndrome would stay away until at least after 9 or 10pm. As it is, i’ve been falling asleep on the couch early in the evening and getting up at 1 or 2 to offically turn in. This morning, I woke up on the couch about 1 AM. Before I went to bed I checked my email and learned that my uncle in San Antonio, who’s been ill, passed away a few hours earlier. Makes me very sad. But I’m very glad that we had a visit with him recently. On the other end of the happy/sad emotional spectrum, a friend’s first grandchild was born yesterday. Life. Happens. We should enjoy every minute of it while we’re here. And hug those important to us as often as possible.
I peeled myself off the phone at about 3PM and decided to finish decorating the tree. This might actually conclude the hall-decking at our house. If i get the tree decorated, a wreath on the door, a little manger put up, and the stockings hung, I feel like I’ve got most of the bases covered.
Sheila365 