Our friend John has been working in the shop all week on a desk for a client. Monte’s been out there making tables. It is a magnificent shop, if i must say so myself. 🙂
The material that John is using to make the desk sides and top is a plywood made out of bamboo, called plyboo. Pretty cool looking.
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.
A little while later, Venus is clearly visible on the face of the sun.
This was one of the last images, taken shortly before sunset.
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.
I drove down to Julie’s apartment this morning to pick her up so that we could spend the day together. We came back home and watched a bit of the boat parade for the Queen’s Jubilee celebration on BBC America. Before too long we were at the marina. Lots of the usual B-dock suspects showed up at some point. We saw Marty, Sue, Joe, Kurt, Wally, Kevin, Robert, Tasha, Jay, Mike, and Dave. Summer is here! But the day was pretty overcast. We put up the shade and floated for most of the afternoon.
Afterwards we opted for dinner at Jardin Corona and then we deposited Julie back home.
Twas a nice day.
The shot above is a swatch of my official “bound-for-the-lake” backpack.
Today flew by. We took some time this evening to celebrate a friend’s birthday ( happy birthday Dave!).
These flowers caught my eye.
I encourage you all to enjoy what is left of the weekend. It’s hard to believe, but June is here!
We’ve owned a Harmony One programmable universal remote control for almost 4 years. A few months ago it went on the fritz. It would reboot itself randomly, making it impossible to use, because it would forget the state of the devices it was supposed to control between reboots.
So, it has been sitting in the closet gathering dust. In the mean time, we’ve had to dig out and relearn how to use the multiple remote controls that it was intended to replace.
I was just about ready to buy a new one on Amazon today, when I thought to google for any known issues and recommended fixes.
Turns out that a common problem with the Harmony One is that the battery, after a year or two, can become a tad loose inside the remote, and if that happens, the battery’s contacts with the remote can be disrupted as it is moved around. When that happens, the remote reboots itself. The “fix” is to put a small piece of thick paper, like from an index card, under the battery to take up any slack. Voila!
We are back in business!! I ♥ my Harmony One 🙂
A block or two away from our house is an empty field belonging to one of the neighboring lots. From early spring to summer the field is lit up in different colors, depending on the wildflower in bloom at the time. In late March to early April it is a brilliant blue, brimming with bluebonnets. As I drove by on my way home from work today, this last day of May, it pops with bright red and yellow. It is full of gallardia…a nice treat at the end of a long day.
On this Memorial Day, we spent several hours with friends at the marina. We are actually just starting to look at boats for sale. We looked at 2 sloops on E-dock today. Time will tell how long it will take us to find a successor to our beloved Cupholder 🙂
Speaking of Cupholder, we sailed the slip with Marty, Sue, Joe and Wally, and then headed home.
We had just enough energy left in us to buzz downtown for dinner at Taverna, and stopped by to see Willie along the way.
One of the shy turtles in the cove today.
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.
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.
A good time was had by all.
My niece is moving to Austin to attend grad school at UT. She and her brother drove down from Seattle, and arrived on Friday. We’ve enjoyed visiting with them for the last few days. Tonight we drove down to South Congress to meet them for dinner, and afterwards watched the bats fly out from under the Congress Avenue Bridge.
We enjoyed an ATX double header: Home Slice Pizza and Austin Beerworks Pearl Snap Pils. Yum!
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.
Things that make you go “hmmm.”
Butterfly out back on the lantana. Maybe one of these days I’ll have (make) the time to take some proper shots out in the garden, with a tripod and patience. But for now, I’ll try to be quick on the shutter for these chance encounters.
Sheila365 