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.
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.
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!
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.
Rigging at rest.
We had just enough energy left in us to buzz downtown for dinner at Taverna, and stopped by to see Willie along the way.
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.
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.
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.
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.
We headed to the lake yesterday to raft-up overnight in Arkansas Bend cove with Marty & Sue, and Joe. It was really pleasant out. Overcast yesterday, but nice breezes. This is a shot from yesterday of the windsocks on Joe’s backstay on Prelude. It got into the 60’s last night. Refreshingly chilly. It will be hot again soon enough.
We made quite the fleet. 2 sloops, 1 catboat, 2 kayaks, a rubber dinghy and a stand-up paddle board.
Today, we kayaked and sup-ed around the cove, and then headed back early in the afternoon to prepare for Monday. Today was much sunnier, blue skies with big clouds, and a nice breeze for the sail home.
When I got my Mac, I realized that it could only open the windows filesystem on my old USB backup drive in read-only mode. Not great for doing backups. I’ll need to reformat it to use it. But I’ve been procrastinating, because i’m going to have to sort through what’s on there to see what to keep and what to get rid of. So this week I took the first step – I copied most of what was on the backup drive to my mac to prepare to reformat the USB drive.
Consequently, the next time I opened Picasa, it found ALL the photos that I had just copied and loaded them into its library, which took a while. But, once it finished, it makes for very easy viewing of many years of pictures. So, I’ve been spending a lot of time this morning browsing through photos I’ve taken that I haven’t looked at for years.
When I got to this one I thought I’d share it with you. This is a photo that I took when my sister, Colleen, and her son, Jacob, were visiting about 4 years ago. We drove down to Port Aransas for the weekend, and stayed a place right on the Gulf-side of the beach. This is a picture of Colleen and Jacob jumping together in the surf. I used some piece of software, can’t remember what, to create a water-color effect — oh, and I edited out the oil rig on the horizon :(. I later printed this and framed it for her.
I guess it’s kind of appropriate, too, because this is Mother’s Day weekend, and she’s a great mom.
Sheila365 