what did you do today? (2008-2015) (closed)

[bbbamI]

Quote:

Originally Posted by pb4uski Slippery slope

Now that made me laugh out loud!

[TromboneAl]

We went on a nice hike/picnic today. Saw a whale and Lena found some agates.

[donheff]

DW wanted to redo the hardwood floors to repair damage from the dogs racing to the door to bark at the mailman. They wore the oak stained floors down to lighter pine in a number of areas. The companies we talked to will not do spot repairs and they will only do the floors if you move everything out. No room to room stuff for these prima donnas. Moving everything out was a non starter so I sanded down the damage, stained it with Howard's Restor-a-Finish and it is looking good. Polyurethane coat tonight while the dogs sleep and we will be back in business.

[M Paquette]

Quote:

Originally Posted by M Paquette No cancer, just a prostate the size of a grapefruit. OK, more like a big walnut. This, I can deal with. Funny sounding drugs, a little roto-rooter... :-)

I'm spending today loafing in an altered state of mindrecovering from yesterday's roto-rooter (TURP) experience. Utterly anticlimactic... That is, I'm pretty sure something happened in the two and a half hours I don't remember, but I don't remember. I do have a small collection of pharmaceuticals by me, along with many pages of instructions.

Just a spinal and conscious sedation... Ah, but does it count as ME being conscious if that branch of my memory has been pruned from the sum of my current experience? Or was that Me 1.0, different from the Me 1.1 now posting?

I'm glad I'm retired so I can have time to worry about such things. As well as what might happen if I take two of the little stripy pills at the same time as the big red and green one... :-)

Prognosis is excellent, though.

[W2R]

Glad to hear of the excellent prognosis, MPaquette.

[REWahoo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by W2R Glad to hear of the excellent prognosis, MPaquette.

+1

If my memory is correct, "TURP" is known as "boring and stroking" in the automotive world.

[Bestwifeever]

Quote:

Originally Posted by M Paquette I'm spending today loafing in an altered state of mindrecovering from yesterday's roto-rooter (TURP) experience. Utterly anticlimactic... That is, I'm pretty sure something happened in the two and a half hours I don't remember, but I don't remember. I do have a small collection of pharmaceuticals by me, along with many pages of instructions. Just a spinal and conscious sedation... Ah, but does it count as ME being conscious if that branch of my memory has been pruned from the sum of my current experience? Or was that Me 1.0, different from the Me 1.1 now posting? I'm glad I'm retired so I can have time to worry about such things. As well as what might happen if I take two of the little stripy pills at the same time as the big red and green one... :-) Prognosis is excellent, though.

Great about the prognosis, and we'll understand the next few days that you might be posting under the influence of those little stripy pills. Or the big red and green one. Or both.

[Free To Canoe]

Quote:

Originally Posted by TromboneAl We went on a nice hike/picnic today. Saw a whale and Lena found some agates.

Glorious day. Nice pics!

Took a break from cleaning out the garage. I was telling the neighbor that the momma deer was hanging around the property the last week. This time of year that means she is hiding her newborn fawn on the property but we have not seen the fawn yet. Went on a short walk with the neighbor to show him something and just our dumb luck, we "uncovered" the hidden fawn by almost stepping on it.

[grasshopper]

My community has a large astronomer population. So a party was made of the Transit of Venus. About 50 locals convened at the top of 8500 ft Rustler Park in the backyard, plenty of telescopes, potluck food, and adult beverages. Ms.G had lots of fun, her comment was " all I see is a black dot." And so it is.

[davemartin88]

Had the camera and telescope all set up for the Venus transit yesterday afternoon but we were clouded and rained out. Here's an image of the transit taken by Craig from Tacoma, WA that was being broadcast live. Was great to see the live broadcast but disappointed to miss it through my own equipment. I guess it does look a bit like a "black dot"? This was taken with a 60mm Lunt solar scope, amazing the quality of the images you can get with high end amateur equipment these days. My scope is not quite as impressive but would have been able to get a pretty nice view.

[donheff]

Quote:

Originally Posted by davemartin88 Had the camera and telescope all set up for the Venus transit yesterday afternoon but we were clouded and rained out. Here's an image of the transit taken by Craig from Tacoma, WA that was being broadcast live. Was great to see the live broadcast but disappointed to miss it through my own equipment. I guess it does look a bit like a "black dot"? This was taken with a 60mm Lunt solar scope, amazing the quality of the images you can get with high end amateur equipment these days. My scope is not quite as impressive but would have been able to get a pretty nice view.

Nice. If you had been able to use your own scope would you have installed filters and looked directly thru an eyepiece or would you have projected the image onto a white surface to watch? If the later, do you need a special eyepiece to accomplish the projection?

[Nodak]

I had my Questar scope, solar filter and camera ready to go then realized I didn't have the camera to scope adapter and couldn't find it anywhere so no pics for me. Guess I'll have to buy a new adapter.

[davemartin88]

Quote:

Originally Posted by donheff Nice. If you had been able to use your own scope would you have installed filters and looked directly thru an eyepiece or would you have projected the image onto a white surface to watch? If the later, do you need a special eyepiece to accomplish the projection?

I have a 40mm solar scope (Coronado PST), it has a Hydrogen Alpha filter that let's the hydrogen frequencies through but cuts off all else (as I understand it). This is a less expensive ($600 versus over $4000) version of the scope that was used to take the picture I posted. The more expensive models have two "tuners" which basically are able to really restrict the bandwith to a very small slice so really brings out the details in the surface and shows prominences as they erupt.

My version has a single tuner so doesn't give as much contrast and is smaller so less resolution. Having said that, I can see prominences off the sun very well and some surface detail. I'm not a real fanatic about solar observing so it does fine for me. If we ever get a sunny day, I'll try to post a picture from my scope as an example.

As for eyepiece projection, don't believe you need a special eyepiece but would need a solar filter because of the heat. For something like the transit or an eclipse, a simple white card with a small hole (pinhole camera) allowing the sun to shine on another white card will give a good image.

Nodak- tough break, hope you got to see the transit live even if you didn't get a picture.

[M Paquette]

I'm a total cheapskate. While I was unconscious for the Venus transit, I did photograph the annular solar eclipse. The equipment consisted of a 3" generic refractor telescope, one of those $39 specials that show up at garage sales for $5 or so, a piece of cardboard with a 3" hole in the middle slid around the top of the telescope as a sunshade, and a piece of white cardboard on an easel about a foot and a half behind the eyepiece. The stock eyepiece was adjusted to focus the image of the sun on the cardboard, which was in the shadow of that sunshade. Major sunspots and the mountain ranges in silhouette on the moon were readily visible on the cardboard.

Photos were taken with an iPad held with the camera next to the eyepiece aimed at the projection on the cardboard, and posted online from that gadget.

DW's only comment on seeing this rig: "I don't believe you did that!"

I'll come up with something better for the next Venus transit, and will post here...

[donheff]

Quote:

Originally Posted by M Paquette I'll come up with something better for the next Venus transit, and will post here...

Yeah, I'm eating better these days so maybe I will be around to join you.

[grasshopper]

Quote:

Originally Posted by M Paquette I'll come up with something better for the next Venus transit, and will post here...

Nice, asleep at the wheel here.

grasshopper

[davemartin88]

Quote:

Originally Posted by M Paquette I'll come up with something better for the next Venus transit, and will post here...

I'm hoping to save for a better setup for the next one too!

[TromboneAl]

Another great day, weather-wise and I took a leisurely bike ride with plenty of stops to look at the view and take photos.

Here's the surf spot I haven't been to since there was a great white shark attack there, but I'll be going again soon.


There was some kind of a surf camp going on, which you can see in this closeup.



Ever since Ha talked about sunbathing, it's sounded attractive. But it was a little blowy here, even in the lee of the rock. I had plenty of SPF 50 on.

[donheff]

Quote:

Originally Posted by M Paquette I'll come up with something better for the next Venus transit, and will post here...

Quote:

Originally Posted by donheff Yeah, I'm eating better these days so maybe I will be around to join you.

Quote:

Originally Posted by davemartin88 I'm hoping to save for a better setup for the next one too!

You guys must be more confident about your longevity than me. the next Venus transit is in 2117.

[M Paquette]

Quote:

Originally Posted by donheff You guys must be more confident about your longevity than me. the next Venus transit is in 2117.

Yup. Gotta plan ahead.

Interesting reading, if you can get past the whole "Singularity: Happy End Times" eschatology:

http://www.acceleratingfuture.com/pe...e-singularity/

Note that Aub is a real researcher, with some pretty decent work done to date: http://www.sens.org/users/aubrey-de-grey
Naturally, his work is controversial. He's one of the few people publishing on hypothetical mechanisms behind the aging process. This naturally upsets both the institutional graybeards and the "there are things Man is not meant to know" crowd. Heh...

And others have at least started considering the impact of this on we retired folks:

http://retirementsingularity.com/201...tirement-plan/
http://retirementsingularity.com/201...-implications/

Caution: there is a whole New-Agey fringe religious thing associated with the Singularity concept which I don't buy into. I suspect that what folks are interpreting as an exponential growth curve is really just overlapping sigmoid curves as new tech and basic science propagate and become widely adopted. This doesn't mean that tech driven change won't happen, of course. It will, and we can hope to take advantage of it.