We live in the boonies (the sub-title for my Blog is accurate).  We ARE at the end of a dead-end road in the swamp.

We don’t have night-glow from car dealerships, or fast-food restaurant lights…………….and only at certain times, if the wind is just right, we can sometimes hear vehicles on the Interstate…………….but it’s really a long way away and that doesn’t happen very often.

Clear night skies are a bonus here.  We live on that bar of sand called Florida, so winds from the right blows right across the state, and winds from the left do the same.  Resulting clear skies are a regularity……………….except for during those hell-i-canes.

Hey, let’s not forget……………..it’s STILL Hurricane Season!!!!! AAAAUUUUGGGGHHHH………………

Should I mention Tropical Storm Philippe.

He was out there…………….  Yes, he was!!!  I did not miss him………………… No, I did not!!!

If hurricane watching and worry augmented weight-loss, I should be so svelte.

As Dr. Adkins & I have already discussed;  hurricane-angst has the opposite effect on me/and my chewing and swallowing.  I eat anything and everything-buzz-saw-style.                              Sigh.

 

 

 

 

 

But, back to the night skies here……………………..beautiful…………………………I can pick out Orion’s Belt………….the North Star……………Venus………………sometimes Mercury. And when the weather is just so…………………….the headlights of the planes on the flight path for Tampa International Airport.

I have a good telescope on a tripod that I need to learn how to use……………….I was kind of hoping one of my assorted children would take an interest in it all (the equipment, the books, the charts, the laminated-wallet-sized-night-sky-schematics) and then learn about it, and then teach me………………but alas, that didn’t happen.  Plus I think I stored it on the porch with the wrong end up…………….uncovered……………..I think it’s kind of…………….really dirty.                                                                              Sigh.

So, the pressure’s on, baby. You gotta learn for yourself.  But first you gotta figure out how to clean it……………………………….I hate when that happens.

And so………………I will.

When I was young I used to lay on my back on the lawn or in the snow with a flashlight and write messages into space.  I kept things simple and polite.  You just never know how some of those flashed nuances could be received up there by some of those up-tight aliens.

Recently I read that quite some time ago, “we” rocketed a capsule out “there”, telling “them” all about earth, and us, and how to find us…………………….isn’t that like sending out an open-invitation to a limited-budget block-party?………………………just, saying……………………I personally don’t think that was very prudent…………………..not that anybody asked me……………..but………………

I think, I might have suggested that we have a good look at the potential guest-list first, before we start inviting potential wicked-walking-widgets willy-nilly.  (Say that five times fast!)  I mean, my flashlight messages could still be traveling out there after all of these multiple decades.  (Although my father was an immediate buzz-kill and told me my little flashlight beam’s would fragment quite quickly and become absorbed into meaningless blips…………………..my Dad was a science-guy, but not the warm & squishy & child-imagination-evokative-type.  He always believed in brass-tack realism.)

But you just never know.  One of my little, grammar-school messages could be light-year’s away and still winging its way into an unknown alien’s mail-box.

The official capsule is out there too, beckoning all to Earth’s open-bar party.  At least my little diffused-beam messages requested the party be covered-dish and B.Y.O.B.

So, I guess I’d better dust off and vacuum out the shunned telescope of my children’s youth.  With the skies as clear as they are right now, I’d need to drag it out onto the driveway and start to hone my astronomical skills…………………..besides…………………….I currently have a laser beam pointer AND I know the Morse Code…………………….my messages to Mars will be better now.

(I wonder if the flight pattern for TIA will notice?)

 

..#.–/../.-../.-../#-./—/-/#-…/./#-.-./—/–/../-./–./#-/—/#–/.-/.-./…/#..#.-/–/#…/-/.-/-.–/../-./–./#…././.-././#-/…./.-/-./-.-/…/#..-./—/.-./#.-/.-../.-../#-/…././#..-./../…/….