Richard’s Neighborhood

I got up to find some shoes, planning to go out to find some dinner.
As I stood up, I mumbled to myself, "I am SO pissed off."
From the other side of the front door, which was closed, I heard, "sorry"
WTF?!?!

That freaked me out pretty well. I took my time finding shoes and finally decided I'd go ahead and head out for food. When I went out front, Mitchell's bag o' crap was gone. I assume it was him on the other side of the door.

I don't know if his shit's gone from the side yard, I didn't check.
Hopefully, that is now indirectly resolved.

At dinner, Dave, the other homeless guy I know (polar opposite of Mitchell, Dave is quiet, keeps to himself, and appears not have bathed in the last 10 years) walked into the restaurant I was at. That was odd. I saw him before he saw me, and before the staff could harrass him. I offered him dinner (that would have really freaked out the restaurant) but he only wanted money for the metro train. We talked for a couple minutes as I scrounged up a couple bucks and he left. I wish I could have seen the face of the woman at the table behind me... watching a scruffy homeless guy being called by name, treated nicely and shaking hands with me.

But pissed off at the world juju is catching up with me - by back hurts like a mofo and now I'm getting headaches. I wonder if MassageEnvy is open tomorrow. I doubt it would help me (since I don't relax) but what else have I got to do? I think Wed is the soonest I can possibly see my sexy chiro and, despite the pain, I'm willing to bet that I forget to get up early that day to get in there (cause it's likely to be hell week at work).

Where am I usually at on Sat nights that I don't remember TV sucking this hard?

Empty the Throne, these boys have talent, they put on a high energy show despite not having a sound engineer @ Pony (which was a surprise for them - although they DIY'd), and then the bass player ripping a hole in his pants in a low crouch head thashing moment in front of the huge crowd of about 15 in the tiny space, none of that crowd which resembled the kind of death metal fans I envisaged, i.e. a couple of pretty 20-something glamour girls with around a dozen or so boys, a couple of those boys rather sweet looking themselves with their pretty faces and blonde forward-sweep hair(!?!).
The band boys goofed off a bit between songs giving the whole thing a more Aussie larrikin feel than all dark intensity throughout, although certainly their music had driving intensity.
My other half nearly offered himself up to rescue their lack of sound guy, having been a sound engineer himself on a couple of Big Day Outs back in the day, and his own front man and chief instructor/torturer of the sound engineer on his own band's album - but they seemed to have it under control, and it was his birthday, so he just wanted to have a few drinks and enjoy some metal, followed by some 1982 Galaga on the game table downstairs, reminiscent of his own teenage and 20-something years.
They could go far though, they can play and have a great stage energy - go to Europe and America boys, seek your fortune.

Empty The Throne

Originally published at Creative Thoughts. You can comment here or there.

This year we opted to take a self portrait of the family at a local park. It turned out good, although the lighting wasn't ideal. I worked the lighting into the card design through Costco. Their printing is way inexpensive and had the cards ready in an hour! Totally happy with their service.

So want  exchange Christmas cards this year? Leave me a comment and I will email you for your address. If you have received a card in the past but have never met me in real life, still request to be added!

Definitely putting that "give an inch and they'll take a mile" saying to use.

First it was the increasing frequency of knocking on my door and asking for money.

Then he started storing "his" tools (fishing rod, fruit picker - which he actually stole from me several years ago, misc pole, boots, buckets, whatever) in my side yard (he'd prop them against the fence, but on my property, so he could retrieve them over the fence but people weren't likely to steal them). I think he asked permission once - about a year ago. I didn't raise a fuss cause it's generally been rare and wasn't worth the bother. But that also went from once in awhile to every day.

Then the big bag o' crap showed up next to my front porch, shoved down behind my plants - not visible from the street but eyesore from the porch. Just around the time I was going to throw it away, the bag disappeared (the morning after I thought he might be sleeping under my house - which is still not settled). But a new bag showed up a couple days later and has been there for about a week.

Yesterday, he became the annoying door knocker of the day... alternating between knocking and generally making a racket. Not in the mood to be panhandled at my own front door, I ignored him (and wrote the "lalalala" post).

So, last night got home around 2 and decided I'd had enough. As I walked into my house, I grabbed the bag o' crap and threw it into the front yard - plain sight - hoping someone would take it (someone like Mitchell?)

Today, still pissed, I glanced out the bathroom window to see if Mitchell's tools were still in the side yard. Nope, looks like he picked them during the prior day's racket.

But, wait... what the hell is that pole propped against the bathroom window's security bars? The window is at least 6' from the gate, how did something get that far away? Well, whatever. I decide to ignore it.

Later, I let the kitties out to play. As Skritches wandered into the side yard, I followed her and realized the pole against the window was about 12' long (thus how it made the 6' span from the gate) and it was about to knock my roof's rain spout off the wall (it just hangs there, not held on my any hooks or anything). So I pulled out the pole and adjusted the spout so it was firmly against the house again.

As I moved to put Mitchell's pole against the fence (only because i couldn't figure out how to fit it in the trash), I discovered not only his fishing pole but also his big metal fishing hook propped against the gate. And I got PISSED. He left a big metal hook just sitting on the ground, for me or my cats to step on. Or, gawd forbid, Scritches to walk into... cause I really need to increase her chance of losing her 2nd eye.

So his bag o' shit is still in the front yard. I left his 12' and fishing poles against the gate. The hook is in the trash - possibly to be removed to a remote location just in case he decides to snoop my trash (several years back, he asked to use my washing machine. I said no. Several days later, I found a tube sock on the garage floor, between the washer & drier - and I don't wear tube socks. He apparently hopped the fence and did his laundry while I was at work).

And, if I see him (though, admittedly, I'll be actively avoiding him), Mitchell is going to get told to get his shit out of here and not return.

I am really really really REALLY at my limit with the whole "thanks for the help, now give me more" attitude!!"

If you get a comment from either jethro bodine or  ken,delete them and have nothing to do with them. They are Vox's resident trolls. They may *act* friendly,but they  have been terrorising anyone who disagrees with them(especially when it comes to gay marriage, and race issues)And at least one of them has said that he would kill President Obama if he were given the chance.

Written by Jon Voisey 

We live in a cosmic shooting gallery. In Phil Plait's Death From the Skies, he lays out the dangers of a massive impact: destructive shockwaves, tsunamis, flash fires, atmospheric darkening…. The scenario isn't pretty should a big one come our way. Fortunately, we may have a silent guardian: Jupiter.

Although many astronomers have assumed that Jupiter would likely sweep out dangerous interlopers (an important feat if we want life to gain a toehold), little work has been done to actually test the idea. To explore the hypothesis, a recent series of papers by J. Horner and B. W. Jones explores the effects of Jupiter's gravitational pull on three different types of objects: main belt asteroids (which orbit between Mars and Jupiter), short period comets, and in their newest publication, submitted to the International Journal of Astrobiology, the Oort cloud comets (long period comets with the most distant part of their orbits far out in the solar system). In each paper, they simulated the primitive solar systems with the bodies in question with an Earth like planet, and gas giants of varying masses to determine the effect on the impact rate.

Somewhat surprisingly, for main belt asteroids, they determined, “that the notion that any 'Jupiter' would provide more shielding than no 'Jupiter' at all is incorrect.” Even without the simulation, the astronomers say that this should be expected and explain it by noting that, although Jupiter may shepherd some asteroids, it is also the main gravitational force perturbing their orbits and causing them to move into the inner solar system, where they may collide with Earth.

Contrary to the popular wisdom (which expected that the more massive the planet, the better it would shield us), there were notably fewer asteroids pushed into our line of sight for lower masses of the test Jupiter. Also surprisingly, they found that the most dangerous scenario was an instance in which the test Jupiter had 20% in which the planet “is massive enough to efficiently inject objects to Earth-crossing orbits.” However, they note that this 20% mass is dependent on how they chose to model the primordial asteroid belt and would likely change had they chosen a different model.

When the simulation was redone for for short period comets, they again found that, although Jupiter (and the other gas giants) may be effective at removing these dangerous objects, quite often they did so by sending them our way. As such, they again concluded that, as with asteroids, Jupiter's gravitational jiggling was more dangerous than it was helpful.

Their most recent treatise explored Oort cloud objects. These objects are generally considered the largest potential threat since they normally reside so far out in the solar system's gravitational well and thus, will have a greater distance to fall in and pick up momentum. From this situation, the researchers determined that the more massive the planet in Jupiter's orbit, the better it does protect us from Oort cloud comets. The attribute this to the fact that these objects are initially so far from the Sun, that they are scarcely bound to the solar system. Even a little bit of extra momentum gained if they swing by Jupiter will likely be sufficient to eject them from the solar system all together, preventing them from settling into a closed orbit that would endanger the Earth every time it passed.

So whether or not Jupiter truly defends us or surreptitiously nudges danger our way depends on the type of object. For asteroids and short period comets, Jupiter's gravitational agitation shoves more our direction, but for the ones that would potentially hurt is the most, the long period comets, Jupiter does provide some relief.

Written by Mike Simonsen 

Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/GSFC/M.Corcoran et al.; Optical: NASA/STScI

Eta Carinae is a beast of a star. At more than 100 solar masses and 4 million times the luminosity of our Sun, eta Car balances dangerously on the edge of stellar stability and it’s ultimate fate: complete self-destruction as a supernova. Recently, Hubble Space Telescope observations of the central star in the eta Carinae Nebula have raised an alert on eta Car among the professional community. What they discovered was totally unexpected.

“It used to be, that if you looked at eta Car you saw a nebula and then a faint little core in the middle” said Dr. Kris Davidson, from the University of Minnesota. “Now when you look at it, it’s basically the star with a nebula. The appearance is completely different. The light from the star now accounts for more than half the total output of eta Car. I didn’t expect that to happen until the middle of this century. It’s decades ahead of schedule. We know so little about these very massive objects, that if eta Car becomes a supernova next Thursday we should not be very surprised.”

In 1843, eta Carinae underwent a spectacular eruption, making it the second brightest star in the sky behind Sirius. During this violent episode, eta Car ejected 2 to 3 solar masses of material from the star’s polar regions. This material, traveling at speeds close to 700 km/s, formed two large, bipolar lobes, now known as the Homunculus Nebula. After the great eruption, Eta Car faded, erupted again briefly fifty years later, then settled down, around 8^th magnitude. Davidson picks up the story from there.

This light curve depicts the visual apparent brightness of Eta Car from 1822 to date. It contains visual estimates (big circles), photographic (squares), photoelectric (triangles) and CCD (small circles) observations. All of them have been fitted for consistency of the whole data. Red points are recent observations from La Plata (Feinstein 1967; Fernández-Lajús et al., 2009, 2010). Used by permission.

“Around 1940, Eta suddenly changed its state. The spectrum changed and the brightness started to increase. Unfortunately, all this happened at a time when almost no one was looking at it. So we don’t know exactly what happened. All we know is that by the 1950’s, the spectrum had high excitation Helium lines in it that it didn’t have before, and the whole object, the star plus the Homunculus, was gradually increasing in brightness. In the past we’ve seen three changes of state. I suspect we are seeing another one happening now.”

During this whole time eta Car has been shedding material via its ferocious stellar winds. This has resulted in an opaque cloud of dust in the immediate vicinity of the star. Normally, this much dust would block our view to the star. So how does Davidson explain this recent, sudden increase in the luminosity of eta Carinae?

“The direct brightening we see is probably the dust being cleared away, but it can’t be merely the expansion of the dust. If it’s clearing away that fast, either something is destroying the dust, or the stellar wind is not producing as much dust as it did before. Personally, I think the stellar wind is decreasing, and the star is returning to the state it was in more than three hundred years ago. In the 1670’s, it was a fourth magnitude, blue, hot star. I think it is returning to that state. Eta Carinae has just taken this long to readjust from its explosion in the 1840’s.”

After 150 years what do we really know about one of the great mysteries of stellar physics? “We don’t understand it, and don’t believe anyone who says they do,” said Davidson. “The problem is we don’t have a real honest-to-God model, and one of the reasons for that is we don’t have a real honest-to-God explanation of what happened in 1843.”

Can amateur astronomers with modest equipment help untangle the mysteries of eta Carinae? Davidson think so, “The main thing is to make sure everyone in the southern hemisphere knows about it, and anyone with a telescope, CCD or spectrograph should have it pointed at eta Carinae every clear night.”