Between the four email accounts I use regularly, I get a lot of spam. While it annoys me greatly to have to spend so much time sorting through it to make sure that some real mail hasn't been caught in the filters, I've found that the subject lines can sometimes be quite amusing and sometimes even profound in an existentialist sort of way. Most of my amusement comes from the emails where they take two or three words and randomly pair them in the subject heading, but I do have to admit that I'm also getting a chuckle out of the fact that even the spammers are riding Harry Potter's robe-tails and now "enhancement" products are using "magic wand" as a euphemism for a certain part of male anatomy.
So here are some from today's haul of spam that made me grin:
Worldly tripod - this one actually kind of works for me. Makes me think of travel photography.
A pretty-pretty fly - What happens when an insect ends up in a supermodel's teleportation device.
Dirt-encrusted squid - What happens when you drop your calamari
A few photos from West Texas
I didn't get a chance to take a lot of photos when I was out in West Texas last month, but I did post the few that I did take over on my Flickr page. If you click the photo above, it will take you to the West Texas photo set, which also includes photos from when I was out in December 2003 (and has a lot more photos of actual telescopes!).
As you can see from the photos, it was the rainy season in West Texas. While that isn't great for using telescopes or having outdoor functions at a meeting, it does make for pretty green scenery and nice sunsets. The last night I was out there though was crystal clear and beautiful. I ended up not even looking through a telescope ... just sitting on a porch and looking at the Milky Way!
On travel for a few days
I just wanted to let folks know that I'm going to be traveling for work through Sunday, so I won't be answering emails or making blog posts in that time period. I'll have internet access, but I don't think I'll have a lot of time to deal with non-work stuff!
Cutty Sark
I was heartbroken to see the fire on the Cutty Sark this morning. The good news is that about 50% of the ship was away for restoration. The bad news is that right now the fire is being treated as "suspicious".
I've visited the ship twice, although I've never actually gone aboard for some silly reason. The picture above goes to the Greenwich set from my 2003 trip, which includes a few photos the ship.
Here's a link to an article at BBC News
And here is a link to the Cutty Sark Trust.
{cross-posted with the Tudor History blog}
More bragging on colleagues
We go from gigantic stars blowing up to finding the one of the oldest stars in the Galaxy! This time it is Anna Frebel, the William J. McDonald Postdoctoral Fellow and her metal poor star HE 1523-0901. Yeah, it isn't the sexiest name for a star, but that's not what's important about it. Since Phil Plait over at BadAstronomy has already boiled down the science, I'll just link to his post.
Big-Badda-Boom!
I've got to brag on a couple of colleagues who were mentioned in the New York Times today. From the article:
In a cascade of superlatives that belies the traditional cerebral reserve of their profession, astronomers reported today that they had seen the brightest and most powerful stellar explosion ever recorded.The star up at the top of the page is Eta Carinae, which is mentioned in the article. It similar to the star that exploded, but much closer to home. If you click on the image it will take you to the press release from Hubble.
... Astronomers have been following the star since last September, when it was discovered in a galaxy 240 million light years away in the constellation Perseus by Robert Quimby, a University of Texas graduate student, who was using a small robotic telescope at McDonald Observatory near Fort Davis, Tex., to troll for supernovas. [note: one addition... Robert is a Post-Doctoral Fellow now, and still at UT]
... “The core is still composed of explosive oxygen,” explained Craig Wheeler of the University of Texas and another of the paper’s authors. “The oxygen ignites and blows the star to smithereens with no remnant, no black hole left.” [another note: Craig is also the current president of the American Astronomical Society]
Rainbow cows
This photo is from a storm that blew through one evening about two weeks ago. It rained pretty hard, but it also cleared really fast. With the sun fairly low in the west and it still raining off to the east I was pretty sure we'd have some nice rainbows and I wasn't disappointed. I only wish I had the SLR with the really wide angle lens at home so I could have captured the whole arc! A secondary rainbow was also visible for a lot of the time, although it didn't make a whole arc.
One cool thing is that the rain hadn't moved too far when the rainbow started to show up, so it appeared to be coming down in our neighbor's field. Guess I should have gone looking for that pot of gold, but I think the cows beat me to it. In the picture above (which is linked to my rainbow Flickr photoset -- the last six are from this storm) you can see the rainbow coming down in front of the cows and the trees on hill in the background.
What I did with my Sunday afternoon
And why I am sooooo sore today...
The amazing thing about this garden is that some of the plants have made it through drought, 100F+ degree temps, ice storms and hail and are still around. Namely, the parsely in the middle front (which has about 1-inch think woody stems underneath now) and the oregano behind and to the left of it. The rosemary (far left), hyssop, lavender and sage (all to the right) have only been in the garden for about a year, but still had their share of bad weather and neglect. I'm especially surprised that the sage is still around because I've always had trouble keeping sage alive. BTW, the herbs are in such weird places because there used to be other ones planted in the empty areas, but those plants didn't make it.
I had planned to do a new herb garden this year with raised beds, and maybe with a layout that has more of a medieval feel, but I just didn't get around to it in the late winter, so I don't think I'll do it this year. Now to get some new plants to plug the holes in the existing garden...
The amazing thing about this garden is that some of the plants have made it through drought, 100F+ degree temps, ice storms and hail and are still around. Namely, the parsely in the middle front (which has about 1-inch think woody stems underneath now) and the oregano behind and to the left of it. The rosemary (far left), hyssop, lavender and sage (all to the right) have only been in the garden for about a year, but still had their share of bad weather and neglect. I'm especially surprised that the sage is still around because I've always had trouble keeping sage alive. BTW, the herbs are in such weird places because there used to be other ones planted in the empty areas, but those plants didn't make it.
I had planned to do a new herb garden this year with raised beds, and maybe with a layout that has more of a medieval feel, but I just didn't get around to it in the late winter, so I don't think I'll do it this year. Now to get some new plants to plug the holes in the existing garden...
Freaky
Okay, so it is the 7th of April, and in central Texas it is now SLEETING. Tooooo weird. This is right up there with the ice storm that was followed by a high of 99F about two weeks later - in February.
Belated St. Patrick's Day post
Okay, so I should have posted this two weeks ago, but ... well... I didn't.
We had a good day listening to music around town, drinking some good beer (although not excessively this year) and eating way too much food. The picture above links to my Flickr set of a few photos I took. We started out at the Dog and Duck Pub, which puts up a big tent in their parking lot now and has live music going on most of the day. I've watched their St. Patty's day party grow over the years and I really like that big tent they have now, since some times the weather isn't very cooperative. I remember one year that was pretty cool and drizzly (authenic Irish weather, I guess) *before* they got the tent! While we were there we caught the Tea Merchants and Poor Man's Fortune, and both groups were excellent.
After Dog and Duck, we wandered down to 6th street to see the craziness that reigns on the 17th of March. For those of you not familiar with 6th street, it is the main bar and music street in downtown Austin. So, it's generally crazy anyway, then add South By Southwest, and then add St. Patrick's Day and well, you get the picture. We went to B.D. Riley's which is one of the newer pubs in town. We first went there last year or the year before (can't remember for sure) and really liked it. One nice thing is that they limit the number of people who can go in so sometimes you have to wait for a while for people to leave. But it works out well and it isn't quite as crazy-packed as other places. And you can actually get into the bathroom without waiting forever with your legs crossed or doing a funny dance. And a special added bonus is getting to drink your beer from a real pint, not a plastic cup!
Anyway, one of the reasons we went there was to listen to Gilmer & Moore, who were also excellent. That's one of the great things about Austin on St. Patrick's Day, you basically can't swing a lepruchan without hitting some good music.
After 6th street it was off for dinner and some Amy's Ice Cream, which I have to admit didn't sit so well on top of a fried lunch, a couple of beers, a glass of wine and an Italian dinner, but seemed like a good idea at the time.
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