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[patrickm]

When did I get 5 stars? Do I get a badge, secret handshake, bathroom key, corner office, the good coffee, a star named after me or something? The mind boggles!

bleacherreport.com/articles/35890-classic-mlb-player-from-the-past-gary-gaetti-youre-nasty

[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

It means you get shifted up one level in the 2012 End Times bunker...with awarded extra rations of Slim Jims and cushioned cot.

[patrickm]

Frakin' sweet!

[patrickm]

Has anybody seen "Melancholia" yet? i don't wanna spoil, so can y'all all please go see it so we can discuss?

Youtube embed doesn't seem to work any more, at least for me, so here's the trailer link:
youtu.be/wzD0U841LRM
if you are gonna see it, I'd strongly recommend theater big screen.

[patrickm]

Discovery of Dolphin Sono-Pictorial Language
t.co/GDmBjp6q

"SETI’s search for non-human intelligence in outer space has been found right here on earth in the graceful form of dolphins."

[patrickm]

Former Sun Ra Arkestra sideman, AACM founder, Chicago jazz legend Phil Cohran finally gets his astro jazz masterpiece released.

"Corahn (pronounced "co-RAHN"), a multi-instrumentalist known for his trumpet playing, was born in 1927 and grew up outside of Oxford, Mississippi in an area known to this day as "Coontown." The family moved to St. Louis when he was about ten. In 1958 Cohran joined Sun Ra's Arkestra in Chicago and became a lifelong devotee of the charismatic, eccentric bandleader who was either from Birmingham or Saturn, depending on who you asked. Cohran played cornet on some of the Arkestra's greatest records, including Interstellar Low Ways and Fate in a Pleasant Mood, and became so entangled in Sun Ra's strict regimen of practice, performance, and inculcation with esoteric ideas that he lost his wife and job. Cohran decided to stay in Chicago when the band moved to New York in 1961. But he remained under Sun Ra's spell, taking up the serious study of astronomy and helping form the AACM, another Afrocentric free-jazz collective, partly on the Arkestra's model."

"In 1993, the year Sun Ra died, Cohran was volunteering at the Adler Planetarium on Lake Michigan. He was asked by the planetarium to contribute music for an exhibition called African Skies and what he came up with was a tribute to his recently deceased mentor. The music was performed once and set down in the studio but the recording was shelved."

"In an interview for the Great Black Music Project conducted in 2008, Cohran described what it was like to go out on his own after his formative discipleship with Sun Ra. 'As I walked the streets of Chicago and studied, my whole world opened up because of him,' he said. 'I studied the heavens. I watched them every night for three and a half years. I even took a job with the police department so that I could go on lunch on my midnight shift and study the heavens.'"

Read much more in Oxford American at the link above!

via @elasticarts

[patrickm]

The Time Indiana Tried to Change Pi to 3.2.

The very notion of legislatively changing a mathematical constant sounds so crazy that it just has to be an urban legend, right? Nope. As unbelievable as it sounds, a bill that would have effectively redefined pi as 3.2 came up before the Indiana legislature in 1897.

Read the full text here:
www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/93937

Oh, Indy....

[patrickm]

So nobody saw "Melancholia"?

[headdunce]

I saw The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo... it's pretty disturbing

[Paulie pchris00]

Jan 1, 2012 11:39:18 GMT -6 patrickm said:

The Time Indiana Tried to Change Pi to 3.2.

The very notion of legislatively changing a mathematical constant sounds so crazy that it just has to be an urban legend, right? Nope. As unbelievable as it sounds, a bill that would have effectively redefined pi as 3.2 came up before the Indiana legislature in 1897.

Read the full text here:
www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/93937

Oh, Indy....

Patrick, please delete this post. The Indiana General Assembly is convening this week, intent on turning back the clock on labor rights and other issues. Please don't give "My Man Mitch" any ideas to set my state back further.


Haven't see Melancholia.

Saw The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo New Year's Eve. Was awesome, but now I have to read all the books.

[patrickm]

White House Denies CIA Teleported Obama to Mars -- Wired
m.gizmodo.com/5872796/white-house-denies-cia-teleported-obama-to-mars

"Forget Kenya. Never mind the secret madrassas. The sinister, shocking truth about Barack Obama's past lies not in east Africa, but in outer space. As a young man in the early 1980s, Obama was part of a secret CIA project to explore Mars. The future president teleported there, along with the future head of Darpa.

That's the assertion, at least, of a pair of self-proclaimed time-traveling, universe-exploring government agents. Andrew D. Basiago and William Stillings insist that they once served as "chrononauts" at Darpa's behest, traversing the boundaries of time and space. They swear: A youthful Barack Obama was one of them.
...
Officially, the White House says Obama never went to Mars. "Only if you count watching Marvin the Martian," Tommy Vietor, the spokesman for the National Security Council, tells Danger Room. But that's exactly what a secret chrononaut wants you to believe.

You can scoff at the idea of Obama on Mars. But it explains a lot. Obviously the birth-certificate controversy is a side effect of Obama forgetting to sufficiently establish his fake identity as he learned to manipulate time and space...If Obama's reelected, the U.S. is finally colonizing Mars."

Loads more at full story link above.

[patrickm]

The Many D'ohs of Homer Simpson

Attachments:

[patrickm]

Patrick and John headed into Great Harbor, Jost van Dyke, BVI sporting our Team Zissou shirts. We are either the geekiest or the coolest crew in the Caribbean.

Fleming St, Road Town, British Virgin Islands

Attachments:

[patrickm]

Has been very cloudy and windy here, so a minimum of astronomy. Was a good move bringing 10mm IS binos instead of scope. When clouds part, it is spectacular. There are stars behind the stars behind the stars! Did you know that?

Andromeda Galaxy looks like the pictures. We all gasped the first time we saw it. It barely fits in binocular FOV! Crazy!

Omicron Velorum cluster a highlight, as is the green laser.

Canopus is cool.
p

[tomlee]

Jan 26, 2012 12:47:06 GMT -6 patrickm said:

Andromeda Galaxy looks like the pictures. We all gasped the first time we saw it. It barely fits in binocular FOV! Crazy!

Omicron Velorum cluster a highlight, as is the green laser.

Canopus is cool.
p

Ever encounter issue at custom with the laser??

[patrickm]

Greetings from Soper's Hole, Tortola, BVI.

Tom,
The laser has not come up at customs. They talked to us for about 60 seconds and off we went. It's a $10 toy, so if it gets confiscated, I will live with that.

Here's the Flickr set of more photos if anybody's interested.
www.flickr.com/photos/pkmonaghan/sets/72157628997926093/

Three day old moon, Jost Van Dyke, BVI.

Attachments:

[RobbW]

Patrick, words cannot begin to describe just how envious I am of your well-traveled lifestyle. You are a hero to me!

[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

Patrick just comes around to pick up his mail and and shoot out the lights at the Sunken Gardens.

[RobbW]

If I were him, I wouldn't even come back for that. Travel 24/7. That's the life for me!

[tomlee]

Nice boat Patrick! Nicer yacht!

[patrickm]

Thanks gang. We are off the boat and chilling for a few days on Tortola before flying back. We have an unobstructed view to the southern horizon, so I still hold out hope of a view of the Large Magellanic Cloud, but weather has been conspiring here.

I think work travel has perhaps skewed your perception just a tad, but you will rarely hear me complain too loudly about my life. We love traveling, and it's one of the main reasons we never had kids. Again, we are DINKs. A combination of my own health issues along with spending so much time with my Mom over the last eight years put back our wish list a bit. We have some catching up to do.

In other, non-astro news, my day job had a huge announcement this week: the new album by Megan Reilly on our label, Carrot Top Records. You can read more and hear some here:
www.avclub.com/articles/song-premiere-singersongwriter-megan-reilly-makes,68236/.

Also more at carrottoprecords.com.

Let me know what you think. Hope to get her back here for a show in May. She's aces. If we do our jobs right, you'll be hearing a lot more from and about her.
p

[patrickm]

Dinner at Jolly Roger with moon and Venus.

Soper's Hole, Tortola, British Virgin Islands

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[headdunce]

Just got back from Aruba last night ;D




more photos here...
www.flickr.com/photos/head_dunce/sets/72157629083904767/
...I'll have to get around to editing the 5 gigs of video soon too

[patrickm]

Jan 29, 2012 11:02:14 GMT -6 headdunce said:

Just got back from Aruba last night ;D

Wow. N-I-C-E!

[headdunce]

Jan 26, 2012 12:43:42 GMT -6 patrickm said:

Patrick and John headed into Great Harbor, Jost van Dyke, BVI sporting our Team Zissou shirts. We are either the geekiest or the coolest crew in the Caribbean.

Looks like you're out having fun too. That your boat or rented? Sail or power?

Jan 28, 2012 14:07:48 GMT -6 patrickm said:

We love traveling, and it's one of the main reasons we never had kids. ...spending so much time with my Mom

Ditto, my wife plans most of our trips. I can't live in Chicago much longer, couple more years to tie things up. (Dad just passed unexpectedly in October at 65 from pulmonary fibrosis that he found out about in February, hear ya on the mom thing.)

Carpe diem

[patrickm]

Jan 29, 2012 15:51:59 GMT -6 headdunce said:

Jan 26, 2012 12:43:42 GMT -6 patrickm said:

Patrick and John headed into Great Harbor, Jost van Dyke, BVI sporting our Team Zissou shirts. We are either the geekiest or the coolest crew in the Caribbean.

Looks like you're out having fun too. That your boat or rented? Sail or power?

Jan 28, 2012 14:07:48 GMT -6 patrickm said:

We love traveling, and it's one of the main reasons we never had kids. ...spending so much time with my Mom

Ditto, my wife plans most of our trips. I can't live in Chicago much longer, couple more years to tie things up. (Dad just passed unexpectedly in October at 65 from pulmonary fibrosis that he found out about in February, hear ya on the mom thing.)

Carpe diem

Jim,
SORRY to hear about your dad. It is always a jolt, even when prepared, which I'm beginning to think is a myth anyway. Still strange to awaken with no parents. Takes some getting used to, for sure.

Not our boat. We rented from The Moorings out of Tortola for a week. She did well by us though, and all of our minor mishaps were self-inflicted.

Always trying to carpe my diems, but sometimes they slip away.
p

[patrickm]

Astronomically speaking, the skies here have been unfavorable. Much wind and cloudiness with southern horizon usually blocked by something or other. I have been freaking out on Propus though, which is quite the peculiar sun.
stars.astro.illinois.edu/sow/propus.html

Last night, I tried unsuccessfully to locate Vesta using my 10x binocs. Even if it would show itself in binoculars, the moon's proximity made it impossible. I did have more luck tracking down comet P/2011 Y1 Levy in the constellation Eridanus, which I also enjoyed learning about. The comet was conveniently sitting next to star Zibal and blinked in and out with averted vision. No color or tail was observed, but my observation was confirmed by a friend here.

Earlier, the four of us caught a nice five minute plus flyover of Hubble as it traversed nearly the entire northern sky. That was cool.

Also, roti.
p

[patrickm]

While traveling across the north shore of Tortola yesterday, we came across Bomba Surfside Shack, a most curious place.

Bomba Surfside Shack

An adult Bar

Where they apparently have a legendary full moon party!


Full moon expierience, recession package.

Free t-shirts full moon only.

By the looks of things, we will need to kick it up a couple of notches next year just to keep up with our competition.

No dogs allowed and make a baby punch.


On Thursday night, we saw the four day old moon and Venus from a bar called Corsair's.

Moon and Venus outside Corsairs, Joost Van Dyke, BVI

Four day old moon from Joost Van Dyke, BVI

The rest of the photo set is available here:
flic.kr/s/aHsjyfmz3V

[headdunce]

Jan 30, 2012 12:12:52 GMT -6 patrickm said:

Jim,
SORRY to hear about your dad. It is always a jolt, even when prepared, which I'm beginning to think is a myth anyway. Still strange to awaken with no parents. Takes some getting used to, for sure.

Not our boat. We rented from The Moorings out of Tortola for a week. She did well by us though, and all of our minor mishaps were self-inflicted.

Always trying to carpe my diems, but sometimes they slip away.
p

Eh, we all gotta go sometime. No regrets with my dad and me Even at the end when we pulled off a surprise party party for him just a couple weeks before he left us...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxHX5jGcN9c
I mean if you learned you gotta go soon, might as well party it up with everyone you've ever known - a couple hundred people came and got drunk to celebrate his life. Most beautiful thing I've ever seen.

I have to learn how to sail one day, my current boat is geared more for running the Wolf River in Wisconsin
www.flickr.com/photos/head_dunce/sets/72157606041467111/
...you guys will have to come out camping this summer in the clear dark sky where she lives.

Those bar pictures look like their from a place where you're not suppose to take pictures - my kinda place ;D

[patrickm]

Jim,
I can't think of too many better ways to go out than with a wake BEFORE the funeral. That's great!

The sailing thing is tricky. The ocean thing is trickier. I'm just a junior bait head who takes direction reasonably well. I do know that Lake Michigan can be as unforgiving as the ocean.

Here, windy and 75% cloudy as usual. Not looking great unless we catch a break later.

p