Nostalgia

Remembering Kate on Her Birthday

Morro Rock

We remember our Mom, Kate, on more occasions than just her birthday, but today she would have turned 101. She passed from us in September of 2013 and we still miss her.

The image above is of Morro Rock in the California town of Morro Bay. It’s a charming place to visit and the rock is where Kate wanted her cremains to be distributed. We can’t see the rock without thinking about Kate. She always told us how much she loved that place on the Pacific Coast west of San Luis Obispo, CA.

Image courtesy of Verna taken 24 July 2009 at Morro Bay. Click on the image to enlarge.

Cabela is 12!

Cabela relaxing at Desert Oasis

Today, our elder dog, Cabela, is approximately twelve years old. I say that since when we adopted her from the Humane Society here in town, she was estimated to be about two years old but her actual birth date was unknown. That was ten years ago this month at the time we were having our Arizona house built.

Cabela is probably a pure bred miniature pinscher “blue” but we have no history on her other than she was found near the rodeo grounds up in Constellation Park here in Wickenburg. We figure she was cropped and bobbed by her original owners who managed to let her run off somehow. I pity their loss. At the same time, we feel fortunate to have this little dog despite her high-strung personality and a tendency to bark at most everything. She truly must think she’s ten feet tall and bullet proof.

At twelve, Cabela shows few signs of growing old. She is quite active, can still jump and run at full speed and when on a leash can drag “The Daddy” along to where she wants to go. Despite being headstrong, she can be a nice companion here at home and still sleeps on the bed with us, sometime stealing the covers. She is quite the character and we love her.

Apollo 12 Crew Visits Lunar Surveyor Spacecraft – 3D

Lunar Anaglyph

Fifty years ago, there were men walking on the moon. This 3D photo of Pete Conrad jiggling the surveyor lunar lander was taken by Alan Bean in two images merged into a red-cyan anaglyph image. Click on the image to enlarge.

Not mentioned in the below Article from APOD was the fact that the astronauts brought back the robotic scoop from the spacecraft which I later saw in a display window in Building 5 at the Hughes Aircraft Facility in Culver City, CA.

This is the blurb from APOD:

Put on your red/blue glasses and gaze across the western Ocean of Storms on the surface of the Moon. The 3D view features Apollo 12 astronaut Pete Conrad visiting the Surveyor 3 spacecraft 50 years ago in November of 1969. Surveyor 3 had landed at the site on the inside slope of a small crater about 2 1/2 years earlier in April of 1967. Visible on the horizon beyond the far crater wall, Apollo 12’s Lunar Module Intrepid touched down less than 200 meters (650 feet) away, easy moonwalking distance from the robotic Surveyor spacecraft. The stereo image was carefully created from two separate pictures (AS12-48-7133, AS12-48-7134) taken on the lunar surface. They depict the scene from only slightly different viewpoints, approximating the separation between human eyes.

Of course, if you don’t yet have your free pair of 3D glasses to view the image above, you can see the 2D version here.

Our Twenty-First Anniversary

three-jewel-ring.jpg

One of these days, the ring depicted in the photo message above will be delivered. In the meantime, we only have a likeness of the actual gift (in addition to the earrings already given) until the package arrives. We inadvertently chose an east-coast Amazon Marketplace affiliate with poor shipping practices. Verna will have the new ring and I will post a photo of her wearing it in a few days.

UPDATE: Verna’s new ring showed up today (09/13/19). Very nice . . .

Verna’s new ring

2018 Cops Who Care Car Show

Self Portrait Reflection

We drove over to the Community Center this morning to attend the Annual Cops Who Care classic car show. We donated a few unwrapped toys for their Christmas Gift program.

Verna took a photo of a very shiny 1954 Chevrolet Bel Air Coupe which turned out to be a self-portrait of ourselves. There were also scores of other vintage and custom cars like those pictured below. Click on any image to enlarge.

T-Bucket 39 Chevy Interior

See these and more at CapnBob.us.

One Year Ago Today 08/21/2017

Total Eclipse of the SunIt was a year ago that we were in Casper, Wyoming to witness one of the greatest astronomical events of our lifetimes; the All-American Total Eclipse of the Sun. We were camped in an RV park near the centerline of the eclipse. Totality lasted just over two minutes and it was magnificent.

Verna took this image (and many more) during the totality; this image was taken at about the middle of the Moon’s shadow passing across our location.

When you click on the image to enlarge, you can see a prominence at about two o’clock on the limb of the sun and the planet Mercury at the four o’clock position below and to the right of the disc. We didn’t see those specifics with the naked eye, but inspection of the astrophotography after the fact revealed those details.

Click on the image to enlarge.