To the Mooooooon!

My day is made.  Top of the pile of the new* books:  Space Mission Analysis and Design.  Oh my mind off instantly designing space craft, and shall we stop at the moon?  Never.  Out, out into the inky blackness white with stars, and possibilities.  Wide wings on our craft to catch the wind of stars and glide in graceful circles round the moons of Jupiter, slip with elegance between the many shapes of the Kuiper Belt and out to dive into the darkest matter and mystery of the universe.


*Apparently a prof ordered it.  It is from 1999.  But hey, we can still go.

Today's Count

Blue, cold, sharp air.  My yellow coat and blue jeans and red laces.  The sun, turning the frosted grass green, but not melting the snow flakes caught in the ice on the man made pond. Leaves race across the surface, clatter into groups to crow their winnings while small aquatic creatures made their singular progress, oblivious beneath the ice: long round, doing the breast stroke and little furry tadpoles look a likes snapping side to side to glide through the water, passing each other unconcerned.

Today's count

Purple, yellow, sage green, orange, blue sky, the rattle of my ancient bicycle on hard ground and the sweep of my feet and pedals though the tall hard prairie grass, then into the rain cool shadows of pines, out again and past the wild wind waving aspen leaves.

Today's Count

A blue sky, a brisk morning, cool enough upon setting out to warrant long pants (not jeans) and a light sweater.  Upon return a desire for shorts and the sweater swinging from my left hand.  A small moccasin complete with beading and bunny fur waiting by the side of the sidewalk for its little owner to come back for it.  Suzie, rescued from somewhere up north and fully recovered from a nasty encounter with a car.  Bright of eye, and keen to have her faced rubbed along her cheek bones and her ears stroked.  A stone path brilliantly laid across the corner of a newly landscaped lawn.  If you can't make them stop cutting across your lawn, build them a path.  A student who studies regularly in my library going to class.  "Morning."  A bird's nest.  Nestled on the cross beam of a walkway arch.

The Second Coming! Book of the Day

Yup, it's true, he's back.  I have proof of it today in my new books.  Jesus has returned and has just published a book on Data Mining - Data Mining Mobile Devices.  He is using the last name Mena.  This could be from the family Mena in Spain.  It is well known that the apostles came west. Or MENA for Middle East and North Africa, a reference surely to his original home town in the Middle East.

Aren't you glad all the waiting is over, and that the Lord is making good use of his time finding out all about what we've been up to from our iphones?

Today's count

Four horses, three barn cats, a house cat, three dogs, several chickens, twenty one abandoned (mostly by a neighbouring farmer while the property was under the care of its previous owner) out buildings.  I am helping the friend of a friend build a coop for the chickens. One guinea hen escaped and has been making various forays over the barn roof, through the horse pasture and up trees.  Generally making her presence known to the local fox.  Her friend, the other guinea hen, has already been on the menu.  The glory of the day was watching the fox, hell bent for leather across the yard and out of sight behind the barn with one of my friend's dogs in hot and joyous pursuit.  The fox had forgotten that the visiting dogs, unlike the farm dog, could actually see it.

Yes, I do prefer this kind of vacation to a beach in Jamaica.

Title of the day

New books again.  Ohhhh.  Today I think we have card sharks trying to find the perfect system:
Sequential Monte Carlo Methods for Nonlinear Discrete-Time Filtering.  Come on, can't you just see them in the tuxedos in the swanky hotel.  Cary Grant perhaps.  Daniel Craig?

A lovely slim volume, classic lines from Morgan&Claypool Publishers.

Sean Connery?