yuck

I didn't sleep very well last night. It took forever to fall asleep, and I was too warm, and kept waking up. I think I'm coming down with something. I'm very tired, and not quite with it. My head isnot quite right.

It's cold, grey and windy outside. There is snow on the way. I'm not ready for this.

Saturday in California

We made our way out of Los Angeles, and into the hills, north of the city. The city ends abrubtly at the base of the hills, so we suddenly found ourselves on a narrow, winding road, going up into the mountains. One of the first things we encountered was a flagman with a stop sign. The road was shut down to one lane, for some reason. A little way on, we passed a tow truck that was winching a car up the cliffside. Afterward, we heard several stories about how common this is. Yahoos come up from the city to the fun and winding road, and perish at high speed. We can only hope that the people in the car were the yahoos and not the victims of one.

We were to meet marswalker at a ranger's shack, but I had forgotten this, and went all the way to the top of Mt. Wilson. We looked around for him, just to be certain he wasn't up there, then started back down. After about ten minutes, he passed us and we recognized each other. And there was much rejoicing. We said our hellos and went back up to the top of Mt. Wilson.

We all wandered around the observatories for a while. There is an observation room inside the big observatory, where we saw the big 100 inch telescope. Mike told us about several of the other operations going on there (a lot of solar observation), and we saw some wildlife and bored local children. I'm told the view of L.A. is spectacular from there, on those rare days that the atmospere isn't opaque.

Mike gave us a two-way radio, and we headed over the hills to his house. He played tour guide on the way, telling us over the radio about the area. After a tour of his new house (with his dogs peering in the windows at us), we went out for a big dinner of meat (since all we'd had to eat all day were granola bars).

After dinner, we went back to Mike's house and he got his telescope out of the garage. It was a treat, not only to be serenaded by a really bad Mexican-type band, but to see stars and such "close up." We saw the jewels of the Pleiades, a ring nebula, Mars, a binary star system, and probably something else that I've forgotten. Too bad we weren't able to stay until Orion came up.

We were sorry to have to say goodbye, and hit the road around eleven o'clock, getting into our hotel room just before 12:30. I'd been up for twenty hours, and was asleep within minutes.

Teflon

Consider this a companion piece to Hilltop's post.

Just How Much is the Stuff of Teflon® Sticking It to Us? Are Fluorinated Compounds the New Chlorinated Compounds?

They are among the world’s most recognizable brands and shining symbols of life made simpler by modern miracles of technology. Teflon. Stainmaster®. Scotchgard®. SilverStone®. When these brands are around, things don’t stick, stains don’t stain, and we don’t have to scrub stuff nearly as much as we used to. Recent evidence, however, suggests that non-stick coatings may be freeing more than food and spilled grape juice. They may be letting loose the molecules they’re made from and sticking with us for a very long while.

( Read more... )

Moonlight Beach