19 July 2020

0015 working on Accipiter
0403 reading
0923 sleeping
1830 churching

Food: chocolate chip pancakes with fruit sauce stuff for lunch, Italian sausage (from spaghetti sauce), roasted veggies for dinner

Fact: Harry Chapin said if he ever wrote a follow up song to Sequel, it would be called Hearse so he could kill off the characters.  Chapin also said Taxi and Sequel were about 60% true (hopefully not the part about driving stone ;) ).  He never did drive a taxi, but that was just because he was waiting to receive his license when he got hired for a film.

Woke up and did a little bit of work on the Accipiter project.  Mother had made pancakes so I had those after a while.  As father pointed out if mother hadn't made the fruit stuff we could have had cobbler on top.  Then father started getting things set up for churching.  Black Kittie decided he didn't want us to video chat and pulled the camera down by the cord and tried running away with it (he also fell off a table and squeezed through a 4 inch gap in the window, he had an eventful day).  After churching we talked for a bit with eddie, maria, and kevin then had dinner.  Over dinner we talked about Harry Chapin songs, first Taxi, then Sequel, and then Cats in the Cradle.  Father was saying that Cats in the Cradle molded his life, which makes a lot of sense.  After we finished eating we drove over to the river and looked for the comet.  It took me a few minutes but I managed to find it with some bino scanning.  I was able to get mother on it too, but father said he didnt want to see it until he saw it through his camera.  Took a little bit of messing around but he eventually remembered how to set the exposure time and such so we took some pictures (that included the area the comet was) but we will need to look on the computer to see if we actually captured it.  Because of the haze the tail was hard to see, but it was still visible.  Once we got home we helped father with his (yet another) response to Patrick.  Why people are so anti mask is beyond me.

18 July 2020

0855 sleeping
1336 sleeping
1830 working on Accipiter
1839 working on Accipiter

Food: steak, broccoli, zucchini, and mashed potatoes

Fact: The Morris Animal Shelter in Philadelphia is the oldest in the US.  It was founded in 1858 by Elizabeth Morris and is still in operation today.

Woke up and watered the plants.  I picked one of the tomatoes and let mother eat it since I had the first one.  There was also one that had fallen off the vine and when i cut it open it looked like it had something living inside.  Then I had a quick video chat with Jacob to plan the next step for the bird name issue.  After that mother put in a beer order and I picked it up so father could have a Corona after he mowed.  Sadly, he didn't get hot enough to justify his corona so instead we had stouts with dinner (which was eaten at a more reasonable hour).  After dinner we talked for a while, then had dessert.  The highlight was father asking who was mentioned in Born to Run.  Neither mother or i knew and so he put it on.  After the first verse I realized it was Wendy.  Then father and I kept pointing out just before each time he said Wendy, and mother couldn't hear it until the 6th (and final) time.  He then put on Rosilitia and said thats the reason he started dating mother.  I asked if he had already tried a Wendy and discovered it didn't work out so went with the name mentioned even more times than Wendy in a Springsteen song.   Then i spent the rest of the night watching House Hunters and doing Accipiter stuff. 

17 July 2020

0450 getting ready to go to sleep
1142 sleeping
2112 waiting for everyone to log on
2212 Trivial Pursuit

Food: tacos for lunch and burger and fruit for dinner

Fact: Charles Sherwood Stratton (aka General Tom Thumb) was the adopted son of P.T. Barnum (his distant relative).  Barnum taught him to sing, dance, and perform then included him in his show.  By this point the human "freak show" was (finally) falling out of favor and so Barnum highlighted Stratton's talent and he was seen more as an entertainer.  He married a fellow little person and they both stood onto of the grand piano at the Metropolitan Hotel in NYC during the reception (which was attended by 10,000 people).  Stratton made a ton of money performing and actually saved Barnum when he lost a bunch of money and they became business partners. 

Woke up and spent most of the day working on the Accipiter alignments and texting with the fanbirding group.  Mother and I went to the post office so I could drop off a bunch of mail she needed to send out.  I got to pick what we had for dinner so we had tacos.  After dinner I took the puppies for a walk.  Dumas and I went down to the high school and walked to the back lot.  There was some sort of gathering of high schoolers going on by the football practice field that was breaking up as I was walking through the lot.  A random girl yelled out her window for me to have a nice day so that was nice.  After Dumas i took Schubie out and we wandered around the property.  I think I will start hiding treats for her to find as we wander.  Then it was trivia time.  Everyone was running a bit late but once we got started it was quite a game.  Maria and Kevin got to the center first, but it took them 4 attempts to get 4 questions right, by which point we were in the center also (and had missed our first card) and the west coasters had all the pie pieces and were working their way into the center.  We also talked for a while, especially about the Portland insanity where unmarked vans are basically abducting protesters and if they don't waive their Miranda rights dropping the people off on the outskirts of town.  There were also helicopters flying all over the place.  So that on top of a large portion of the internet being down because of a router in Atlanta crashing 2020 is finding new ways to be ridiculous. 

16 July 2020

0055 working on Accipiter
0652 sleeping
1422 working on Accipiter
2211 driving back from Ardmore

Food: hot dogs for a late lunch, fruit and baked potato for dinner

Fact: C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE) is a comet that is currently passing by Earth.  It isn't as bright as Hale-Bopp, but is easily visible with binos (or if the sky is dark enough with the naked eye).  Its most easily spotted either a little before sunrise or a little after sunset.  On the 23rd it will be at its closest point to Earth (about 64 million miles).

Woke up and spent the whole day working on Accipiter.  I'm really hoping Julie is able to complete her 500 alignments.  I also finished up my comments on the Megascops paper so hopefully we can get that submitted really soon. After dinner I video chatted and had beer with George.  He bought a house and is starting to move all his stuff over.  Not quite as simple as Zac's move from one house to another next door, but its just a couple miles away so pretty easy.  After talking to him the parentals and I drove up to Ardmore to see if we could get a view of the comet.  Sadly it was too hazy and we couldn't find a place with a good clear view.  It was still a nice drive though and gave me time to finish reading my book, Shadows of Self.  Once we got back mother and I had some dessert and then I watched some house hunters and worked on Accipiter. 

15 July 2020

0142 working on Accipiter
0550 sleeping
1020 sleeping
2248 watching House Hunters International

Food:  Lamb medallions and veggies for lunch, fruit for dinner

Fact:  The Lloyd's Register contains a list of all merchant ships larger than 100 gross tons.  Once a ship is on this list it stays on the list until she is sunk, scraped, wrecked, or hulked.  Details about the vessel, plus a grade, are given to help insurers determine how risky a given vessel is.  Lloyd's also records the sinking of each vessel using a quill pin in a leather bound book kept near the center of the trading floor (there is also a bell that is rung in by a red coated person for major disasters).

Woke up and jumped into the zoom lunch.  Today it was just Dana, Dr. Pete, Janice, and Elena.  Had an interesting talk about race and racism in the US.  Told them about my police encounters with Is vs Brendan.  Then I took a short nap and spent the rest of the afternoon working on Accipiter and reading through the Megascops paper.  After dinner I took the puppies for a walk.  Schubie really wanted to go for a walk so she and i went down to the next driveway and then came back up.  I took Dumas down to the high school and we walked a loop around the school.  Then it was trivia time   We came in first again, although we were actually down a fair amount after the 2nd round and we only ended up winning by 10 points or so.  Father is worried the others may stop playing.