Ramblings and Travels

First picture of the Aurigid meteor shower, a whole day early! Chumack1_lab.jpg 800×600 pixels I’m heading out to the desert early this upcoming morning, and will be back in town around 7 am I think. Early to bed, early to rise…..  [update 8:10pm]Saw many good meteors, but I didn’t get a single picture. The meteors were not coming out [...]

Riding my bike out by the LA River the past few weeks, I’ve noticed a few birds roaming around. I haven’t seen them every time, but yesterday, I went back with my camera and found the birds. On my bike yesterday, I saw one adult, and two juveniles, but by the time I returned with my camera, [...]

Monday night is the second lunar eclipse of the year, and this is one that we can see on the west coast. According to SPACE.com, the eclipse will best viewed starting at about 2am PDT, and the totality will end about 4:30am.  I figure I’ll get up around midnight, and drive up to either Mt. Wilson, or [...]

The Los Angeles Unified School District thought it was a good idea to send a few high school students to Hawaii on vacation. The football team from the relatively new South East High School was sent over, and were invited to play against the local Maui team. Seems that it was a worthwhile vacation, as “Maui High falls to [...]

The Federal Government may start requiring passports for domestic airfares, and to visit Federal areas, like National Parks. Federal ID plan raises privacy concerns – CNN.com At a time when American travellers to Europe can’t get a passport stamped when traveling inside the European Union. I’m sure Park Rangers checking ID to enter Yosemite and Yellowstone will keep terrorists [...]

Clarkvision: Digital Camera Sensor Performance Summary I need to reread this article in the morning, regarding camera signal to noise ratio. Just looking at it, the Unity section of the article says which ISO ratings not to put your camera to.  

First time I’ve heard a Girl overdoses on espresso coffee though, I’ve known a few people I would suspect of that happening to. Josh, I’m looking at you. You and your thermos of coffee each day before school. Coffee and nothing else all day long.

I’m going to try an anti spam measure, taken from here. If you can’t comment, shoot me an email. I’ll post here when I’m done playing around……

This past weekend, I went up to Mammoth. I decided to drive easy, and see how much I could milk my truck’s milage. From Mojave where I fueled, I got 18.8 mpg to Bishop ( about 180 miles), and 17.5 mpg to Mammoth Mountain. Including a little bit of driving around town, I set back [...]

I missed the Perseid meteor shower this morning, as I had to be in the LA basin to go to work this morning. But there’s another meteor shower coming! The Aurigids will be about 4am on Saturday, September 1st. Anyone want to go out to the desert or mountains and see them?