I need a meteor shower and tonight's the night!
I'm going outside of town, about fifteen miles as the crow flies, out to a dead end dirt road where no one lives and watch the annual Perseids meteor shower. Tonight is the heaviest activity.
From the NASA website:
Got a calendar? Circle this date: Sunday, August 12th. Next to the circle write "all night" and "Meteors!" Attach the above to your refrigerator in plain view so you won't miss the 2007 Perseid meteor shower.
(note: I do this every year for several meteor showers, another good one is in Dec., the Geminids)
"It's going to be a great show," says Bill Cooke of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office at the Marshall Space Flight Center. "The Moon is new on August 12th--which means no moonlight, dark skies and plenty of meteors." How many? Cooke estimates one or two Perseids per minute at the shower's peak.
And there's a bonus: Mars. In the constellation Taurus, just below Perseus, Mars shines like a bright red star. Many of the Perseids you see on August 12th and 13th will flit right past it. Instead of following the meteor, you may find you have a hard time taking your eyes off Mars. There's something bewitching about it, maybe the red color or perhaps the fact that it doesn't twinkle like a true star. You stare at Mars and it stares right back.
I've got my little goody bag packed, I'll load it up with some bottles of water and a few small Coke Zeros, my camera and tripod (but I doubt I will be able to take a photo but I will try with a long exposure on some, quick sports setting on others), plenty of batteries and perfect meteor watching music, 3 CDs I made of the best of Pink Floyd.
(Now, some would argue that the Moody Blues might be better, but the Moodies are better for scenic type trips, such as driving down and around in Palo Duro Canyon. )
I'll probably throw in a light jacket, it gets chilly in the pre-dawn hours. Yep, pre-dawn, because I'm not going out there until around midnight or even later. I've got a really nice lawn chair, padded, I'll put it in the back of my truck, park myself where the truck is parked. (rattlesnakes come out and hunt at night, they also like to get out on the roads that still hold heat from the day)
I won't leave until the shower slows down or my Pink Floyd runs out.
August 12, 2007
I Need a Shower
August 11, 2007
Saturday Night Headache
Look at this! (you'll probably have to click on the following two graphics--yes, there's two--to be able to really make out the shows.
There's nothing on!
I've got the Texans/Bears game on behind me, but it's the preseason...and it's the Texans.
Ten o'clock is rapidly approaching and there's nothing on. The shows in red are the ones I have scheduled to highlight when they come on, but I've seen them, they're reruns. Seen them several times, actually.
I don't care about the Springsteen concert coming on PBS; the Boss ain't so boss to me these days, and it's a concert from 1975. I KNOW he was born to run in the USA, big deal, so was I.
Seinfeld, Roseanne, I'd watch a rerun of them but not for the twentieth time. Iron Chef is good, but it's the truffles show and I ate my pig I had trained to find them, so....
Silly movies, "Air Bud"???? I can always count the flowers on the wall, clean out the closet that I just cleaned yesterday, do something worthwhile, I might call the ex.
BET has a movie, but I bet there's black people in it doing black things. That's cool, I'm glad there's a good variety of channels, but I'm not black nor do I do black things. Actually, all the black people I know have lives, whereas I don't, so there's another way I can't identify with "them".
"Flip this House"? Come flip this one, I'll split the profits. There's a tie I've got my eye on at WalMart, my share will just about cover it.
I might watch the Pride Fighting Championships, but I'm not feeling particularly violent and bloodthirsty tonight. It always gets me worked up, too, and I want to kick someone in the head. That's not good for my b/p.
Rescue Me, Nip Tuck, Sex in the City, never seen 'em, ditto for The Real World, except for that time I rolled over in my sleep on the remote and it tuned into MTV. I had nightmares that night and for many nights to come after that.
There's the Pauly Shore movie coming on, but I've seen that one before and I've had my Pauly Shore quota for the day week month year century eternity.
Baseball Tonight? I don't really like watching the games, but maybe the highlights might be nice.
Nah. I might re-arrange my stereo-wires, did it just last week.
I've made up my mind: Saturday Night Fever it is. I think that little short chunky gal that drools all over Travolta is much cuter than the one he wants.
Amost on! "....been kicked around since I was born."
Sure need to work on my falsetto.
Lord help me, I liked disco. I even had a cream colored polyester suit, matching belt, shoes, cream colored flower shirt with little brown highlights to match my eyes and even then thinning hair. I didn't dance in it; hell, I was afraid to SMOKE in it.
Gotta go, I hear the BeeGees! "Stayin' Alive"
I got night fever now and a craving for some strobe lights and Donna Summer.
Hero Returns Home
Hero Returns Home 
(Monday, Aug. 06)
PAMPA — A hero is coming home to Pampa, decades after the military declared him dead.
Memorial services for Air Force Lt. Col. James Henry Ayres were at 2 p.m. today at First Christian Church in Pampa.
Ayres, 33 at the time of his death, will receive a funeral with full military honors, including a color guard and a flyover by four F-16 jets.
He and Lt. Col. Charles W. Stratton of Dallas were in a F-4E Phantom II fighter aircraft that went down on Jan. 3, 1971, during a bombing mission over Laos.
He was declared dead in 1974. Recent DNA testing determined human remains unearthed in the last five years were those of Ayres. — Amarillo Globe-News
