Hebrews 12:11
At the time, all discipline seems a cause not for joy but for pain, yet later it brings the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who are trained by it.

Exodus 14:14
The Lord himself will fight for you
you have only to keep still.

Mathew 13:16-17
But blessed are your eyes, because they see, and your ears, because they hear.
Amen, I say to you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.

Job 22:28
When you make a decision, it shall succeed for you, and upon your ways the light shall shine.

Psalm 37:8-9
Calm your anger and forget your rage;
do not fret, it only leads to evil.
For those who do evil shall perish;
the patient shall inherit the land.

Psalm 8:4-5
When I see your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and stars that you set in place—
What is man that you are mindful of him,
and a son of man that you care for him?

Mathew 6:20-21
Store up treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor decay destroys, nor thieves break in and steal.
For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be.

Psalm 18:29-30
You O Lors, are my lamp,
my God who lightens my darkness.
With you I can break through any barrier,
with my God I can scale any wall.

Titus 2:11-13
The grace of God has appeared, saving all and training us to reject godless ways and worldly desires and to live temperately, justly, and devoutly in this age, as we await the blessed hope, the appearance 3 of the glory of the great God and of our savior Jesus Christ.

2 Corinthians 10:17
Whoever boasts, should boast in the Lord.

Psalm 138
I thank you, Lord, with all my heart;
in the presence of the angels to you I sing.
I bow low toward your holy temple;

I praise your name for your mercy and faithfulness.
For you have exalted over all
your name and your promise.
On the day I cried out, you answered;
you strengthened my spirit.

All the kings of earth will praise you, LORD,
when they hear the words of your mouth.
They will sing of the ways of the LORD:
“How great is the glory of the LORD!”

The LORD is on high, but cares for the lowly
and knows the proud from afar.
Though I walk in the midst of dangers,
you guard my life when my enemies rage.

You stretch out your hand;
your right hand saves me.
The LORD is with me to the end.
LORD, your mercy endures forever.
Never forsake the work of your hands!

Ephesians 5:1
So be imitators of God, as beloved children.

Over the last several months, we’ve invested a lot of time in the landscaping around the house in Aguanga. We’ve added six trees (two olive and four pines) and at almost 20 shrubs. I’ve run drip irrigation lines to them all. We’ve pulled innumerable mustard plants and loco weeds. We’ve mowed and trimmed. I’ve gone after many gopher mounds. We have two goals for all this work: Less effort at maintenance and a prettier property. With each week having more to do, I wonder about the first goal.

Luck is needed for astronomy. Actually, it’s clear skies that are needed but without the luck to have clear skies, there is no astronomy. That’s been the situation over the past six months. I’ve only had a few nights when we’ve been out there without a major Moon and had clear skies. And on those nights, I’ve been whacked out tired from the work on the property.

As we move into Summer, I am hopeful that there will be less maintenance and more clear skies.

First a shot of a major laundry area in Mumbai. Here is where people get their clothes cleaned, and it is done well and delivered to their homes.

We were able to visit the Taj Mahal, and here are a series of images from that trip. Our visit coincided with the Holi Holiday in India. Wild colors are painted on everything in a great festival of joy. This shot shows PC, our guide, and the colors on the ground next to a bonfire site made of cow pies.

Here is the Taj Mahal seen from the entrance garden.

Now a detailed shot of the amazing inlays in the building.

A wide shot looking to the east as the Sun sets.

Finally, two shots taken the next morning, looking from the Red Fort in Agra.

India truly is a dynamic country. Many contrasts and tremendous energy.

If I were paranoid, I’d be thinking of The Birds

Well, we finally got what we were waiting for. Not only a good snow, but on the Saturday night of a long weekend. Thank you Lord!

I feel a little bit silly making a big deal out of this, particularly since I grew up in Marquette, Michigan which is no stranger to snow. But it is a special treat for us in Southern California. After all, we are only at 3,400 feet above sea level. Hardly high in the mountains.

The fun started when my older daughter came into the room and said “It’s snowing! It’s Snowing!” We quickly went outside into a very nice heavy snow shower. We felt that the cats had to enjoy it, so Sam came out with my daughter.

At this point, we didn’t know how long it would keep coming down. But it did keep coming. So with dinner in the oven, we suited up to enjoy the snow. Both girls enjoy the falling snow.

The younger girl (three and a half years old) is well bundled up for the cold.

This was a heavy snow with big flakes. It seemed to me to be like a lake effect snow, but clearly no lake was involved here. The big flakes were coming down and our back yard pine tree was being weighed down by the snow. Lots of snow falling.

The next day dawned crisp and snow covered.

The observatory got through the night just fine.

Of course we had to go sledding. We made snowmen and snow angels as well.

Here is a panorama, looking east toward Anza. You can see the girls working on a snowman in the foreground. Note that they are really the only spot of color in the picture.

Altogether a lot of fun. About half of the snow melted that day, with the grass and roofs staying snow-covered until today.

James 1:25
But the one who peers into the perfect law of freedom and perseveres, and is not a hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, such a one shall be blessed in what he does.

1 John 3:18
Children, let us love not in word or speech but in deed and truth.

Hebrews 12:11
At the time, all discipline seems a cause not for joy but for pain, yet later it brings the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who are trained by it.

Sirach 33:10-11, 13
So too, all men are of clay, for from earth man was formed;
Yet with his great knowledge the LORD makes men unlike; in different paths he has them walk.
Like clay in the hands of a potter, to be molded according to his pleasure, So are men in the hands of their Creator, to be assigned by him their function.

Hebrews 13:14
Here we have no lasting city, but we seek the one that is to come.

Jeremiah 17:14
Heal me, LORD, that I may be healed; save me, that I may be saved, for it is you whom I praise.

Mathew 6:26
Look at the birds in the sky; they do not sow or reap, they gather nothing into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are not you more important than they?

Romans 12:12
Rejoice in hope, endure in affliction, persevere in prayer.

Mathew 7:7
Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.

Psalm 34:20-21
Many are the trials of the just man
but from them all the LORD will rescue him.
He will keep guard over all his bones,
not one of his bones shall be broken.

Isaiah 45:8
Let justice descend, O heavens, like dew from above,
like gentle rain let the skies drop it down.
Let the earth open and salvation bud forth;
let justice also spring up!
I, the LORD, have created this.

Jeremiah 289:11
For I know well the plans I have in mind for you, says the LORD, plans for your welfare, not for woe! plans to give you a future full of hope.

Ecclesiastes 1:2-11
Vanity of vanities, says Qoheleth, vanity of vanities! All things are vanity!
What profit has man from all the labor which he toils at under the sun?
One generation passes and another comes, but the world forever stays.
The sun rises and the sun goes down; then it presses on to the place where it rises.
Blowing now toward the south, then toward the north, the wind turns again and again, resuming its rounds.
All rivers go to the sea, yet never does the sea become full. To the place where they go, the rivers keep on going.
All speech is labored; there is nothing man can say. The eye is not satisfied with seeing nor is the ear filled with hearing.
What has been, that will be; what has been done, that will be done. Nothing is new under the sun.
Even the thing of which we say, “See, this is new!” has already existed in the ages that preceded us.
There is no remembrance of the men of old; nor of those to come will there be any remembrance among those who come after them.

I wanted to get a custom ringtone, so I purchased a couple of songs labeled as ringtones from the iTunes store. Beware. Not all tracks found with a search on “ringtone” are actually ringtones. I tried just renaming the file, changing the extension from .m4a to .m4r, but that didn’t work. I asked Apple, but their first response was inaccurate (told me to look for a check box that isn’t there in the current version) and I haven’t yet heard back.

Using the magic of Google, I found a page from a site that has MP3 software that tells how to do it in iTunes 10. It really works!

The second magic of Google came when I went to send an e-mail. I wrote in the e-mail that I was attaching a file. I went to send it without attaching the file, but Gmail interrupted me to ask if I was sure I wanted to send it, since I had mentioned an attachment but not attached anything. Great feature!

Now I just hope they aren’t parsing and storing everything we write….

The piece today was La Pasión según San Marcos, composed by Osvaldo Golijov. This is St. Mark’s Passion of Christ set to music. I was worried that a piece composed in 2005 by an Argentine Jew who had an atheist father might fall into the unpleasant side of avant-garde. I could not have been more wrong.

This piece, with strings, percussion, horns, a chorus, and soloists, was beautiful. The use of Latin rhythms fit well in places that were surprising. The music fit this important subject. The aria of St. Peter, his lament after realizing he had denied Jesus three times was very moving. It needed the screens that provided a translation to follow it, but with that it was a great musical experience.

This would make an excellent Good Friday concert. P.S., iTunes has it too.