It has been over a month since I last posted. And it sure has been a month.

In late June I travelled to Europe for work. Arrived in Paris on Sunday and did the 5-hour tour hitting the Tuilleries, The Louvre (saw the Mona Lisa), Isle St. Louis, Notre Dame, the Left Bank, dinner at Foucquet’s on the Champs-Elysées, a quick view of the Eiffel Tower before heading back to the hotel. Whew. It was good to do some sightseeing because the rest of the week was work. Monday night to Brussels (yes, if it’s Tuesday, it must be Belgium), Tuesday night to Munich, Wednesday night to London, Saturday home.

After two days back at work, we left on vacation to Alaska, taking a wonderful tour and cruise through Cruise West. Our good friend Ken Neibaur arranged the tour — he works for Cardoza Bungey travel. It was a great trip, absolutely way above our expectations. I’ll try and post some details on it later. We took the Glacier Bay Highlights tour with a stay over at the Kantishna Road House. If you go to Denali, I definitely recommend staying at the far end of the park in Kantishna. For cruises, the Cruise West small ships (ours was 70 passengers) is an outstanding way to really see Alaska up close.

We also got to spend a day with my brother-in-law Walt. That was very nice.

Back at work now and finally sneaking in the time to make a post.

Oh, and we closed the purchase of a second home in Aguanga. More on that later too. So we have been busy.

For a blog (and a site, for that matter) that is supposed to be dedicated to astronomy, there has been precious little astronomy for the last several months.

Back in January, I removed the NP-101 and put the C-11 back on the mount intending to take some longer focal length images. Several factors interfered.

• Changing Equipment. The effort to re-balance the mount and set-up the whole thing to work with the C-11 instead of the NP-101. Note that the NP-101 set-up was done when I was on an extended vacation between jobs.
• Weather. Our rain came late and in small batches. Not good for investing the time required for a new set-up and getting good images.
• Work. New job, new responsibilities, less time for astronomy. And that winning lottery ticket is still very elusive :-).
• Property Quest. We have been looking at property to be a site for a darker sky site (not really dark as the location has to work as a local “camp” as well as an observatory site) and that has taken significant time.

Enough whining. I have posted some nice shots of Saturn. I have some Jupiter data in the pipeline. The bottom line is that all of these things are about having fun, right?

We have been looking at second homes in the Anza Valley area east of Temecula. The goal is to have a place to get away to and one that has dark skies.

Our search narrowed to a community called Lake Riverside Estates. It a gated community (but all dirt streets) with a small lake, a dirt airstrip, and a community pool. While not the darkest location, this clearly meets the multi-use requirement for such an investment.

Not quite Camp, but perhaps a passable Southern California version of Camp.

I spent this past week in Orlando at Sapphire, SAP’s annual convention. This year it was combined with the annual ASUG meeting, the America’s SAP User’s Group meeting. But that’s not the subject of this post.

I flew UAL on the return flight. UAL is the only airline that makes air traffic control (ATC) available to passengers. It is found onj channel 9. When I was travelling a lot for business, I was a big UAL flyer. 1K for three years running (ok, big, but not great since many people fly more than I did and for more years running). I really enjoyed the ATC banter.

On this flight, about an hour before arrival, the captain invited us to listen in for a discussion about the flight. He spoke for 30 minutes on a whole variety of topics. It was really a hoot. He spoke about:

• Which controller is in talking to the plane as you go from gate to take off
• The statistics of the 757 — the most efficient plane in the sky
• What causes turbulence
• What kind of turbulence is dangerous and why
• The approach and how the pilots interact with ATC
• The seniority system at UAL

It was really great to hear him talk about his job. At one point, he said “I don’t have any idea if anyone at all is listening to this, so if you are listening and you want me to continue, please turn your call button on and then off.” Many people around the plane (including myself) pinged him with the call buttons. He was very appreciative of the support.

It was very nice to have a senior person with the airline speak so highly and professionally about both his company and the overall air traffic system.

One of my pet peeves with recorded classical music is that you have to turn the volume way up to hear the soft parts (a nice oboe solo) but then be ready to crank it down when the whole orchestra chimes in. In the concert hall, the soft comes out very clearly and the loudest loud doesn’t hurt the ears.

I suppose it is a combination of a very quiet environment and the fact that the orchestra never gets that loud. Amplified music can get very loud. I wonder if the actual dynamic range is compressed somehow in the hall. I doubt it. I bet it is a phenomenon of the quiet of the hall allowing you to hear the quiet and the loud never being as loud as top volume on the iPod.

Near our house there is a large development called Playa Vista. It has fought its way through numerous lawsuits, oppositions, Dreamworks pulling out, etc. Part of the deal for building on the site was that the developer would restore and maintain wetlands in the area. This post is about the restored area west of Lincoln Boulevard and south of Jefferson Boulevard.

Before the restoration, this area was flat and grassy, not interesting. I watched as they built smoothed channels and berms. It looked very manufactured. Trees and shrubs were planted, water was let in. It began to look better.

A couple of weeks ago, there was an event at these new, manufactured, wetlands. Many groups, from the DWP to the Ballona Creek Renaissance were there. It was great fun and what made it great was the wildlife we could see in the wetlands. Yes, the manufactured wetlands.

Last weekend, we went for a walk in the wetlands area. At the start, my wife didn’t want the binoculars, and my daughter thought it would be boring (although she knew better than to complain). It turned out to be a great experience. We saw red winged blackbirds, American coots, a killdeer, and best of all, a family of mallards.

The mallard family was a mother and seven ducklings. We watched as the swam along the shore feeding. Mother mallard decided she wanted to look at an area beyond a small man-made berm. She jumped over, but it was a challenge for the ducklings. We watched as she went back and encouraged them to jump over the berm. And then she went back. Watching these little ducklings, not too much larger than an egg and very fluffing, was tremendous fun. It made the whole visit.

And all just about a mile from our house.

Last November, I gave into a very effective telephone solicitation and bought a series of concerts at the Disney Hall in Los Angeles. It sounded good and I felt a desire to support the LA Philharmonic, just as I support the public radio and TV stations I listen to or watch.

The salesman was excellent. Perhaps I should say representative, but he was a salesman in the best meaning of the word. He had complete knowledge of the program, the seats, the other benefits. I bought. And I am happy with my purchase. Very happy.

This last weekend we went to our second concert (we missed the first, but since it was a minimalist presentation, we were OK with missing it). It included a performance of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony.

I first heard Beethoven’s Fifth when I was 11 and my parents bought a reel-to-reel tape deck and locals provided tapes of the Fifth, the Brandenburg Concertos, and other works. I listened to this music many times over, so it holds a special place in my memory.

The performance was amazing. Our seats are behind the basses, looking across the stage toward the conductor. I love watching the music move around the orchestra. Feeling the sound of the basses playing as you hear and see it.

The seeing it with hearing it is the real key. To see how a single oboe fills an entire concert hall. To be confused and then realize how a an element has moved from the woodwinds to the horns. WOW. I am hooked. And you see how the conductor interacts with the orchestra.

When I listen to the Fifth now I have a whole new perspective that has added tremendous depth to my appreciation. Whenever you have the chance, see music performed!

I maintain a Hotmail account. It is convenient for those subscriptions, registrations, and other sign-ups that, should my account get inundated by spam, I could easily abandon.

Over the last month, I have noticed that the spam filter consistently misses obvious spam. Misses it even after the offending topic and approach have been marked as spam and reported. Are these spammers paying a premium for delivery? Or are the Hotmail coders just missing the boat?

My Yahoo! and gmail accounts work fine. If anything, their spam filters are a tad too aggressive. But once marked, a spam approach never succeeds again.

My brother-in-law, Robert McPherson, passed away last night. He is survived by his wife Stephanie and daughters Ainsley, Gwen, and Drew. He was a fine man and will be missed by all. Please keep him and his family in your prayers.