One year ago today: January 4, 2021, shown indoors.
Five years ago today: January 4, 2016, pathetic meet-ups.
Nine years ago today: January 4, 2012, they’re simply better adjusted.
Random years ago today: January 4, 2007, tire shop demands ID.
Too cold for my new windshield, we opted for a morning of lolling around. This is the form of retirement most easy to identify with. Too much of it isn’t good for you, so we’re making plans for later. For no wwe played catch with the toy he loves to shake stuffing out of, and I set to work re-learning calculus from the ground up. Sure enough, I’m fending off my old habit of memorizing what does not make sense. The upside is that I’m getting to the stage I’ll be able to work enough wrong examples to begin understanding, a similar path to how I learned (or am learning) celestial navigation.
How’s that study going? Slow and I’ve discovered a lot of people think a globe is normally tilted on the stand is so it makes things easier to read. Nope, it is because that is the angle (23.45°) the planet tilts off the plane in which it orbits, which is usually followed by the explanation that this causes the seasons. Independently, I hope to learn more about the implications, as a new term has been encountered, the “Circle of Illumination”. Shown in this fair-usage diagram, it is the rim of the circle dividing the dark and lit halves caused by daylight.
Kindergarden material to some, I find it helps keep oriented when using navigational tables, and that’s a condition where anything helps. Notice the North Pole is in the area of continual sunlight. The sun’s rays are tangent somewhere away from the pole at the spot where the circle of illumination intersects. This is not a standard map marking, but I now know it is 66.55° latitude and I’ve been further north than that. It is also called the Arctic Circle.
[Author’s note: this latitude is also called the Arctic Circle, but that is no longer an adequately descriptive term for my usage. What’s more, this latitude is not fixed. According to Wikipedia, it is currently 66°33’48.3’. This means the Earth is somewhat less tilted than usual, meaning the sunlight strikes the surface slightly more toward the perpendicular as you move away from the poles. This is a natural event which if you follow the logic, great. You know why it is great? Because I have yet to meet a climate change activist who is even aware of it, much less [that it is] the dominant factor on how warm it is today.]
How is this related to navigation? It means the equator is also tilted away from the plantetary plane, and when you want your location on Earth, it used the equator as a reference. Since only by rare coincidence would you ever be standing at a spot that cancels out this difference, you have to allow for it. This is called declination. Simple as it is, this factor has caused me consternation. Declination is the point most likely to introduce errors into your formulas. If it warms slightly, I may try to take a noon sighting today, which is around 1:00PM local time.
Daylight savings isn’t a big deal, the rule of thumb is remember whenever it is present, your clock is one hour ahead of real time. Do you think we should shop for that stopwatch? I have one somewhere, but that situation means it was not all that up to the task. There is still a lot to be said for a good ol mechanical model which doesn’t go dead in the box. With the Internet, it is always easy to calibrate and I’m good enough with the GP (geographical position) calculation to be a predictable amount off.
Long Tom toboggan ride.
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I got the noon readings with some conditions attached. It was over 50% cloud cover, so I could not evenly space my readings My first couple takes had the micrometer not zeroed out. My timepiece was horribly inaccurate, but consistently so. I kept getting readings that were obviously wrong, but I kept going, never getting a peak. Then it hit me, did not set my wristwatch for this time zone. I’ve shown before how as a sign of a great retirement, an hour here or there isn’t important. I missed noon by and hour, so I was measuring the setting sun.
Nonetheless, the exerise was sextant experience on a cloudy day, so the results are duly recorded, and if I had a spreadsheet, I’d give you the graph. (Maybe when I get back to the cabin.) These readings took nearly an hour, so the dog got bored, even chasing buzzards. He’s not aware he is snack sized. To perk his attention, I let him watch me unload the Taurus, what a great doggie for lying there watching work being done. The good news is I did grab the correct paperwork, so the scooter should be registered by later today. That solves a thorny problem back home, as the original plate is still missing since the theft.
Finally, I got behind the fixture and pulled out the rusted ball lever on the downstairs sink stopper. It has to be replaced, what a mess on what should be a straightforward repair. The news feed was on the Washington Post the whole time, and that was an even bigger mess. What a bunch of whack-jobs over there. Here’s some samples of their output I heard, just litsten to these people.
a hoard of right-wing media charlatansAnd they call Alex Jones a hot-head? This is tabloid-grade writing. Then again, this is the same newspaper that claims it was Trump who set the Democrat cities on fire and that Trump ordered the lockdowns. They still sell a lot of newspapers so somebody must be reading this kind of nonsense. Notice how they predicate every mention of fraud with a distracting adjective like “baseless”. That reinforces my conclusion that they are all in the same boat. I recall searching on “election fraud” after November 4th, and how I was consistently redirected to pro-Biden sites.
the crankish voice of Ted Cruz
fanning lies of voter irregularities
MAGA democracy-deniers
voiciferous demonizing of election officials
a rump group of Republican wannabe contenders
In the end, fixing the sink stopper took until 2:30AM, and I still have to go shopping for a new ball lever. And Sammy got out of the back yard. The cats have been rambunctious, and the only good news is that it is warm outside. While soaking sink parts clean, I recorded my list of sextant readings and drew the graph by hand. Hmmm, I could not find any graph paper around this town. It would not surprise me if there is no demand for it.
ADDENDUM
The election deadlines are approaching with signs of panic and frustration. I’m sitting back to watch, but it is tricky to avoid taking sides when one of the parties is definitely dodging questions. That video of Biden running away from the camera on Monday when his teleprompter went blank doesn’t help either. Elliott is still full liberal, saying he doesn’t have time to even look at the presentations of the opposing side. Do you? Put it to the test. Where does the phrase “voter fraud” come from as connected to this election. Hint, it was not Trump or his legal team. They used a different phrase, and the second question is what is it.
I see some folks like the video clip from y’day. That’s 155 extra hits which makes a welcome difference for blogs like this Yes, that is Sammy and yes, the footage is from the same day, produced with Windows 10 Photo, using the Create feature. Like most MicroSoft products, the easy features are too easy, the hard fearures are too hard.
