Happy New Year! January kicks off the Lunar Cycle with a New Moon taking place on Sunday January 2. The Young Crescent Moon will greet 2022 in the early twilight of January 3. Look for it very close to the SW horizon and watch it rise a little higher each evening. You can track […]
In Part 1, we asked whether Alexander Graham Bell or Thomas Alva Edison should be given credit for having the most profound effect on our modern world. Having made the case for Bell, it is now time to examine the evidence for the fabled Wizard of Menlo Park, Thomas Alva Edison, to wear the […]
Speaking strictly from our point of view in the year 2021, given all of the amazing devices we have (literally) at our fingertips, which of the two men mentioned in the title above deserves the highest accolades for influencing our world? Alexander Graham Bell or Thomas Alva Edison? Perhaps I can help you make a […]
We will begin this month’s tour of astronomical happenings with the planets visible in the south-southwest and southwestern sky at dusk. The brightest is Venus (magnitude – 4.7 on Dec 1 and -4.4 Dec 31) and located closest to the horizon to the lower right of Jupiter (mag. -4.7) and Saturn (mag. +1.5). All […]
The old saw, ‘there are no accidents,’ came from . . . whom? We all seem to use this phrase but have you ever wondered where it came from? Famous quotes tend to get corrupted, rearranged, and jumbled all the time (see Yogi Bera) with no apologies offered to whomever originated them. Oddly enough, the […]
Could it be that I am slipping? Scanning the FTV titles for the past ten months, I realized the entire year was about to pass without me writing about a drummer! How could this be? It isn’t for lack of drummers out there to write about. It is more a case of working through a […]
In one of the earlier segments of The Simpsons Tree House of Horrors, they do an extremely funny lampooning of The Shining (the Jack Nicholson version, only here called The Shinning). After Marge discovers Homer’s writing consists of nothing more sinister than, “Feeling fine,” she expresses cautious optimism about the situation. A sudden flash […]
We begin our look at November with Venus, Jupiter, and Saturn. Venus continues to dominate the SW sky at dusk. With the period of twilight lengthening throughout the fall, Venus will appear 3 degrees higher by the end of the month with a setting time that will average about 2.6 hours after sunset. Viewed […]
The crew at the West Coast Bureau sent me a copy of one of William L. Sullivan’s numerous books about hiking the great Oregonian out-of-doors. To best describe Sullivan’s passion for the topic of hiking in the wilderness, let me offer the following summary from the back cover of his 1988 opus Listening for […]
One of my favorite displays at the Michigan Iron Industry Museum outside of Negaunee is housed behind the door of an old bank vault. There is a graph inside showing how much money was generated by all of the big mineral rushes that swept this young nation. Manifest Destiny compelled the government to expand the […]