Another 3 years...

Tonight was the last lunar eclipse for three years. It seems lucky that there has been two within one year - last August and tonight. Last August I tried to take pictures through a pair of binoculars - not too successful. Tonight, I put the camera against the telescope eyepiece and the pictures turned out better. Pretty good for the poor man's astro-photography set-up! Some friends and their kids came over and we looked at many cool things. There were a lot of ohhhs and ahhhs as we saw Saturn's rings, Mars, the Pleiades, the Andromeda galaxy, and wrapped it up with the Orion Nebula. As we finished up, the Moon was on its way out of totality. A pretty awesome show! I was even able to notice a bluish area between the dark shadow and the light side. Apparently, this is caused by sunlight passing through the upper ozone layers of Earth's atmosphere.


Click on the slideshow for a bigger photo

Here is a really cool photo (Somebody else took it!):

2008 Presidential Caucus

Today Stephanie and I attended our local democratic caucus. Neither of us had ever attended one before and really didn't know what to expect. I was looking forward to the discussion, and especially the chance to meet others in my neighborhood. There aren't really chances to truly talk and discuss with those living in the same community anymore, today was a rare opportunity.

After everyone had signed in, there were 65 or so people of all ages packed into a small room at the Retsil Veterans Home. There was lengthy discussion about both Senator Clinton and Obama. Questions were posed and concerns were voiced. I spoke briefly. I was impressed at the level of respect that everyone showed for each other. Everyone agreed that both candidates are good, and will certainly be better than the last 7 years of disaster, lies, ignorace. After about an hour of discussion, it was time to choose delegates to move on to the county level. I stood and volunteered, then everyone split into groups representing their chosen candidate.

At that point, each person who was interested in moving on to the county level was asked to speak. Out of 10 delegates available in our precinct, 7 were chosen for Obama, and 3 for Clinton. I am very excited to be representing my precinct at the county level as a delegate for Obama in April.

This was a fantastic experience, and I am looking forward to the next level and participating in this uniquely American experience.