Full Snow Moon – catch it now!

Oops, I forgot check the calendar and remind you about this month's full moon!

If you’re on the west coast, be sure to watch for moon rise this evening.  Here in Michigan the moon is already about 45 degrees above the horizon in the east, a bit hazy on rising from snow squalls in the distance but now clear and beautiful.

Jupiter also appears in the sky to the east during early evening hours; this evening, the moon Io crosses the face.

You can learn more about the celestial bodies appearing in this week’s sky here – nice overview from night to night.

UPDATE -- 9:30 pm ET --

Oh, so awesomely cool!  why didn't I see this before??  a map of the overhead sky you can plot interactively to your location, anywhere on the globe!!  Check it out, click link to Sky Chart!

9:01:49 PM    comment []

Wadn’t it great...

If you’re a NASCAR fan, go now.  Hit the BACK icon pronto.

If you’re a Fox network fan, same thing.  Go BACK where you came from.

Neither type of fan will be happy with the venting to follow.

Hubby, being an engineer of the male gender raised by people who owned a chain of auto parts stores, cannot forego watching the Daytona 500 on Fox today.  He’s not a hardcore racing fan being more the golf-type of guy (he’s flipping back and forth between Daytona and Tiger Woods even as I type this), but there are motors and wheels going fast, fuel and oil and tires all over the place, drawing him like a magnet.  It can’t be helped, it must appeal to that inner child in him.  The child who grew up sweeping the family’s auto shop floor.

I’m steering clear of him and NASCAR and Fox as long as he’s watching the race, but we live in a fairly small home.  It’s impossible to shun each other completely or totally avoid the TV viewing area.

It’s pathetic -- I feel like I’m stuck in a trap, forced to bear witness being in earshot.  I have no clue as to who the commentators are for this event.   God help them, but I just heard one of them use the word WADN’T.

As in, “…Skinner wadn’t happy about that.”

And the word “that’ was pronounced as if it were three syllables long.  My hackles rise, as does gooseflesh on my arms.  I am thinking truly nasty things about both NASCAR and Fox, and about rednecks, the results of inbreeding and popular culture in America.  Argh.

I point out this lapse of grammar to Hubby: The commentator just said “wadn’t”.  Hubby refutes, Are you sure he didn’t say wasn’t?  Maybe you didn’t hear him correctly.

I pause in mid-flight, hold my breath and wait for the commentator to continue.  The commentator obligingly said “wadn’t” once again; it could not be mistaken for “wasn’t”.  I glare at my spouse; to his credit, he does look a bit pained and confused.

He gets a clue and turns on K-19: The Widowmaker on DVD.  Maybe it was getting lonely watching the race.

4:19:28 PM    comment []