In Pursuit of Perseids

Last night was forecast to be a good time to see lots of meteors from the annual Perseid meteor "shower".

I waited until after midnight and drove out to Erwin park, about 6 miles north of our house, looking for a dark spot. When I got there, the cloud layer had moved in and there were no stars.

When I got home, the clouds had broken up some, so I stayed up and went outside around 3:45. This time I just laid down on the driveway and waited.

Hooray: in the next 45 minutes, I saw four very nice meteors, two of which actually left a brief trail, plus two more which were short and faint enough that they barely registered.

Hardly a shower. I don't know if I will try again tonight - there is just too much light around here, and one would have to drive a long way to find real darkness - Wyoming, for example.

Anyway, this could have been photo of a meteor, if my reflexes were better:

Long, long ago, at a Birthday Party far away...

Great Granddad's 92nd

We celebrated Great Grandad Martin's 92nd birthday (again) today, with an after-Church brunch with friends Carol and Barry and Sue.

Mimi prepared a wonderful meal, featuring a sausage/egg casserole with gluten-free biscuits and German Chocolate cupcakes.

We didn't get a good photo of his "main" present, but he seemed to enjoy it. We'll add a picture soon. (building suspense...)

John Adams

The book John Adams by David McCullough (Simon & Schuster, 2001) is an engaging and descriptive portrait of the life and times of a truly remarkable man. John Adams was a plain man, but a brilliant and courageous warrior for God-given right of personal liberty of all people. He did not seek fame, but he never shied away from the call to serve the greater good of his country, at great personal expense and risk - as did many of the patriots of his time. He was one of the most upright, honest and selfless men, ever. Additionally, his devoted and extremely intelligent wife, Abigail, was his equal partner in every way, deserving of a large share of the credit for his tremendous contributions to the founding of the United States of America.

Oh, that we today had but a few statesmen of John Adam's stature, who truly placed the good of the people of the whole country above personal gain and power.

Birthdays

We had a Birthday Barbeque get-together to celebrate Naomi's and Grandpa's birthdays.

There was birthday ice cream, with candles.

Naomi seemed to enjoy her new Lego Friends kit.

Happy Birthday Grandpa and Naomi!!

Firefox Can Zoom!

This is probably old new for most everyone else, but I was excited to learn how to zoom web pages in Firefox.

Internet Explorer was pretty easy to figure out, but for me Firefox wouldn't zoom.

I finally looked it up:
http://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/font-size-and-zoom-increase-size-of-web-pages

Short version: Hold the Ctrl key and roll the mouse wheel, or hit the + and - keys. Ctrl+0 (zero) takes you back to the normal page size.

Life is good.

Paper Airplane

This is mainly for John Michael.

One Sunday, when we were coming out of church, a couple of boys were flying paper airplanes. Their planes flew better than the ones I knew how to make, so I bought them from the boys for $.25 each.

I unfolded one to learn how to make it. Here are the steps.

Step 1 - Crease the paper in the center long ways. Fold two corners to the center crease. (Note: the illustration is neat, but not necessary!)

Step 2 - Fold the pointy end over.

Step 3 - Fold the corners in to the center. The fold point at the left edge is about a half inch from the center, so there is a blunt nose about an inch wide.

Step 4- Fold the little triangle in the center over the two flaps.

Step 5 - Valley fold the two sides together, then mountain fold the sides down to line up with the center crease which is now at the bottom.

Step 6 - Flap the two wings up.

Step 7 - Ready to fly. If it dives, bend the tail points up slightly. If it noses up, curl them down a little bit.

If you are interested in making more airplanes, check 10PaperAirPlanes.com

If you want to make the Best Paper Airplane In the World, go Build the Best Paper Airplane in the World. (This one is kind of complicated, but it really does fly well!)

Rain Sage

Last week we had a couple of nice rain showers. Whenever it rains, the sage bush by our driveway goes crazy.

For reference, this is how looks when it doesn't rain.

Old Movies: Berkner Cross Country 1994

Moon Clouds

Last Thursday afternoon, we had some nice thunderstorms around the area.
It was also time for a nearly full moon.

Stupid Squirrels! (Actually, probably Rats...)

The minivan was running perfectly fine when I parked it in the driveway Saturday night.
Sunday morning, it started up ok but was running rough. Then an error message appeared with little flags and banners on the instrument panel: "...VSC failure.." or some such. VSC? Page 342 of the owner's manual said "Vehicle Stability Control". We drove to church (putt putt jiggle chug) and around and made it back home.
This morning I took it to the dealer. The service tech raised the hood, took a look, and said "Yep. Rodents."
When I picked it up, he showed me this photo of the engine room - I think behind the engine near the firewall.

Here are a few of the chewed up pieces of wire they left behind.

$645.
I'm getting my pellet gun out...

Is This Actually TEXAS???

Is it really July??!!

Hornucopia 2013 - A Day At A Time

So many great times happened at this year's gathering it might take most of a Googleplex to show them all. Therefore, here is a one-photo-per-day summary of a few of the activities.

We don't travel light.

Ada and her family arrived early. She had no trouble finding what she needed.

Marty & Jennie's farm had lots of interesting things to do.

We went to an indoor-play place that had a wonderful carousel.

Jessica did a fun run.

After everyone else arrived, most of us went for a walk.

Mimi led the Morning March.

The kids invented all sorts of games.

The day at Marty & Jennie's house was lots of fun!

Simon says "touch your shoulders with someone else."

Tony gave a great lesson on the dynamics of friction.

We had a couple of nice picnics at the farm.

After everyone else headed home, Ada went to a park.

We had dinner at a nice Italian restaurant. Smile, Ada!

The crew started replacing the siding on the barn.

Here, they are dusting the beams before replacing the boards.

Newark Airport was really busy, but Ada handled it quite well.

It was lots cheaper to rent a car than ride a super-shuttle home from the airport. We got a fun little Fiat!

It was a wonderful time for us. Thank you, Family!!

My Rant On Surveillance

Today I sent the following note to my Representative and Senators:

--------------------
Dear Representative Johnson,

I am appalled by the revelations of the extent of NSA domestic surveillance.

I am not upset that Ed Snowden had the courage to out the NSA's anti-constitutional activities. I believe he should be heralded as a whistle-blower, not treated as a traitor.

I am upset that Congress - both House and Senate - have allowed a department of the government to so completely bypass the Constitutional protection against illegal search of citizens.

Please don't try to claim that NSA's activities are "legal" and under control. FISA has proven to be a joke, providing only a rubber-stamp pretense of oversight - since 1978 the FISA court has NEVER REJECTED a request, according to the Attorney General's reports.

Please don't assert that "honest citizens have nothing to fear". What we all have to fear is any government having too much personal information about individuals under its control, such that if it turns tyrannical it will have complete power over everyone.

Please, Mr. Johnson, take action to bring the NSA and other Federal agencies under control and put a real stop to government surveillance of citizens in the name of "terrorism".

I fear the US government more than I fear terrorists.

Thank you for your attention,
John Horn

PS: "Do you know what's worse than being soft on terrorism? Being soft on patriotism." - Robert X. Cringely
----------------------

I have no doubt that my name is now on some FBI watch list. It will be interesting to see if I can still board an airliner or buy a car.

Happy Independence Day!

PA (The state)

Ada enjoyed the gazebo at the park.

We enjoyed a picnic with Jennie and Marty.

New Kind of Bread

Mimi made a loaf of bread without wheat. (She feels much better since she stopped eating wheat.)

It smelled funny, but tastes good if you put lots of stuff like butter or jam on it.

Bowl and Plate

Danielle and Naomi made a beautiful bowl and plate for me. The bowl is the exact size for cereal, and the plate says "Love Love Love Love Love". Perfect!!

Thank you, Naomi and Danielle!!

PS - That's blobs of yogurt and cereal on the spoon. I noticed it doesn't look so good in the photo...