Saturday 10

Saturday 10- did my stretches, lifted weights, and rode my bike.
Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 57 and 81 degrees, light breeze, humidity around 30 percent, mostly clear skies.
According to the National Weather Service: “Sunday: Sunny, with a high near 81. West northwest wind at 9 mph becoming south southeast. Sunday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 55. West southwest wind between 5 and 9 mph.”
I mostly chilled out today doing a few odds and ends, calling a few folks, and catching up on some correspondences.
Ron Dehart came over with some old astronomy books he purchased at a book sale for me. I collect old astronomy books. He also brought me a microphone and stand that I can use with the guitar when I perform in public, but he didn’t bring me the nerve I need to get out and play in public. I guess that’s something I’ll have to come up with on my own.
Debbie brought over Patty’s computer for some repairs which I’ll have a look-see at tomorrow when I get the time.
I went for my evening walk listening to Astronomy Cast Ep. 154: Dragon Con Live with Seth Shostak, about the SETI program.
When I got back I cooked up some eggs and potatoes, laid some Velveeta cheese on top and smothered it in ketchup. It filled me up and was mighty good.
Got a call from Ginger, my neighbor, she and her kids were at my back gate and wanted me to look at some animal bones they found while exploring. One skeleton was from a snake and the other was a skull from some small dog or coyote. The Sun had just set and I walked them back to their home as her two dogs ran and played with each other and her kids explored the desert. While we walked Ginger told me of a white truck towing a trailer full of mattresses and old tires that the occupants were dumping on the side of the road as they sped away. She tried to get the license number but the truck was just too fast. I don’t take too kindly to folks who dump in our beautiful desert!
I read a little astronomy and then watched a DVD movie called“Knowing” (2009) starring Nicolas Cage and Chandler Canterbury; a spooky thriller about a list of numbers written on a piece of paper by a six year old girl that predicts events in the future and placed in a time capsule in 1959 for fifty years until uncovered. It kept me entertained for the better part of two hours. Very good movie!
I did my stretches and went for a night run. The night was so dark and clear that I took out my binoculars for a spell and gazed out at the Milky Way and saw a few meteors. I practiced my guitar. Wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Sunday 11

 Sunday 11- did my stretches.
Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 56 and 79 degrees, light breeze, humidity around 31 percent, clear skies.
According to the National Weather Service: “Columbus Day: Mostly sunny, with a high near 72. West wind 7 to 16 mph becoming south. Winds could gust as high as 22 mph. Monday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 55. Southwest wind between 9 and 15 mph, with gusts as high as 21 mph.” 
I started working on Patty’s computer that is running Windows 2000 and the computer is ten years old; I don’t like working on old systems anymore. The problem is that Firefox hangs the system when starting and Internet Explorer 5 comes up with errors. I installed Service Pack 4 to see if that would help but it didn’t and Sygate Firewall doesn’t load anymore. I really don’t want to reinstall Win 2000 and all she needs is a working browser so I installed the newest version of Opera which worked just fine. The hard drive was formatted with FAT32 and I changed that to NTFS. I will download another firewall tonight and put it on her system and be done with it. Her computer smells like tobacco and I want it out of my home!
I went over to Stoney’s where Roger and I ate some chicken dumplings that Stoney cooked up. It was more like chicken soup but it was mighty good! We watched an interesting documentary on the Discovery Channel called “Discovering Ardi” about a team of anthropologists searching the deserts of Ethiopia and finding fossils of an early hominin “Ardipithecus” that walked the Earth 4.4 million years ago. The main point of the find is that this is the earliest find to the branch that leads to humans, and also that the creature had a grabbing toe that was more like a chimpanzee foot; other previously found hominid have feet much like ours. But unlike chimpanzees it walked upright and had smaller canine teeth; meaning that instead of the male fighting for a female it could carry food back to its mate. I thought this was most fascinating and a great discovery! The whole three episodes lasted three hours. I was so intrigued by the show that I forgot to change to my regular glasses and only when I drove home on a very “dark” night did I discover that I was still wearing my sunglasses!
I did my stretches and then went outside with my binoculars for a spell. I practiced my guitar. Wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.