December 2011 Wednesday 14 to Wednesday 21

Wednesday 14- the weather was cold and overcast and I don’t think it got out of the low fifties. I did my stretches, dumbbells, core trainer, lifted weights, punched the heavy bag for about ten minutes, and ran two miles. It was a great workout!I got the Harley out and rode it to the mailbox and back; it needed to be run for a while.I am starting to do my studies again.I went for a walk listening to a random astronomy lecture by Alex Filippenko about: the methods used in finding new planets around stars other than our own.I updated my blogs; I have four where I post now, but I’m getting rid of MySpace at the end of the year and will not post there again. MySpace has become unblogable (Hmm, maybe I created a new word :)I watched some YouTube videos on how to punch a heavy bag. I ain’t doing none too bad from what I saw, but I do have to learn to bob and weave. Right now I just stand there and hit the bag.I played my guitar for a spell.

Thursday 15- the weather outside was again cold and overcast. I did my stretches, yoga, ran a mile with weights, and using the 30-30-30 heavy bag method punched the heck out of the bag: felt mighty invigorating.I swept the patio really good getting rid of all the dirt and leaves from the desert willow out front. I did my studies throughout the day: Latin, astronomy, entomology, and reading a book called “How to Study in College”. I went for a walk listening to an astronomy lecture by Alex Filippenko about: the Hertzsprung–Russell (HR) diagram that compares stars Spectral Class: temperature and color (OBAFGKM), versus their luminosity: Absolute Magnitude. As a star is formed out of dust in a nebula, by gravitational contraction, it reaches a temperature of 15 million Kelvin (I believe) that ignites the fusion process. Most stars fall on the main sequence and star there for a spell; the Sun will be on there for another five billion years. Very massive and hot stars may only be on the main sequence for maybe a few million years burning their fuel very quickly. Compare this to a Red Dwarf that is about 40 percent the mass of our Sun, will burn their fuel for trillions of years. I got the wood stove fired up for the second time this winter. It felt good when I got back from my night run and soaked my feet in hot water!I practiced my guitar.

Friday 16- the weather is still cold and overcast, but add to this the high winds! At 11AM it was 49 degrees.I did my stretches, dumbbells, core trainer, lifted weights, and went for a mile run. Oh, and I punched the heck out of the heavy bag again :)I updated the Copper Mountain Mesa Website and sent out the Newsletter.I did my studies.I went for a short walk because I had to be around when UPS shows up (he never did), and listened to a continuation of yesterdays astronomy lecture by Alex Filippenko.I did some stretches and went for a night run. I wanted to checkout my new binoculars but the sky was too overcast.I practiced my guitar.

Saturday 17- the weather was again overcast and it even rained late in the afternoon.I did my stretches and ran a mile.I called family and friends throughout the day as I worked around the house. John Massey came by and started showing me some math. He said that he will teach me; I have a mental block when it comes to math beyond addition. Well I did get a B in college algebra class.

Sunday 18- I decided to just kick back today and do whatever comes to mind. I did some reflection on recent events. I went out to the dirt road and gathered small rocks into a bucket and spread them around the cement pond.The night sky cleared enough for me to finally check out the 20x80 binoculars and I drank in the night sky!

Monday 19- the weather was nice and sunny.I did my stretches, lifted dumbbells, lifted weights, core trainer, ran a mile with weights, and punched the hell out of the heavy bag.Chris came by with a bag of groceries from the USDA food distribution. He said there were over a hundred folks showing up. I spent the day doing my studies.I went for a short walk and listened to another astronomy lecture by Alex Filippenko about: neutron stars.The UPS driver finally showed up at 6PM with my new camera I ordered last week. It’s a Panasonic LUMIX DMC-FZ47 Digital Camera with 24x optical zoom, cool.

Tuesday 20- the weather began the day with some cold winds, but mellowed out later in the afternoon.I did my stretches, yoga, ran a mile, and rode my bike.I played around with the new camera checking out its 24x zoom. The dang thing has so many buttons and dials it’ll take me a while to figure it all out.I did my chores around the house cleaning this and that.I went over to John Massey’s for an early dinner. He lost his fancy knife with his name inscrolled upon it that he had for many years. He showed to me a few weeks ago and said, “I’ll never lose this knife.” We ate the chicken he got from the USDA Food Distribution yesterday; it turned out mighty good.I got back just before dark so I listened to an astronomy lecture by Alex Filippenko about: more on neutron stars and beginning to talk about black holes.I decided to try to finish the textbook “Astronomy Today” by the end of the year. This is the book that I’ve been reading out loud for over a year now and need to put it to rest and move on to something else. Reading a text out load is a very slow process for me, but I read a whole of chapter 22 in about three or more hours. When I finished that I read from the books on college studying, and entomology. Then I did a lesson in Latin.I went for a night run and practiced my guitar when I got back inside where it was warm.

Wednesday 21- the weather was very nice, no clouds, with temps in the upper 50s.I did my stretches, lifted dumbbells, lifted weights, core trainer, ran a mile with weights, and punched the hell out of the heavy bag.I went over to Kelly’s to put her dead car battery on my charger and then took her to her mailbox.I went for a walk listening to an astronomy lecture by Alex Filippenko. It was more on black holes and neutron stars; he gets sidetracked here and there and falls behind on his lectures.I then proceeded to read aloud the whole of chapter 23 about galaxies; that took about four hours. I’d write about it here but I’m kinda burnt out. I then read the other books of my studies- did you know that bugs can’t see the color red? That’s what my entomology book says. I did my stretches and went for a night run, fired up the wood stove, and soaked my feet in hot water.

I practiced my guitar.