Brr, It's Getting Cold!

Officially I think Fall / Autumn is over and winter has arrived based on the weather today. I actually had to mow the lawn wearing a sock hat and a long sleeve shirt but I still wore shorts of course. The cold weather aside, it was a really productive Sunday, boring blog reading, but productive so I am happy with the way the day turned out. Feels good!

Last night there was a meteor shower scheduled to go past earth around 11:00 p.m. Pacific time. I think it was mentioned that it is related to Haley's Comet which passed by 26 years ago. I could have bad information there and the shower is unrelated though so don't go quoting me. We headed out to the backyard a little after 11:00 and stared into space for about 10 minutes only to see stars in the perfectly black, cloud free, night sky. Oggy came out to see what we were up to as well, although my bet is that he was hoping we were BBQ'ing.

According to the astronomers we should see showers every 5 minutes or so, no dice, so its time to verify the schedule. Turned on our flashlights and headed back in and after a quick GOOGLE search we realized it was supposed to be from 1 ~ 2 a.m. until approximately sunrise. We set an alarm on my iPhone for 1:00 but by the time it went off we were so warm and cozy in bed we decided to not go out. Part of me wishes we would have, but no worries, there is always next time.

It's a real kick in the butt anyhow because I have been putting off getting us a good telescope. Nothing super crazy, probably get something in the $300 - $500 range because I want it to be computer controlled to set points of interest that would otherwise be difficult to accurately navigate to unless you are an astronomer or a dedicated hobbyist, neither of which describes me. Possibly one with wi-fi for setups as well but I have yet to look and see how much more the wi-fi models run. It will be fun and I know Cicely will enjoy it bit time! Maybe and early Christmas present for us? I am hoping for an AR Drone 2.0 this year for Christmas http://ardrone2.parrot.com/ so I have been watching my P's and Q's but in case I slip up at least I still have a crazy cool telescope!

Ok back to me bragging about my productive afternoon; I mowed the lawn, front and back. Cicely cut my hair, I winterized the irrigation system front, back and drip as well as set-up all of the exterior facet covers to help prevent freezing. Since I still had a good deal of energy I went ahead and winterized the lawnmower, drained the fuel, added fuel additive and changed the oil too! I had already replaced the blade, cleaned the air filter and spark plug last week.

Now its time to sit down with my good friend TiVo and watch The Walking Dead, have some dinner and then watch Dexter and call it a night. Long week ahead since I have been busy getting loose ends wrapped up before heading to the Caribbean in a couple weeks.

Yea I don't think I mentioned the Caribbean yet. We will be heading to Princess Cays, Grand Turk; Turk & Caicos, St. Thomas and St. Maarten for 8 days or so, stopping first in Florida to hang out for a day and hopefully have Cicely meet up with her sister that she has not seen (other than on Facetime) for many years. Should be a really good time, but coming back to the cold is going to suck! We have a pretty loose agenda other than some scuba diving, snorkeling with stingrays and getting a lesson on how to get the critters out of conch shells, planting our butts in these big clam shell chairs on the beach with a bar, food and a waiter close by so we can do nothing but sit back and enjoy. In between we have a few other little adventures planned as well. We just wanna chillax like we did when we went to St. Lucia for a week last year over Thanksgiving. Unfortunately no helicopter to take us to our resort this time, bummer!

I think that is about time to put a fork in this entry. I may have to start making them shorter or just a photo and a blurb and one long one a week heck again, I dunno, its because writing on Blogger as well as Day One is already getting to be a lot. I will have wi-fi in my cabin on vacation but I have not decided if I will go onto Blogger or not during that time, possibly just Day One. The hardest part is remains; the fact that I need to separate them into "speak freely" and speak "not quite as freely" entries.

Oh, I did want to mention that we finished Lilyhammer as we hoped and it did not disappoint whatsoever. They did end it in such a way that it could be brought back for another season or not which was great! I enjoyed the show and honestly hope there is more-to-come. Lilyhammer reminded me of the great shows AMC has been putting out the past 5 years +/-. I think it is easily kicking ass against HBO, Showtime, Cinemax and many of the other big cable channels.

That is all for now, for reals this time - Have a great week!

Photo: Trees at the Sparks Marina letting us know its Fall