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Wandering through E-Space

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"There's no point in being grownup if you can't be childish sometimes." -the 4th Doctor.

about me

My name is Romanadvoratrelundar, but the Doctor says it's too long, so you can just call me Romana.
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    Tuesday, February 02, 2010

    testing....*sigh*

    Grrr...so I didn't post at all in January-my streak is broken! :(

    However, today I got an email from Blogger saying they will be discontinuing FTP support in March. (that's how I publish Wandering) This is just a test to see if my blog is still publishing, so this entry probably will not show up on LiveJournal or MySpace...

    To top it off, my comments don't seem to be working! Argggg....

    Changes are a-comin'. I don't know if I have time to adjust!

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    posted by Romana1 on 1:24 PM | *

    Thursday, December 31, 2009

    Happy New Year!

    Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas! (or Happy Hanukkah or Happy Solstice, or Happy Festivus, etc.-which ever your holiday was, I hope it was wonderful!)

    Just wanted to wish everyone a Happy New Year!!! :) See you on the flip side!

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    posted by Romana1 on 1:10 AM | *

    Monday, November 30, 2009

    Full of turkey...

    I hope everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving! Mine was eventful. Blew a fuse Thursday night, had to get the circuit breaker fixed (thanks to my awesome landlord, that was taken care of the next day) While fixing that, he noticed some roofing had broken loose-yikes! Looks like there will be roofers in my immediate future. ;) Overall though, I had a good Thanksgiving. :) Plenty of leftover turkey! I love turkey!

    Saturday I went downtown for Winterfest. I hoped it would help me get into full Christmas mode. ;) I've got pictures, will have to post a couple soon...

    Started decorating for Christmas! This is my favorite holiday. I love Christmas lights-had to replace a few this year (which is why after Christmas sales are awesome! I have backups-lights don't work? Just head down to the basement, instead of the store! ;)) I'm no where near done, but at least the is a tree with lights in my window. :)

    *heehee* Okay, so I never wrote about how I felt when Brett Favre signed with the Vikings. I won't go into details, but needless to say, I was not happy. Not that this has anything to do with football, but this t-shirt made me laugh:
    http://www.linorulli.com/Lino_Rulli/Shirts.html I may just have to get one!

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    posted by Romana1 on 4:39 PM | *

    Friday, October 30, 2009

    Tomorrow is Halloween!!!

    Oooh! I'm so excited! Halloween's tomorrow!

    I'm actually going to try to give out candy at my own home (normally I help Perseph and Paul on Halloween night-but Perseph is currently on a road trip! :))

    I have no idea how many kids I'll get-I'm thinking about being a total nerd and Tweeting the events through the night. We'll see. ;)

    Until then, I have a few pictures to share:
    My pumpkin!

    which will soon be turned into a jack-o-lantern...

    Some porch decos!

    I hope my bat lights survive the wind!!

    And this I took last week-it's totally cool-but would be much cooler if I had a telephoto lens:

    Can you see it between the trees and the telephone poll? It's the moon-less than 10 percent full! When I first spotted it, I actually thought it was a jet trail (since there were several in the sky) The full size image is much clearer, but, well, that's a pretty big image!! ;)

    Happy Halloween!!!

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    Wednesday, October 07, 2009

    They did it!!!!

    They did it!!! The Twins are the AL 2009 Central Division Champions!!!!!!!! The first team to win after being 3 games behind with only 4 left to play. Those are my boys!!!!!! Now, it's off to New York.

    Man, that tiebreaker game with the Tigers-12 innings!!! I was jumping up and down-my emotions were all over the place as they were behind, ahead, behind, tied, AHEAD!!!!

    The Twins landed in N.Y. at 3:05am-first pitch is less than an hour from now...

    It ain't over yet!!!

    GO TWINS!!!!

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    posted by Romana1 on 4:13 PM | *

    Wednesday, September 30, 2009

    September...no, wait, OCTOBER!

    Holy smokes! It's the last day of September, and I haven't written anything in this blog all month! Wow, and I thought only 2 posts a month were bad...

    I've just been busy, I guess. It's not like I have nothing to write about-I think of entries all the time-just don't have the time to write them all out! I have quite a few things I've starred in my rss-reader that I'd like to write about. *sigh*

    Let's see, what has happened this month? Well, St. Rocco's for Italian Band, the Tippit reunion. I actually went to the movies (btw, 9 is pretty awesome!) Worked on cleaning my Dad's telescope (the mirror really needs to be re-silvered-but that's another story that I didn't get to this month...perhaps I'll write more about that later). Hmm...what else? I participated in Case for Community Day again (7 years running!), love my tv shows (well, duh), my flowers on my porch are still blooming-my petunias have taken over my marigolds!! (although it's getting pretty chilly at night.) I'm sure there are other things I'm forgetting...

    BTW, the Sarah Jane Adventures starts in 16 days in the UK!!!!! (see? That's another thing-I haven't put any new countdowns in my sidebar...) I wish someone would pick it up here in the US. SciFi rebranded it's self to SyFy (Siffy), and not only did the SJA website on scifi.com disappear, but I haven't heard if they are considering airing it or not. (yeah, I haven't had much time to really dig down into GeekGirl mode to find out, either)...

    Okay, okay, okay! Enough about the stuff I haven't had time to write about...

    Fall is here! (YAY!) This marks the beginning of my favorite time of year (fall/winter). A couple of weeks ago I took down my summer lights in favor for some autumn decorations. (oooh...pumpkin spice candles!!!) This weekend the goal is to dig my Halloween stuff out of the basement. (oooh! for the first time in 2 years, I'm NOT moving! I get to dig my stuff out of the basement instead of bringing it home from storage...)

    OOOH! A (delayed) shout out to my niece, Boo!!! Her MN reading comprehension tests came back-and she's reading a whole grade level ahead!!!! That's my girl!!!

    Also, GO TWINS!!! Beat Detroit!!! You can do it!!!!!!

    Bring on October!!!!

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    Thursday, August 27, 2009

    Well, now, I feel silly...

    So I'm sitting here at work, catching up on some older Lino at Large podcasts that I missed...

    Lino was playing "20 Bible Questions" with Lou-Lou was asking, Lino answering. Lou's usually pretty good at guessing-but he was having a hard time with this one: a thing that Jesus never touched, made of wood. It wasn't until close to the end, when Lino answered yes to 'is it from the Old Testament?' when I realized the answer was "Noah's Ark".

    ...however, I didn't just think it. No. I blurted, "the Ark!" for all to hear.

    Lucky for me, most of my coworkers had left for the day and those that remained had headphones on-just like me. *whew!*

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    Thursday, August 13, 2009

    The Backyard Test

    Perseids, Day Two: Observation time: 11:30pm-2:00am. Number of meteors spotted: 70.

    Considering where I live, with the level of light pollution (not counting the moon), I'd say that's pretty good. :) I started out sitting in my lawn chair again, but quickly decided to grab my beach towel so I could lay down in the grass instead. I'm really glad I did-I had a much wider view of the sky, so I was able to catch more meteors from behind than I would have in the chair. The backyard test? Well, when I first saw this place, and looked at the backyard, I thought it had potential-not a huge backyard (although bigger than the one on Hampshire), but the grass was well kept-enough room to spread out, and there are no trees(although plenty of trees in the surrounding yards), so there'd be a wide view of the sky. I first thought, gee, I bet I could watch the Perseids back here...turns out I was right!!! Yeah, there's some light pollution, plus the potential of lights from the neighbors, but all in all, not too bad.

    We had clear skies!!! I was so excited-plus, the first meteor I spotted was nice and bright, and had a long tail that graduallly faded after the meteor disappeared (I love those!)

    Some notes:
    -Spotted first meteor just after 11:30-by midnight, I had seen 12. By 12:30, 20.
    -One meteor was slow, bright, with a fading tail...the meteor seemed to flash as it was eaten up by the atmosphere-it was really cool. Kinda reminded me of the Enterprise-D going to warp. ;)
    -Around 1:20am there was a flourish of activity-I saw about 2 every minute, for roughly 10 minutes.

    Yes, this was a good night. :)

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    Wednesday, August 12, 2009

    Totally worth it, even just for one.

    I ended up seeing three meteors last night-two were definitely Perseids, the other a stray from one of the lesser showers. I was facing East/North East at the time, with Cassiopeia to my left, and the rising moon to my right. The Perseid meteors I saw ripped through the sky from left to right (N to S), the other meteor I spotted was more West to East (from my POV).

    I started out around 10pm-took a lawn chair and my handy can of OFF!, and sat outside for a bit. Not for very long, though-because it was very cloudy. Whatever break in the clouds that I had seen earlier quickly disappeared, frustrated, I went in about 10:30, and decided to give it another hour.

    11:30pm I headed back out-it was still quite cloudy, but there seemed to be more breaks in the clouds than before, so I decided to sit it out. After about an hour (and a couple of close calls with a skunk), I went inside to grab a light sweater. (not that it would help with the skunk, but I just wanted to add that. Good think they’ve got that white stripe, otherwise I might've been singing a different tune.LOL-I think). Anyhoo, I came back out and sat for another hour. Around 1:15am a cat with a bell on his collar nearly gave me a heart attack as it had found something in my garage that startled it. Still frustrated, I readjusted my lawn chair and decided to give it a few more minutes. I was really glad I did-around 1:25am a bright Perseid ripped right across the sky!! I was so excited!! That one alone made it all worth while for me. Shortly there after, I spotted a dimmer meteor (the one going W to E). This was around 1:30am, so I decided to stay outside until 2 (yes, I'm insane-I think I got that from my father). Around 1:41 I spotted another Perseid. Three meteors!! Despite the clouds, light pollution (my neighbors stay up as late as me-go figure!), and the rising moon.

    The forecast calls for clearer skies tonight (last time I checked, anyway), so I might try to sit outside after Game Night. Also, I’m taking Friday off, so even though the peak will have passed, I might sit outside after our gig Thursday night.
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    (image courteous of Sky and Telescope)

    Oooh! I meant to post this article by the Bad Astronomer Phil Plait yesterday:
    Tweeteor shower I love the Bad Astronomy blog. :)

    I am definitely my father's daughter. ;)

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    posted by Romana1 on 8:29 AM | *

    Monday, August 10, 2009

    Summer evenings, summer stars

    Gah!! It's hot-very hot-hot and muggy. We were spoiled this summer-cooler temps, not as muggy as it had been. Even when I went up north, it was unusually cool. Blah to those who whined about the temperatures never being above 90 degrees!!! I am happy with cooler summers-75 degrees, with the lower 80s tolerable for a time. But I digress...

    The summer has flown by so quickly!!! Mt. Carmel came and went, the week of many actives flew by. Jerm and Allison got hitched! (Yah, I've got lots of pics, but I need to put new batteries in my camera-wedding shower, staff picnic, retirement party, baby shower, wedding from said shower-I used my camera ALOT in the last month!) And now the Feast is upon us! Oh, my-not only do I need to pick up batteries for my camera, but I could use a couple of extra reeds for my clarinet as well!)

    I've spent the last couple of evenings (ok, more like later at night) on my back porch reading and enjoying the breeze (strong wind) and other nighttime sounds (crickets chirping, tree frogs, the occassional train whistle). Now that I discovered I do have electricity running to my porch (I've only been here, what, a year almost?) I need to put up my summer lantern lights. Sure the season is almost over, but I've still got plenty of nights to enjoy them (plus, the nails will be in place for my Halloween lights in the fall!!)

    Despite my misgivings about the weather, I do love August nights-and this week is one of the best weeks in August! There's the Feast (starts the 13th! We'll be there every night!!) And this is the week the Perseids peak!!! When we were little, my dad would lay out sleeping bags in our front lawn in Minnesota-and we would stay up late and count the meteors. Sometimes my mom would make hot chocolate for us afterwards (it gets cool at night!). I loved doing it and looked forward to it every year growing up. We used to refer to it as 'the tears of St. Lawrence'. This year, the peak is actually during the day for us here in North America (2pm, August 12th), but Sky and Telescope says that either the night of August 11-12, or 12-13 should be good for catching a few meteors. You do have to fight the waning Moon, but Perseids can be pretty bright-so you should be able to spot a few (if the weather holds!) So find an open patch of dark sky, and pull up a blanket or lawn chair, and look towards Perseus and Cassiopeia (11pm-till dawn-best viewing times) You might even catch a few stray meteors from the Delta Auarids and Kappa Cygnids. Check out the article,
    Perseid Meteors by Moonlight.

    Oh, and don’t forget the bug spray!!!!!!!!!
    Clear skies and happy veiwing!!

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