Planet secrets

Nowadays there is a constant effort to find planets orbiting around stars other than our sun. This effort is tied to try and find indications and traces of life, such as we know it. 

We are conducting the same activity on many of our solar planets, some of which we have, and are being explored by probes and satellites sent by us from Earth. So far, we cannot say that we have found any life as we know it, or traces of it. To pursue such efforts, in my opinion, is typical human. We have a tribal  bent.

Another approach we, as humans do, is to theorize, and to make the first efforts to settle on one of our solar planets, or one of its moons. I've written about this about a year ago. There seem to exist surprising and unexpected conditions on the solar planets and/or their moons.

To settle on another planet or moon requires knowing the conditions where you could suitably land and could stay.  There are a number of unexpected and surprising conditions and even movements. Enceladus, Mars, Pluto, Jupiter's Galileyan moons, are all exhibiting some unexpected responses to probes of various kind.

Right now I am reading (slowly) an interesting book about just the topics referred to above. The author is Paul Murdin, published by Pegasus Books, New York, London. The title is THE SECRET LIVES OF PLANETS, the subtitle is Order, Chaos, and Uniqueness in the Solar System. It was a ChristmasPresent to me. The price label was left on the wrapper, the price is very reasonable.

The planets farther away from the Sun may present environments which may unexpectedly be totally strange to us. If we settle long enough on one of  our sun's planet's moons, we may be making a decision to permanently be removed from Earth, and to be forever incapable of physically ever returning "home". 

For myself, I'd prefer to forego any opportunity to travel to anywhere in space. I like it here on earth, with my family and friends. My explorations of space are based on the use of telescopes. 

As an aside, if you begin astronomical efforts, use binoculars for looking at the sky. Binoculars can be generally found in a home. Read my article "Visual Aid" which I published on March 29, 2019 here. You'll probably agree that binoculars are quite versatile, i.e. birdwatching, distance viewing, navigational help when on a ship or boat, and definitly the sky on a clear night.

Little problems

 

Living in an area subject to a lot of cloudy weather, I use my telescopes sporadically. The Christmas and New Years' periods additionally result in family and friends getting together. That means that some clear sky conditions are also bypassed. Because of several days being available, I had time in which I could, and did, check the operation and possible problems on my EQ type telescope mounts and my telescopes. 

From my previous blogposts you'll know that I much enjoy the public astronomy nights which SFU runs on clear Friday nights. I've been using my 3" refractor most often for our RASC participation. The telescope is not heavy and can be put onto the telescope mount quickly. As well, it is easy to align with the celestial North Pole. The reason, of course, is the automatic tracking of any object being observed by moving the telescope westward at the same rate as the Earth's rotation eastward.

The EQ4 tracking mount I use for the 3" refractor has somewhat of an issue though. No matter how closely I align the telescope with North, the object in the telescope's field of view slowly drifts out of view. It's easy enough to correct this by using the control buttons on the Dual Axis Motor Drive which powers both the Right Ascension and Declination motors. However, it requires my periodic attention to make sure that our public guests will actually see the target to which I pointed the telescope.

There are many cloudy days and nights at this time of year. I set up the telescope and mount in our recroom at home to move through a 24 hour tracking run. The idea was to set the time and direction scales on the mount to a start point (I pointed the E marker on the telescope RA axis to the 0 hour mark on the time scale) and to read the scales at the end of the run, 24 hours (actually 23 hours, 56 minutes, and 4 seconds) later. At that point I would have expected to see the E marker to point again at the 0 hours mark. Lo and behold, it pointed instead to 2h and 50 min beyond the 0 mark. This means that the telescope actually indicated that it moved past the 0 hour time marker; it incorrectly showed that it had moved a total of 26 hours and 50 minutes. The tracking motion of the mount is therefore 11% faster than the daily sky motion. Since the Earth turns 15 degrees per hour this result moves the telescope to a position almost 45 degrees ahead of  the position it should have after 24 hours tracking, Instead of moving through 360 degrees, it moved almost 405. I had noticed smaller overruns on other days, even on much shorter test runs. This is what actually made me run the 24 hour test.

My motor drive unit has 4 control buttons to speed up the RA and DEC stepper motors 2, 4, or 8 times by means of a separate speed switch. Each button is dedicated to one particular direction. The RA motor is controlled by an East button and a West button, the DEC motor by a North and a South button. The East button can be used to compensate for the 11% excess tracking speed, but it requires me to push and hold the button to move the telescope back to the observed target. It is a very basic and very slow slewing system - it would take many minutes to move from Vega to Deneb for example. As it exists, this whole system is not suitable for long-exposure astrophotography, in my opinion. It's ok for visual observation and possibly photography of the Sun or the Moon.

The dual axis motor drive

proposed astable  timer (below)

Now the question: what causes this? I was thinking about the gear ratios in the RA motor, or in the mount, the clock frequency in the electronics of the Dual Axis motor drive unit, the pulse rate applied to the RA motor stepper windings, searched for an adjustment capability in the electronics board (found none), and other electronic possibilities. I also searched the internet for electronic schematics (there are dozens) but did not find the one which exactly matched the Dual Axis motor drive above. 

I'm thinking of putting together an astable timer based on the 555 precision timer chip. Its output voltage could control the power provided to the motor drive, i.e. shut off power 11% of the time. That way, the movement of the sky could catch up with my faster-moving telescope. It's a crude approach, but in my working days I built many similar timers to control printers, vending machines, debit card readers, and other equipment. I found the timer shown above in one of my "junk"drawers which contain all manner of parts, most of which are decades old. The shown timer is an unused piece I started about thirty years ago, and never finished. I'll check it out and may modify it to counteract the tracking error. 

Stay tuned. .

Serendipitous Eclipse

It happens very seldom that the weather gives us a break exactly when we astronomical observers want one. Usually it's the reverse: the weather is reasonable just before an interesting event. Then,  just a few hours before event time the weather clouds up, or rain starts, or snow, or any other condition which prevents us from observing is going to occur.

This time, we got a lucky break. The weather cleared up just a few hours before the recent total lunar eclipse. Our granddaughters, who are also members of the RASC (as I am), took some nice pictures of the eclipse (I set up a telescope on the rear porch at home and just observed by eye, binoculars, and the telescope). I downloaded only one image from Slooh. com the remotely-accessed organization.

Here is my only image, taken with a remote-control telescope at Slooh.com:

I'm always fascinated by the media's statements when they are hyping a completely normal astronomical event which repeats itself often with descriptions like "Blue Moon, Harvest Moon, Wolf Moon, Super Moon", and other mystical names.

We will have no more total lunar eclipses this year. A partial lunar eclipse this year will occur on July 16. The next total lunar eclipse will occur on May 26, 2021. On November 19, 1921 will be a partial lunar eclipse. Another total lunar eclipse occurs on May 16, 2022. In between occur several penumbral lunar eclipses, on Jan 10, 2020, June 05, 2020, July 05, 2020, Nov 30, 2020 all usually almost invisible, because the brightness of the full moon varies very little. Penumbral lunar eclipses are caused by the Moon just missing the Earth's shadow.

The Moon's orbital plane differs from the Earth's orbital plane around the Sun by about 5 degrees. There are two crossover points, the ascending and descending nodes. Both solar and lunar eclipses (partial and total) can occur only when these nodes are "in line" with the Sun, and the Moon is very near, or at one of them. That also means the both types of eclipses occur at either "new Moon" (solar) or "full" Moon (lunar). These nodes slowly move around the plane of the Earth's orbit, giving rise to various series of "eclipse cycles" which repeat over hundreds of years.

You can let your imagination play by thinking about what these various types of eclipses would look like if you found yourself on the Moon...

The total lunar eclipse on January 20 was indeed serendipitous.

Space does not look like that

J. Karl Miller wrote: please note,

Our son Derek K. Miller, along with a degree in marine biology, a diploma in non-fiction writing, had an eclectic mind, and interests in many things ranging from writing for several magazines, the Vancouver Sun, and other publications, and editing books. He also had extensive knowledge of and involvement with science, music, photography, computer technology, web page programming and administration, astronomy, and several other fields. He was among the first to make use of on-line communications, well before the internet existed in its current form.

This post is a copy of what Derek wrote in his blog about two and a half months before he died of metastatic colorectal cancer at age 41.

By Derek on February 17, 2011 6:40 PM 

Remember the end of The Empire Strikes Back, where Leia and Luke, convalescing from surgery to replace his severed hand, gaze out of the window of a Rebel spaceship at the departing Millennium Falcon, with the Galaxy (the far, far away one) spinning slowly in the background? It looked something like this:

Hubble image

That's a real galaxy, though, called NGC 2841, about 45 million light years away from our own. And neither it nor its Star Wars companion would look anything like that if we were seeing them with our own eyes.

First of all, forget the spinning: it takes our solar system about 225 million years to make one rotation around the core of the Milky Way, so even if you were able to see the whole disk, it would take many human lifetimes to perceive any motion at all. Put another way, the last time we were at this spot in our rotation, Earth was in the middle of the Triassic period, the time of the earliest dinosaurs.

Maybe more importantly, I don't think we could see a galaxy in all its beauty that way at all, because it would probably be too dim for our eyes. Consider that all photos of other galaxies require pretty long exposures, even for sensitive equipment. The Andromeda Galaxy, which you can see in a dark sky with your naked eye as a faint smudge, doesn't show its full shape in a telescope until you collect light for at least a few minutes.

Consider the fact that we're right inside a galaxy, and for most of us living in cities, the Milky Way, which is the view through the thickness of our closest spiral arm, is entirely washed out by light pollution. I don't think my daughters have ever seen it, in fact. You need a pretty dark sky, preferably on a moonless night, to see it properly.

If you were far enough away from a galaxy to see the whole thing, it would be even dimmer, so no matter how dark the sky, to your naked eye it would be much more a large, galaxy-shaped smudge of light (an impressive smudge indeed, but still smudgy) than the crisp, defined, and detailed colourful disks we see in photos. You might be able to determine its shape, and see the core, but it wouldn't be what Luke, Leia, R2-D2, and C-3PO were gazing at.

People are sometimes disappointed when they look through a telescope at celestial objects. Jupiter, Saturn, the Moon, and the Sun are certainly impressive, but nebulae lack the fantastic colours and flaming tendrils we've come to expect after decades of Hubble Space Telescope images. But those pictures are long exposures, often with artificial colours displaying wavelengths humans can't even see.

While those images are real, they're not what our eyes see when we look at the light directly.

Still, think about how amazing it is to do anyway: away from city lights, on a dark clear night, preferably at high altitude, you can peer up near the constellations Pegasus and Cassiopeia to find the Andromeda Galaxy, no binoculars or telescope necessary (though they'll make it yet a better experience). When you see it, you know that the light hitting your eyes started its journey two million years ago, before modern humans evolved. 

Running Man

Today, I finally had a chance to post, after two months of no activity on this blog. I managed to obtain a space image of one of my favourite space objects, and to give a reason for my protracted "absence".

Regarding absence: In October we spent time in Germany with our many friends there. The main reason we travelled there was the 80th birthday celebration for a long-time friend (we've known each other for about 40 years). It was a joyous occasion.

We returned home with some foreboding though. My sister-in-law had been diagnosed with lung cancer at the beginning of September; when we returned, we found her in a very advanced stage of the disease. All of our family were constantly involved in making her life comfortable, but she died in November. Since then, my wife, being the executor, has been very busy with all the legal aspects (there are many) of following the instructions in her will. I help where I can, but I have no legal standing in this matter. To make matters even more sad, we also lost the last of three of my wife's very close, life-long friends (they all were bridesmaids at our wedding 53 years ago) to an apparent heart attack. All these occurrences, and ensuing activities left no time for our hobbies.

Now regarding the space image: I finally connected to one of the remote-controlled Slooh.com telescopes on the Canary Islands and managed to acquire a picture of the Running Man nebula. It has an appropriate name, considering the events mentioned above. I leave it to you to discern the shape which gives that object its name.

(click on picture to enlarge)

The Running Man nebula

This is a "reflection nebula"(actually three separate ones), a vast cloud of hydrogen gas and dust, located near the famous Orion Nebula and illuminated by bright stars in the vicinity. Its distance is about 1,500 light years and it is about 7.5 light years in diameter. Wikipedia has a good description.
Here's the link:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sh2-279

Spring?

This as been a somewhat unusual winter for our neck of the woods. While it has melted away now, snow stuck around for the better part of three months. The usual stretch is usually a few days, then it is replaced by rain. This month, after the melt, we have had only two sunny days so far, and temperatures have been below normal for almost the whole stretch.

You can see that this has put a severe damper (pun intended) on astronomical activities, and, at the moment, it looks as though this weather is going to continue for some time. In some way however, it has played into my personal plans anyway.

I've had, and have one more scheduled medical and dental routine appointments - none of which are debilitating in any particular way - the most unpleasant was the colonoscopy which I underwent a few days ago. This is a required routine check-up for me, in light of the death of our son Derek six years ago after dealing with colorectal cancer for more than four years. The routine itself requires a three hour hospital visit and is done under anaesthesia; you don't feel a thing, this is not the problem.  It is the preliminaries which are the unpleasant part. A day before the procedure you have to swallow some pills and two little bags of a powder which you mix into two litres of water. You cannot have any dairy products, solid food or red liquids, but are supposed to consume copious amounts of water, or bullion, clear soups, Jello, or other clear (non-alcoholic) liquids. By the end of the day, I felt thoroughly water-logged. All this in order to totally clean out your intestines, meaning that you are a constant visitor in the bathroom. There is no food or any liquid allowed on the day of the procedure until after it is done.

Today it's steadily raining again. At this time last year the cherry blossoms were in full bloom. This year, the trees are showing only a trace of pink. Some Spring.

It's still autumn...

This year, October and November combined had only a total of six days without rain. Now, December has "time travelled"; we've had, and continue to have, snow dumped on us. To date, there is about a foot of it.

This is the beginning




The next morning



The snow has accumulated: 2:15pm today


Click on the pictures for a larger image.

So it looks like winter - officially not here for a week and a half. Perhaps we'll have a white Christmas - we haven't had one for some years.

Speaking of Christmas: our granddaughters have helped make our traditional pullaa, the Finnish version of bread which has come down from my wife's side of the family. They are now at a stage where they do most of the work involved. So today they did just that. Here are a few of pictures.









To a large degree, the weather has stalled my astronomical activities. The Royal Astronomical Society has even had to postpone its Annual General Meeting; we meet at SFU (which is located at a higher elevation). The weather forecasters have been vacillating wildly, and access to SFU has been sporadic. Fortunately, our older granddaughter managed to get there for her math exam on a day when access was open.

The weather forecast is for more snow down the line; at the moment snow is melting, though. Our downpipes are frozen solid, so water is coming out of some downpipe seams instead. Fortunately, we had no reason to go outside and the baking activities made for a cozy atmosphere.

No snow this year.

So far this winter, we've had no snow to shovel. Yes, there has been the odd dusting, but judicious use of "presalting" kept the sidewalks clear and prevented "black ice". What little snow there was usually melted away by mid-day. Right now, as I type this, we've had a local shower, but the sun is  shining through the clouds with a nice rainbow visible right through our front window:

Usually, when snow is more plentiful, shoveling is required. On those occasions, I wish the snow would stay in the local mountains, where it belongs. Well, this year that's what seems to have happened. There is a lot of snow in the mountains; the local ski hills have been open since November and are going strong.

There have been few clear nights for astronomy. None-the-less, I have been involved in a couple of related activities. At Telus Science World, the RASC (Royal Astronomical Society of Canada) Vancouver Centre sets up displays once a month for scheduled high school classes from various local and province-wide schools. We have videos, telescopes, handouts, and answer inquiries from teachers and students alike, which may result in setting up in-school astronomy events for those schools. We also give talks to a groups of girl scouts and boy scouts, again with telescope displays. If the weather permits, we use either one or more solar telescope or, after dark, regular telescopes to look at planets, the Moon, star clusters and nebulae.

Last Friday (unfortunately it rained again), I had made arrangements with Professor Trottier to show our two granddaughters the new Trottier Observatory at Simon Fraser University.  Howard Trottier is professor of physics at SFU, and the Trottier foundation donated the funds for the observatory and the Trottier Studio for innovative science education at SFU. Professor Trottier is also a past president of the RASC Vancouver Centre (as I am) and originated Starry Nights at SFU, in which the RASC participates with its support. Here are some pictures:

 As you can see, no snow (but plenty of rain).

A generation passing

 In October of last year (http://www.penmachinedad.blogspot.ca/2015/10/back-to-reality.htm) I posted some comments about our trip to Germany. At the beginning I mentioned our visit to my mother's younger sister, 102 years old at the time, the only one of six siblings still alive.

She died a week ago of congestive heart failure (the same disease caused my mother's death fourteen years ago). Apparently, she contracted a severe case of pneumonia and developed a painful circulation blockage in her right arm. She also refused food and drink and died four days after admission to hospital.

From the odd comments my mother made over the years, we know that this sister and my mother were no wallflowers. In the early 1930s the two of them would often visit Berlin's cabarets, pubs and other entertainment venues and had a pretty active social life. They probably made Berlin unsafe for the men of their generation (my mother only chuckled when I once mentioned my thinking in that regard). It was likely the best time of their lives; this was all counterbalanced when they suffered great adversities during and after the second world war.

Both my mother and her sister had a full life. Most of their generation are now gone; it is a natural progression of life, but still sad.

Update: Just this morning, I received an email from my Austrian cousin that her mother (my father's sister) has also died (age 94) after having dealt with dementia for several years. We last saw her in 1983, when she came here for a visit. She was the last one of her generation in our family.

A sad start for this year...

Busy time

I just realized that it's been more than 2 months since I last posted anything. In the meantime, I've been busy with a number of meetings as a trustee of the Vancouver Centre of the RASC, participated in several public astronomy nights (both at SFU and the HRMacMillan space centre), attended a TEDx session, and reworked the computer network in our house. Since we are a close family, we also had get-togethers (dinners, mainly).

Christmas has crept up again, the tree is now up, and our granddaughters set up the "village" again. As always, we'll miss our son Derek at our family Christmas celebration. This will be the 5th Christmas since he died.

Since I probably won't blog again until next year, we wish everyone a "Very Merry Christmas" and a Happy, Healthy, and Successful New Year.

Back to reality.

This past month, we traveled to Germany for a reunion of cousins and a visit to one of my two living aunts, my mother's younger sister, who is now 102 years old. She is living in a care home, still sharp of mind, uses a walker to get around, but has been totally deaf for over 40 years. Nonetheless, she speaks normally, but we "talk" to her by writing down whatever we want to say to her. Fortunately, one of her two daughters lives nearby and visits her every couple of days. We had a great time together.

The cousins' get-together was arranged as a boat trip in an area southeast of Berlin, called the "Spreewald". This is a marshy area, drained by channels and canals amounting to a total of a couple of thousand kilometers. These channels are very shallow, if you fall out of the boat, you can walk out (waist-deep). The boat trips are a major income source for the people who live there. Our boat was equipped with tables and shelves which held a variety of alcoholic beverages - food can be purchased at "roadside" establishments.

Cousins in the boat

After the boat trip, we all gathered at a local restaurant and spent a couple of hours there, talking about things which you talk about at a family reunion, the good things, the sad things, possible future visits, etc.

We spent almost a week in Berlin - it is one of the most dynamic cities in the world. Museums, exhibitions, art and science venues, world class shopping, unique local and international food... one can spend many weeks there and still not see all. My sister and her husband (who also live in the Vancouver area) also came to the reunion separately from us, and we met and stayed at the same hotel in the centre of Berlin. It was great fun for my sister and me (our spouses tagged along) to visit our childhood haunts, schools, and other places we were once at home in, and which we left 60 years ago. We also enjoyed going out to local restaurants for some fine, local food and beer. We don't often do that here in Vancouver, usually we get together in our homes.

Our travel to Germany involved a hitch. We had booked the flight including a day-long layover in Toronto. The new Airport rail line to downtown Toronto recently opened there, a la Vancouver's airport line, but the fare is more than $40 per trip per person - outrageous! Therefore, we decided to stay at our hotel, and had a pleasant evening, with a very good dinner and drinks at the bar.

Next morning, we checked our flight time from Toronto to Frankfurt, and, much to our dismay, found it cancelled. The Lufthansa pilots were on a one-day strike (long distance flights only)!

Naturally, we made efforts to get information regarding alternatives. Lufthansa phone lines were not answered, and our hotel desk had no information either. We took the shuttle from the hotel to the airport to try our luck there. At the airport, the Lufthansa counters were eventually served by one lonely lady, whose job it was to re-book and re-arrange the flights for the affected passengers. After a one-hour wait in line we finally got to that lady (for whom we felt immensely sorry), and found out that we had already been re-booked on Air Canada to Zurich, and from there on Swiss Air to Berlin. I guess that, having booked the whole trip on business class, we had received preferential treatment.

The Air Canada flight to Zurich was the best flight experiences we've ever had. The passenger pods were roomy and comfortable, the service was excellent, and the plane was brand-new (it was on its 5th flight, we were told). We had 40 minutes in Zurich to get through customs and onto the Swiss Air flight. It all worked smoothly, and, surprise, we (and our luggage!) arrived in Berlin 3 hours ahead of the original schedule. The unseen airline people who work in the background deserve great credit for how all this was handled.

After our family reunion, we spent a couple more weeks in other parts of Germany, visiting friends, who had planned something for us on every one of those days. We get together quite often in other parts of the world, so we had much to talk about and, of course, lubricated these occasions with the appropriate amount of food and drinks. These get-togethers have become more sedate over the last few years - we're all getting older, and several of our friends have died. None-the-less, a great time was had by all.

Our trip back went without a hitch. We arrived on time - tried out skytrain to get home. It works quite well, but we arrived at rush hour, so the trains were crowded. Traveling with luggage on skytrain is a bit of a hassle; there is no provision to store luggage.

It was a great vacation. We are now getting over our jet lag; back to reality!

Happy Travellers

This month, we spent three weeks in California, driving to see friends in various parts of the state. The main reason we went down was to celebrate our close friend Henry's eighty-fifth birthday in La Jolla. Over the years we have visited him and his wife, we've gotten to know many of their friends, and most of the family. We were one of four "international" couples; the others were from Sweden and Germany. There were about forty of us present. A great time was had by all - the festivity included a catered Mexican Lunch and a wonderful nine-person Mariachi band, which played for at least two hours.

Our fiftieth wedding anniversary occurred a week later. Seeing that so many of our friends had assembled, we arranged to celebrate that occasion after Henry's "big one". We had not announced this ahead of time, so it was a surprise to all. These anniversary celebrations took place in smaller groups at "Piatti's" Restaurant in La Jolla Shores, and at several "happy hours" at local friends' homes. Needless to say that the drinks flowed liberally, and food was equally plentiful (we have proof: our waistlines tell us so).

After about a week of this, we decided to wend our way home. We stayed with friends in Los Angeles and Chico and continued our anniversary entertainment in that fashion.

This car trip included (in chronological order) Medford, Oregon, and in Calfornia we stpped at Santa Nella, Solvang, La Jolla, Long Beach, Santa Nella again, Chico, Roseburg, Oregon, and Portland. We love travelling by car; you can be very flexible about your route. None of these stops were arranged in advance, we decided where to go while we were on the road.

It was a great trip.

Into the New Year

My wife and I hope that all of you had a great holiday season. We enjoyed our usual Christmas family get-together.  For once, the two of us had a "stay-at-home" New Year all by ourselves. After watching the New York time ball at 9pm, we raised a toast or two, reminisced about past riotous New Years' parties here at home, in California and Mexico, and family members and friends who have died, and went to bed around 10pm - getting old, I guess.

A number of astronomical events (including a relatively rare triple shadow transit on Jupiter) were rained/fogged out during this month. A clear sky break during last week made it possible for me to have a look at comet Lovejoy, though. This is a relatively bright comet, easily seen through binoculars. It's bright enough to be seen with the naked eye as a faint, fuzzy star, but not in the light-polluted Metro area.

The days are getting longer; we're looking forward to more sun.

Christmas again

This year seems to have passed more quickly than ever - I think that's a sign of aging: every second, minute, hour, day represents a larger percentage of the rest of life, and somehow, our mind builds that into our perceptions.

My wife and I wish everyone a very Merry Christmas, an a Happy, Healthy, and Successful New Year.

This is the fourth Christmas since our son died - we live with the memories and are
thankful for having his wife and children live next door.

As time goes by...

Things have been busy lately. The RASC has been doing things astronomical - observing nights for the public and council and membership meetings, which always feature some interesting speakers. As usual, the weather ruled the success of the observing sessions; some had to be called off. The latest one of these was scheduled for the youngest group in the Boy Scouts (Beavers) in New Westminster today - but the weather gods do not agree, as you can see if you live in our area. If you are interested in astronomy, as I am, you get used to this.

Aside from my external activities, my wife and I have had some doctors' appointments - at our age, some issue or other always comes up. Well, "body and soul maintenance" is important at any age, it just becomes more necessary as time goes on.

Our daughter-in-law organized a very successful family get-together (17 people). We always have a great time and enjoy each others' company; there are none of the family frictions which seem to be the norm if you judge by the numerous TV shows which exploit that theme. We're lucky to be able to appreciate our individual traits.

Christmas is just around the corner - the year is quickly approaching its end. Something is tinkering with the speed at which time goes by, it seems to me.

A nice summer

Last week, a good friend from California on a visit at our house and we spent a wonderful time with our friends in their spectacular home on Saltspring Island, as we did last year around this time: (http://penmachinedad.blogspot.ca/2013/07/a-close-paradise.html). We had a wonderful evening as a part of the "Puerto Vallarta" contingent, and had more than our accustomed number of glasses of wine (we calculated one-and-half bottles for each of us over the course of the afternoon and evening). The "P.V contingent" is a group of people who got to know each other over the years at our (now deceased) friends Ernie and Al's B&B there.

Later in the week, we had a fabulous evening dinner with about twenty of our hosts' friends and neighbours on the terrace which surrounds our friends' home. These people are an intelligent and fun group - it was a real pleasure to interact with them.

Just before our trip we got word that our very close family friend Erlyne had died quite suddenly. She fell when she missed the bottom step on some stairs, broke her hip, and never recovered. Erlyne was my wife's friend for fifty-seven years; they got to know each other when both of them worked as time and script controllers for CBC television in the days when every broadcast was live. Erlyne was also a bridesmaid at our wedding more than forty-nine years ago. We are saddened by her death.

It is obvious that we have reached the age at which one loses more and more family members and friends...

A trip south, happy and sad

For the last month, Hilkka and I have been in Southern California, visiting friends and many of the places we particularly like. This was a car trip, so, on the way, we stopped in Oregon, both coming and going. On the way back, we stayed for a day at Oregon's Crater Lake Lodge.

We have visited Crater Lake about a half dozen times over the various decades, several times with our son Derek. The lake is a water-filled caldera which is what is left from a huge explosion of a volcano now named Mt. Mazama. This time, we stayed at Crater Lake Lodge, as we have on several occasions in the past. It's a fairly expensive stay, with somewhat spartan "luxury" rooms, no TV, which is a good thing; you should get outside and take in the view from the various view points. There is internet access. The restaurant has improved considerably over the years; the food and service is first class. Scenery from the lakeside rooms is impressive.

In his blog of July 2007, Derek wrote about some of the places on Earth which he had visited, and which had a special connection to family and friends for him (http://www.penmachine.com/2007/07/my-favourite-places-and-when-to-take-me). This blog entry was written just before his first operation for the colon cancer to which he would succumb four years later.

This time, our visit to Crater Lake was sombre and sad. In the evening, we dispersed some of Derek's ashes from a promontory close to the Lodge (see pictures). The wind blew them down towards the lake, and we wept, thought of his wife Airdrie and his daughters Marina and Meredith, but felt a certain comfort in having fulfilled one part of the wishes Derek had expressed in his blog.

Next morning, the sun rose above the lake in what became a beautiful day; we take this as a sign about the bright future Derek wished for his own family. 

Here are the series of pictures taken at Crater Lake - an expanded set of the ones we posted on Facebook a few days ago: https://www.flickr.com/photos/mimiandpapa/sets/72157645217732272/ . Click on any of the pictures for a closer view and a related description. 

From now on, any trips we take to this beautiful area will be in memory of our son. Crater Lake is situated in southern Oregon, about two hours' drive east of interstate highway five, so we will likely stop there, even if it is for just a day visit. We quite often fly to California; Crater Lake is located on the flight path from Vancouver or Seattle. We'll have a moment of silence when we pass overhead.

Family is everything

Yesterday, it was the third anniversary of our son Derek's death. We miss him - we light a candle in his memory every day. This void in our family will never go away.

We maintain a perpetual memorial on-line here: http://www.legacy.com/guestbooks/vancouversun/derek-miller-condolences/150846264?#sthash.xPQfXgEU.dpbs . You may leave a comment there at any time.

A couple of weeks ago, Hilkka and I celebrated our 49th anniversary. We are both as much in love with each other as when we got married. Our daughter-in-law, Airdrie, invited us to an Easter dinner a couple of days later and we had a wonderful time with her, her parents, and our granddaughters.

Hilkka and I made an impromptu decision last night to invite Airdrie, and our granddaughters Marina and Meredith to breakfast at our place this morning (they live in the other half of our duplex home, so that's easy). We always enjoy their company; Derek would be so proud of the beautiful young ladies his daughters have become.

Family is everything.

Progress and memories

For those of you who may be curious about the situation regarding my damaged right hip joint socket, I can report that real progress is evident to me. I can use the walker to walk quite well, and a cane to walk more slowly. I still have to be careful about putting too much weight on my right leg. I've even made my way upstairs (and back) to the first landing on our interior steps, halfway to the upper living area. I think I may soon make it all the way, which would expand my currently limited confines. Since the right leg's range of motion is now almost the same as that of my left leg, and since  the strength of my muscles is back to near normal, I expect to be able to drive our cars pretty soon. I'll wait until after my next x-rays scheduled for Friday of this week, which will truly tell about the degree of healing that has taken place.

Today is the third anniversary of the "living wake" (http://www.penmachine.com/2011/03/my-living-wake) which our daughter-in-law, Airdrie, arranged for our son, Derek - who died two years and ten months ago. It's always a bittersweet time for us when the various anniversaries relating to our son's life come up. We are lucky to have his two daughters (Marina and Meredith [Lolo]) and Airdrie living next to us. For us, Derek lives on in them.

Snow continues

Taken with a wide-angle lens

The view from my wheelchair

Here's the view from our basement window yesterday. As most of you know, I'm confined to the lower floor in our house because of my broken hip joint socket; climbing stairs is not possible for me at this time (see previous post). Thank goodness for the large rec (for me: wreck) room window.

The joint is healing nicely, I can stand up without support. That's how I took the top picture.

In general, things are progressing well. Using the walker to steady myself, I can use the right leg in a limping walk by putting only a little weight on it. That's quite a bit of progress from even a few days ago. At that time I could not use the right leg at all.

It's been snowing continuously here for the last three days. Since Hilkka had a cyst removed from her thyroid gland last Friday, she is not allowed to do anything that requires a lot of physical effort. Therefore, both she and I can't shovel snow; all that snow is building up in the driveway. It blocks our way out of the house. Our two granddaughters do clear the sidewalks and driveways once a day, but that can only happen after school.

I have postponed the x-ray test and evaluation by the orthopaedic surgeon for one week. By that time, I expect the snow to be gone. Why take chances?