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. .

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

April showers

This month has been a month of generally lousy weather but also one of a reunion with longtime friends.

We spent about 10 days on a trip to Europe. The main reason was the planting of an American Oak tree in memory of our almost life-long friend Henry, who died one day before this past Christmas (see "Into the New Year" post). The planting took place in the town in which Henry was born (his family roots are deep and long in the community) in the same location where he played when he was a child. The ceremony was at once dignified, solemn, and funny. Many people of similar histories related anecdotes about Henry - he was never just an ordinary personality.

We have visited this town many times over the years and have gotten to know most of Henry's friends and family there. The memorial dinner in his honour took place at the local historic "pub" which has been in existence for many years in a building that is several hundred years old. Each of us had Henry's favourite drink (rum and coke) to start, and had a typically extended local dinner. It was a great occasion to talk to the people in attendance (there were about sixty and we know just about all of them). This was a typical European "wake".

We stayed with good friends with whom we have stayed several times before. Our host couple's son flew in on a surprise visit, much to everyone's delight. He lives in California (we have visited him and his wife there a couple of times, too). The whole time we were there a dinner party was laid on every evening, and sumptuous European breakfasts were part of every morning. There was also no lack of champagne, wine, and beer.

Therefore, the cold, blustery weather which persisted through all this time did not diminish the good time we had. The only downside relates to the way we travelled. We had booked our flight in the economy section (which should really be called the "sardines" section). On the way there, we had an empty seat in our four-seat row, which made this tolerable; on the way back, the plane was absolutely packed - for a ten-hour flight, that is next to torture.

Always a new experience...

Into the New Year

Henry and Margarete, a couple who are our long-time friends of ours (they live in San Diego), some time ago invited us to spend New Year's Eve with them. We made the appropriate travel arrangements and looked forward to a sunny time away from the less than pleasant weather here (https://penmachinedad.blogspot.com  - see December 2016 post). But instead of sunshine, we were presented with a rainy week. The weather and temperatures were like what we normally experiencing in winter here at home.

Unfortunately, the anticipated new year's party turned into a more somber affair. Henry died two days before Christmas and the party turned into a celebration of Henry's life. It was a bitter-sweet event, with about 90 people in attendance. We know most of them too, having visited our friends many times over the last 40 years or so. I had taken my wireless microphone kit with me to connect to the sound system in their house which I had modified for this purpose a couple of years ago. This turned out to be very useful for the reminiscences and anecdotes presented by many of his friends, along with singing and listening to some of Henry's favourite songs and music.

This turn of events happened twice to us last year. In April, instead of celebrating the 80th birthday of another close friend (whom I had known for 58 years) we also ended up celebrating his life - he died 3 days before his birthday (https://penmachinedad.blogspot.com - see April 28, 2016 post). This is not how we had planned to get together with friends last year.

We hope for a more joyful 2017.

Catch up

Since my last post in April, we spent almost the entire month of May in California. Before our trip there, my wife and I spent the day of May 3 in memory of our son Derek, who died on that day in 2011. That day will never be a happy one for us.

A couple of days later we took the car to get to San Diego, with a stop along the way to visit a good friend in Chico, California. We also happened to stay a couple of nights at a Hilton-Hotel-affiliated place called Homewood Suites. We found them to be very "user-friendly", with courteous and efficient staff, and breakfast and happy hour included in the very reasonable price of the rooms.

Our San Diego stay was with friends we've known for almost 40 years, and whose house is almost like a second home to us - we've stayed there so often. By chance, we arrived at the time when the host's nephew and a home-town friend (both of whom live in Germany and who are also our friends) were also staying at the house. These two left a couple of days after we arrived, but we had a chance to get up-to-date.

Our host is dealing with some age-related medical issues; we had come to help keep an eye on him during the time that his wife attended a family reunion in Germany. There are always local friends and neighbours dropping in too, so our time there was never boring; we've gotten to know most of these people during the years we have visited there.

On the way back, we stopped for the first night in Fresno, the next in Medford, and spent a couple of hours at Crater Lake, where we had deposited a small part of our son's ashes two years ago, following the wishes he had first expressed in 2007 (http://www.penmachine.com/2007/07/my-favourite-places-and-when-to-take-me). The day was cold (4 degrees C), but sunny. There was still an appreciable amount of snow, and the road around Crater Lake was only partially open.

Here are a couple of pictures:

Crater Lake (taken from the air April 2016)

We dispersed some of Derek's ashes here in June 2014.

We left Crater Lake around noon and drove north on highway 97 to Madras, Oregon. This is one of the places almost exactly on the centre line of the path of the August 2017 total solar eclipse. It will be the first total solar eclipse in North America since 1979. As expected, all the hotels in Madras are already fully booked for the eclipse, but the area around the city is quite flat, so the eclipse path (which is a couple of hundred kilometres wide) is accessible in a wider area. Google "Solar eclipse 2017" and you'll get all kinds of information links.

The solar eclipse pictures I took on February 26, 1979 (in Winnipeg - the "diamond ring" picture was taken by Neil Laffra on Hecla Island in Lake Winnipeg). At the time I had a complete darkroom in our basement where I developed the film and prints, and mounted them as shown. They have been hanging on our wall since then.

We spent our last night in Portland, Oregon, and, after battling the always busy traffic in Seattle, got home at a reasonable hour.

Since then, I have been active with my astronomical endeavours, meetings, and Royal Astronomical Society of Canada Vancouver Centre public events. The most recent was the celebration of Canada Day in Haney (unfortunately, not a sunny day). However, our various telescopes served as exhibits for the several hundred people who stopped by for a look through some of the telescopes and the free informational handouts.

Canada Day with the RASC

(one of the rare instances when no people blocked the view)

Two eventful months

My last post was written about two months ago. In the meantime, I've been busy with various astronomical activities. There have been public nights at Simon Fraser University to which the Vancouver Centre of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada members set up telescopes at SFU's Trottier Observatory to help with the long lineup for the observatory's 0.7m PlaneWave telescope. This event (Starry Nights at SFU - organized by SFU Professor Howard Trottier) attracts hundreds of people.

When asked, the RASC Vancouver also sets up displays at Vancouver's Telus Science World, and telescopes at various schools around the Lower Mainland. The intent is to expose both students and teachers to the wonders of the night sky, and also use solar telescopes to observe the sun during the day. There is always a lot of interest and we are often asked to repeat these events. I enjoy taking part.

A week ago, we flew down to Los Angeles for a few days, to take part in an 80th birthday party for a our good friend Adolf Wegmann, whom I have known for almost 60 years. Unexpectedly,  and to everyone's shock, Adolf died three days before the party - it appears to have been a heart attack. He had organized this get-together to the smallest detail; so his wife Andreia decided to go ahead anyway. Instead of Adolf's birthday, we celebrated his life. He was an accomplished tool and die maker, travelled the world for the packaging company he worked for, operated a gun business for many years and was a true outdoors man; camping was his big joy. I have known his two daughters since they were born. Adolf had many friends around the world and lived a full life. All of us will miss him.

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.

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.

Spring is here

During the last month we've had a new roof installed. The installation took several days, and was sometimes interrupted by rain. The only thing left to do is chimney repair - the mortar between the bricks has deteriorated to the point where mortar reinforcement is necessary. All work so far was done by Best Quality Roofing. The company lived up to all of its promises and I expect that their chimney work will also be top notch. If you ever need roof repairs or related work done, I highly recommend that company. They are located in Coquitlam. I'll post some pictures once my hip joint allows climbing onto the roof again.

Update: Pictures of the roof repairs are here:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/mimiandpapa/sets/72157642643261244

At this moment, I'm sitting in the garden, with a cherry tree in bloom and the sun shining on my back. This past month, my "disability" has diminished to the point where I can walk almost normally. The hip joint socket x-ray showed that the the hairline cracks and the one break appear to have healed. The orthopaedic surgeon recommended that I still use my cane, but not to rely on it too much. So, I walk around the house without it, and that seems to get easier by the day. Stairs are no longer an obstacle; I have the run of the house again. We also take walks around the neighbourhood when the weather permits; my stride is quite a bit slower, but I think that'll improve with time.

While our trip to Europe was cancelled due to the problem with my hip, we are going to "substitute" a visit to close, long-time friends in California soon. We like California a lot and have been there many times. We'll be staying in La Jolla for the most part, but also in Chico and various other places on the way there and back. Since we'll be driving, we have the freedom to make drop-of-a-hat changes to our itinerary and travel routes and can take more baggage along. We're looking forward to the sun and seeing our friends again.

The end of a house

We've lived in our house for 42 years, and in all this time or neighbours' house has stood there. I estimate that it was built around 1930. The same people have lived in there during all the time we were in our house, Paul and Celina.

Paul died a few months ago, and Celina decided that she would sell the house. She did that about three months ago.

The house stood empty until last week. Then, a demolition crew finally arrived and started its work.  The people who handled the backhoe were experts. They even felled two big trees which we had seen grow from saplings, but had grown so big that we had concerns about them hitting our house, if a strong storm ever blew them down.

Here are some pictures:

taken by Marina Miller

taken by Marina Miller

taken by Marina Miller

taken by Marina Miller

taken by Marina Miller

totally flattened

the blue spruce, the peach and apple trees, and the big camellia bush are gone

The big cedar at the front... gone

some of tree leftovers

some of tree leftovers.

We temporarily have more open sky in the south than we've ever had. I think that the new house will be a duplex as big as is currently the norm. It'll likely fill up what used to be Celina's garden, and which we enjoyed from our back porch (see top picture). 

Can't stop progress.

A nice summer

We've been rather busy travelling in the last month. Beside the previously mentioned visit to Saltspring Island, we visited a good, long-time friend in Chico, California, and attended a wedding in San Ramon, east of San Francisco. We also took time driving and wine tasting in the Napa and Sonoma valleys.  Wine tasting in California is an expensive proposition these days, each winery charges twenty or thirty dollars for a wine tasting tour consisting of about five samples of wine. I think some part of these fees is imposed by the state of California; I recall reading about the budgetary problems they are having. So, soak the tourists.

A driving visit to the somewhat bleak Crescent City area, and a spectacular visit to, and including a tour of the Oregon caves were other interesting events.

The traces of the economic recession seemed still evident to us. Crescent City showed little activity during our admittedly short stopover.  In Napa City we found many of the tourist-brochure-advertised places shuttered and empty. With the recent upswing in the US economy, we hope that things will improve for everyone soon.

The wedding itself took place in San Ramon, California. The groom was our son's boyhood friend. He visited us a couple of years ago to pay his condolences regarding our son's death. We were surprised and honoured by the wedding invitation and certainly wanted to represent our son on that occasion.

The venue was the Blackhawk Museum in Danville, California. The ceremony itself took place in the open plaza in front; the reception inside. Since the groom is of Chinese ancestry, and the bride French; it was a delightfully mixed theme, with elements of both Chinese and European character.

The museum itself is exhibiting antique, prototype automobiles, dating from about 1870 to 1970. All cars are originals, and belong to the collection of one private owner. Needless to say, they were all in pristine condition. An area on the museum floor had been cleared to accommodate the guests and wedding party, and for dancing.  A few pictures:

It was certainly an original, and unique wedding.

Since the weather here at home was wonderful, we felt as though our vacation continued after we came back. We had our usual happy hour (a glass or two of red wine) every day on our back porch, with temperatures reminiscent of California.

A nice, summery July and early August...

A close paradise

Last week, we spent a few days with good friends on Saltspring Island. They have a wonderful house located near the top of a ridge, overlooking the waterways between some of the Gulf Islands.

They are great cooks, so we had some excellent meals. There were only the four of us - it was a "cozy" visit.

I took my Celestron C-8 telescope along, and, since the weather co-operated, we had a great view of the planet Saturn with its rings and moons, globular and open star clusters, and much more. The sky in the area is relatively free of light pollution, even though the "light domes" of Vancouver to the east and Victoria to the south were noticeable.

The ferry trips themselves were like "microcruises"; we tend forget how beautiful BC is - a paradise close by.

Some pictures:
Saltspring

A summer day

Today would have been Derek's 44th birthday. This is always a somewhat sad day for us. But we've also had some good experiences in the last couple of weeks.

Our older granddaughter won an award for being the top English student in her grade level. She now moves up one grade and, in three years, will be graduating from high school. Our younger granddaughter graduated from elementary school. She also won a general service award, and, in addition, a once-a year school award for exceptional volunteering and helping teachers and students. Her sister received the same special award two years ago. Starting in the fall, both will be attending the same school again.

Yesterday, we spent a lovely afternoon at my wife's sister's friend's house (how about three apostrophes in a row?), enjoying the warm, sunny afternoon on a very nice and secluded sun deck. I was the only man among five attractive and intelligent ladies; what more can a guy ask for? Clarification: the fifth lady was my imaginary mistress who looks just like my wife.

Today, we've been sitting in our back yard all afternoon, had a few glasses of wine, and raised a couple of toasts in our son's memory. It's now 8:40pm, we're still sitting here, and it's 30 degrees C (86F). A beautiful day, the rather warm temperature is rare for our area, though.

A vacation

We went to San Diego a couple of weeks ago to visit good friends, and returned last Tuesday. There was a bit of jealousy on our part regarding the weather here. While we were going through the normal for this time of year cloudy-sunny-cloudy-and even rainy regimen for San Diego's shorelines, the weather here was summer. On top of that, we both contracted some nasty cough (I even had a bout with fever). We're still battling that now, on the long weekend. Sometimes you wonder whether our aging bodies are telling us to stay at home and deal with germs they know, rather than fight new "enemies".

Well, we'll resist that notion.

A Sunny Day

Today is Sunday, with a clear, blue sky, and sunny. It's beautiful, and we intend to go for a walk to soak up some of those rays.

In another way, the memories today are not so sunny: today is the second anniversary of our son Derek's living wake (http://www.penmachine.com/2011/03/my-living-wake). At that point, Derek had exactly two months to live; we didn't know this, of course. So today, we also remember that it is exactly twenty-two months since he died.

We'll raise a toast or two regarding these events in our lives, and as a thank you to our extended family and all the friends who helped us deal with those. We miss Derek, but we also have proud memories of him - he made a difference in many peoples' lives.

If you wish to do so, you can also leave comments on the memorial page at http://www.legacy.com/guestbook/vancouversun/guestbook.aspx?n=derek-miller&pid=150846264

Life goes on.

One more year

Our family's Christmas arrangements were geared to the young ones in family, as usual. We also had the family annual Christmas dinner at our sister-in-law's, also as usual. Our son Derek and brother-in-law Ray were missed by all, they both died of cancer within the last two years. There will always be a bittersweet memory of them. Our grandchildren in the family were the stars of the show - and reminded us all that family comes first.

My wife and I flew to San Diego after Christmas to attend the 50th wedding anniversary of close friends, and to celebrate the New Year with many more good friends, all of whom we've known for many years. It seems that it doesn't matter how much time has passed since we last saw each other - it is always as though it was just yesterday. Here, too, we raised a toast to the memories of friends who departed this earth recently.

We had the additional pleasure of attending a "tribute to Vienna" concert performed by the San Diego symphony. It was a world-class performance and a fitting end to our quick trip.

At our stage in life, we must enjoy the days as they come.

Another sadness

Our good friend Ernie, whom we visited in Puerto Vallarta at New Year's, took a turn for the worse and died on February 6, 2012. He had been flown to San Diego and spent his last days with members of his family and friends who live there. From what they tell us, our friend had experienced another stroke, which made it impossible for him to swallow or taste any food. Since Ernie had been a restaurateur all his life, and food had been a major love, he felt that he did not want the medical interventions which would have provided nourishment by means of stomach feeding tubes and intravenous supplements.

We had known about this situation, of course, because we stayed in daily touch with our (and his) San Diego friends and acquaintances. During that time, we had reports regarding Ernie's health which were indicating improvement one day, and a reversal the next. So when he decided that he wanted no more of this, and to have it all come to an end, we felt very sad, of course; we had known each other for about twenty-five years. We were also reminded of the ups and downs our son went through in his final stage of colorectal cancer, and the helplessness we felt in the face of the inevitable progress of a disease to its final conclusion. It was hard to take then and this time, and it will affect us for the rest of our lives, but we respected our son's and our friend's decisions to die. We think that, after going through a situation like this with the people you love and who support you, and after making all the necessary arrangements, we have the right to determine how to end our own lives.

In the middle of the month, his nephew arranged for a party to celebrate Ernie's life; we were invited, and booked a short trip to San Diego. The party was full of many happy memories of our travels together and other gatherings; Ernie was the catalyst and driving force of these events. This was a party as Ernie would have wished it to be. It's sad to think that we'll probably not see some of these people again - only the closer friends are likely to stay in touch; it's human nature.

So far, this is not the the better year we had hoped for at New Year's (http://www.penmachinedad.blogspot.com/2012/01/hope-for-better-year.html).