Monthly Archives: July 2017

Guitar #3

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Taylor_GS_Mini_e_Koa_FLTD

I am by no means a talented guitarist, although after more than six full months of trying I can report that I have indeed been making progress. Maddeningly-slow-make-you-question-the-whole-thing progress, but progress nonetheless.

I love to twang the strings and hear them resonate.  I love to palpate my fingertips and worry at my hardening calluses.  I love to sub-vocalize the name of a note only to find my fingers on the strings in the (mostly!) correct position. I’ve come to hate my all too weak and bendy ring finger but can’t help but be inordinately pleased those few times it comes perfectly into line without the least bit of wheedling.  I even love the stupid evil what-the-hell-could-they-have-been-thinking F-Major; the barred five-string chord from hell! Continue reading →

A Personal Confession

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The truth of the matter is that I’ve had relatively little success as an observational astronomer, never no mind the embarrassing fact that I’ve been at it for more than forty years.  Resorting to numeracy, alone, there are at least at least 3×1023 stars in the observable universe (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star) yet I’ve barely glanced at a measling fraction of that whole.  Take the 4×1012 stars in the thirty-nine Messier Galaxies, for instance, then toss in a few odds and ends from the ARP and NGC yet that wouldn’t even put me within ten orders of magnitude of the theoretical total.  Not that the reality of it all is likely to be a fraction of that optimistic number.  No, I’d be astounded to learn that I’d so much as glanced upon a quadrillionth of it all.  And I’m an unabashed optimist! Continue reading →