Get back to work!

Yeah, you.

How are you mnemonics?

So here's the would-be list of the twelve known planets:

Mercury
Venus
Earth
Mars
Ceres
Jupiter
Saturn
Uranus
Neptune
Pluto
Charon
"Xena"

Or if we lower the size threshold a bit:

Mercury
Venus
Earth
Mars
Vesta
Ceres
Pallas
Hygiea
Jupiter
Saturn
Uranus
Neptune
Pluto
Charon
Orcus
Ixion
Varuna
TX₃₀₀
"Santa"
Quaoar
"Easterbunny"
AW₁₉₇
"Xena"
Sedna

Got that?

Golf

Friday afternoon golf. It takes a lot longer than I remembered.

Pow!


Almost cheating:


Putt!


Whiff!


But don't worry. He was better than I was. If only I could take my driving-range shots onto the course. And if I could have golfballs that don't sink when they land in the water. . .

Death to the Squirrels!

They've always been nasty, little, disease-carrying rodents, but now they've gone too far. A squirrel in Indiana sabotaged a power plant, knocking out electricity to 5,039 residents.

And worst of all, it was a suicide attack. This means the squirrels are serious! It's do or die, a fight to the extinction between the species. And who are you going to let win? The squirrels?

No! We must destroy them all before they destroy us!

The next time you see a squirrel, kill it. Step on it. Snap its furry neck. Tempt it with a bit of food and take a butcher knife to it. Whatever you have to do, it's worth it. It's the survival of the species we're talking about here. Death to the squirrels!

Things you don't want said about you

"If we were to hire a band of mutant orangutans, could they do a better job?"

And no, it wasn't said about me, so don't worry on that account.

How many planets do we have?

In preparation for the possible IAU ruling on the definition of a planet, which might include all mostly spherical bodies orbiting the sun, I thought I should tell you a bit about the three "new" planets they're considering for promotion.

Ceres

Ceres is the largest object in the asteroid field between Mars and Jupiter. It is named for the Roman goddess of grain, harvests, etc. Her Greek counterpart was Demeter. It was discovered quite a long time ago. Your best chance for seeing Ceres this year is right now. Ceres was in opposition on August 12. So get out your telescope and look to the skies!

Charon

Charon has been known as the largest moon of Pluto, but Charon is more than half the size of Pluto, so those IAU types are talking about declaring it and Pluto a "double-planet system." The two are locked in rotation so that they always show the same hemisphere to each other. Charon is named for the ferryman on the River Styx, which is why he's right beside Pluto.

Xena

Xena isn't really named Xena, but I don't like the provisional name of 2003 UB₃₁₃. That's just hard to say (and type!). Hopefully at the IAU conference, they'll finally announce its name, too. 2003 UB₃₁₃ is way out beyond Pluto, in the Kuiper Belt. Actually, Pluto's in the Kuiper Belt too. It's a big belt. Xena is named for the warrior princess who crossed swords with Hercules then starred in her own very popular television show. Like its namesake, the planet Xena (okay, the planet 2003 UB₃₁₃) has a satellite named Gabrielle. No really. Sort of. Until they give it a real name.

My dance card is full.

Between my dad's birthday Saturday, a golf tournament (through work) Friday afternoon, my weekly writing critique group Monday, hopefully a date Friday night, and now a backpacking trip Saturday-Sunday (which I may be able to merge with the date), my dance card for the next week is terribly full.

And here I thought I'd have a quiet, relaxing weekend at home. I'd catch up on my photo album (two months behind), get most of a chapter out of my head and into the computer, and--who knows?--maybe vacuum my condo. But no. I guess that stuff will have to wait till September.

Saturday afternoon to Sunday

Okay, I finally finished posting all the photos to Flickr. So let's finish the slideshow.

Here are some skis. Not ours. A group of three carried them up the hill so they could ski some runs on the snowfields.


On the way back down, we started running into more and more hikers. Lots of kids. Which sort of belied the "too technically difficult" stigma the Mountaineers at the lodge placed on the hike because of the snow crossings. Some of the younger hikers enjoyed the huckleberries quite a bit.


Instead of looping down around below a big snowfield, I started off walking straight across the snow toward where I could see the trail a half mile ahead. Steve followed me, but Kyle and Bruce didn't want to stray from the official trail (even though there were plenty of "trails" in that area, since it was just rock and snow. So Steve and I kept them in sight as they trudged down and across and we raced over the snow in a straight line. We got to the meeting point about ten minutes ahead of them. Here's a picture of me at that point.


The skiers took the same route Steve and I did.

So we went back to the lodge, ate dinner, and then the sun set. I ran (literally again) down to Picture Lake to snap some pictures. A man was there with tripod and big box camera. I tried to walk soft around him so not to disturb any timelapse shots he was taking.

I've been told this is the best of the sunset set:


At night, more stargazing, meteorgazing, and some dominos, scrabble, and connect-four.

The next day, after a breakfast I helped cook (I cut the muffins in half and scrambled two dozen eggs), it was time for another dayhike. This time was to Yellow Aster Butte, which was back down the road, north of the ski area. I only got one person to go hiking with me, but that's okay. I suppose I didn't try very hard to recruit anyone Sunday morning...

After a steep mile and a half, the trail levels out and meanders around the mountainside through endless meadows. Multitudes of flowers.


And wide-open views of Mts Baker and Shuksan.

I wish it had been this clear on Saturday! Do you see the little peak about halfway along the crest to the left of Baker? I was just the other side of that, playing cards on Saturday.

Within 500' altitude of the top, Yellow Aster Butte has a great many lakelets. This is only some of them.

Instead of climbing to the top, we headed down to the lakes. I wanted to go the bright blue one. When we got there, it was the same color as all the rest. Trick of the light, I guess.


I went swimming; Chunlin didn't. The water was cold, being right next to snow and all. Lunch and walk back and drive home, arriving back at 6. Gone for 49.5 hours.

Go India!

Happy Independence Day, India!

It's been 59 years since you shucked off the yoke of British rule and you're doing quite well for yourself. You're the biggest good country on the planet!

Your neighbor, Pakistan, celebrated independence yesterday, but they're not so cool. Military dicatorships can do that to a country. You're much better.

Yay, India!

Saturday 10:00 till 1:30ish

So, off we marched up the hill. Fog swept up at us, quickly dissolving into the sky along the ridgeline. Witness the next two photos, taken ten seconds apart from the same point, just in different directions:





When the fog rolls in, I don't stop taking photos. I just stop taking broad landscape photos. I focus on the little things alongside the trail. Like dew-covered lupine leaves:


From here on out, Mt Baker teased with us, showing us a shoulder or a foot. I guess we never paid enough for the striptease because she never showed her all. We sat at the viewpoint for an hour and a half, waiting. Despite the clouds, it was actually sunny. Thin clouds, you see?

Steve brought cards, so we played spades. Kyle and I won, 300± to 150±. The cards had animals on them. The queen of spades was the spotted skunk.


The clouds lifted somewhat, which meant a few things: the mountain view was even more definitely blocked, it got colder out because the sun was also blocked, and we could see down the hill to a little ice-covered lake the Mountaineers book calls 14-Goat Lake. We had time, so we went down there.


Most of the plants in that area were tiny. Mosses and the like. But there was also thistle! Ordinary Canadian thistle, growing way up in the rocks and snow. It was the tallest species around.

So here are some pics of the lake:





Can you see Mt Shuksan? This last one is the view from the campsite by the lake. I need to go backpacking there sometime, so I can explore around a bit more.

Only Steve and I ran down to the lake, Kyle and Bruce having stopped at the top of the last hill. Can you find Steve in this photo?


The hill was much steeper going up than down. Odd that.

More tomorrow.

Friday till Saturday around 10 a.m.

I left Seattle at 4:35 and lost 30 minutes due to heavy traffic north on I-5. When I arrived up at the Mountaineers lodge at Mt Baker, it was quite foggy. It cleared after sunset and shooting stars were visible.

When I finally went to bed, here was the view from my pillow:


In the morning, I finally saw Mt Shuksan out the window, so I ran (literally) down to Picture Lake to snap some photos.





I led a hike along Ptarmigan Ridge. Out of the 40 or 50 Mountaineers there, only three signed up for mine, and they were all young men. I wrote "SNOW" on the sign-up list, just so there'd be no surprises. I guess that scared off the women and middle-aged men. Oh well.

Here's the view from the parking lot:

Note the creeping cloud to the left. Its friends will enter our story later.

With a view like that at the trailhead, it makes you wonder why you want to actually exert effort. But we were there, we were ready, and we didn't have anything better to do.

A mile-plus in, we crossed the first snowfield on the trail (not counting the snow around the parking lot.

It was still icy at this point, but we made it safely across. It was the next snowfield that we had an injury on. As Kyle stepped off the snow and onto the rocks, he slipped, just about fell headfirst down the snowfield, and managed to turn around and stop himself by digging in with his fingers and knees after only fifteen feet. He didn't notice at the time (even when I asked), but he scraped up his knee quite a bit. A little blood, but no need for a bandage. We're manly men!

All in all, I figure we hiked on snow for two or three miles out of the total eleven that day.



More this evening! (Once I get home and upload more pics.)

Baker

I've been going through my photos from this weekend up at Mt Baker. The scenery up there rivals anything I've seen yet this year, including California. I culled it down to 97 pictures to post on Flickr. . .

"Sisters in front!"

I walked over to the local mosque just now to take a look at the Peace March. They were, of course, running late. In fact, the Muslim contingent was still quietly filing out of the mosque.

Overall, the march seemed quite innocuous, full of naive idealists (and Muslims supporting their "sisters" and "brothers" in Lebanon). No Israel=Nazi signs like you get at similar protests in California and wherever. Seattle is just too polite for that sort of thing.

A woman handed out cardboard flags with Lebanon's printed on one side and Old Glory on the other, with the words "United We Stand" on the red bars of the Lebanese flag (in English and Arabic (I assume that's what it said)).

I counted about a dozen uniformed police, on foot, motorcycles, and bicycles. I counted about a half-dozen reporters and media photographers, most of them poised a block down the street to capture the oncoming horde (100 to 150 marchers). The county has people with walkie-talkies keeping an eye on things so they can tell the buses when to start re-routing.

The media awaits:


Rally in the parking lot:


The mosque entrance:


Our police, biding their time:


Muslims and moonbats mingling:

If I remember correctly, the man on the left in the tan shirt was the one directing traffic to get people organized. "Sisters in front!" he called out, trying to put a friendly face on this little parade.

At least this man is even-handed:

Oh wait. Do you think he means the Israelis are the terrorists? Nah.

This elderly moonbat asked me to take his photo with his own camera:

It looks like Israel and Afghanistan were added as afterthoughts. At least he has Darfur on there, which is where the Arabs are the unequivical agressors against the non-Muslims. And neither side there trusts the UN. I wonder why.

Many identical signs:


Fun for the whole family:

The slash-"violence" sign was another mass-produced one.

March spokesman and a journalist who's dressed almost as a parody of herself:


Some more mass-produced signs, ready for anyone:


I didn't bother to see what this man's petition said:

From what his sign says, he seems oblivious to the fact that the Palestinians want to push the Jews into the sea.

Our famed bike cops, waiting:


The whole thing seemed too boring, so I left and walked back to my office.