Kite Strings

Best I've been able to do from here in that department...

Got a couple shots at the International Space Station. Haven't checked the schedule and looked for many years but once I was able to see with the seven power glasses that it had a shuttle docked.

Fondish memories of the night sky at Ridgely - a bit outside of the Baltimore/Washington metropolitan area light pollution soup - of great shots at stars and planets, satellites, a really spectacular aurora borealis show.

In the spring of 1962, I think it was, at age eight my father (USN) was involved in some submarine missile testing stuff and we were down from Groton at Cape Canaveral. I remember seeing (and hearing) a test launch but there was a malfunction and they blew it up (out of our view).

Especially you millions of fraudulent voters who gave the popular tally to Hillary last time.

The rain this year in this neck of the woods has been constant, depressing, sickening, deadly. And today fell into the majorly sucked category rather nicely. But when I started out the front door at just about five to do my bit against fascism I found myself looking straight east at the right end of one of the most spectacular rainbows I've ever seen - against the dismal dark gray sky behind it. And the other end - with much clearer sky behind it - was planted at the Millersville Elementary School polling station to which I was heading. And when I got to the open farm fields stretch of road en route (where I'd been checking out the Cattle Egrets from time to time this year up to a couple three weeks ago) the sky to the west was filled with stunningly beautiful deep red frontal clouds - with a few last gasp beams of the setting sun blazing through.

Hoping all this stuff was some kind of positive omen regarding the election results.

The eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month - GMT (which is what France was using and when it took effect) - plus a century.

From Wiki: French commander-in-chief Marshal Foch refused to accede to the German negotiators' immediate request to declare a ceasefire or truce so that there would be no more useless waste of lives among the common soldiers. By not declaring a truce even between the signing of the documents for the Armistice and its entry into force, "at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month", about 11,000 additional men were wounded or killed - far more than usual, according to the military statistics.

The last American soldier to be killed was Henry Gunther, about one minute before the armistice. Another unnecessary death...

And then the Allies treated the Germans like shit, starved and humiliated them, created the conditions for the role model of our current US President to thrive, set us up for a second World War a bit over two decades later.

Been listening to radio, watching TV, going to Annapolis area programs on that history a lot lately. So horrible, sickening, sad. And I got freakin' zilch of that from my Cold War / Vietnam era public education. (My mother's father was staging to go "over there" when the plug was pulled.)

Thanks much for the contribution.

While it's still 2018/11/11 GMT...

Just got back from a book and author thing at Saint John's College in Annapolis and visited the 1920 World War One monument. Lists the students of theirs - a dozen or so - who didn't make it back. There's a John Eareckson, Class of '09. Don't know yet how he's related but obviously is.

(My mother's father was staging to go "over there" when the plug was pulled.)

My mother's father survived the war. Glad that he did or else I would not have been born.

My new toy:
http://www.world-of-heli.de/en/media/images/jr88345.7.jpg

Flown them things over a decade ago, but the new technology is bewildering. It is going to be a fun and interesting challenge getting this beast sorted out.

Here is a fun video showing what these things can do!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KjkGMeH8n4