Ben's Blog

Save a cow – eat bison instead!

We’re in the Eruv!

I spent a good part of today getting our house in the New Hempstead Eruv. It took a few hours and several 16 foot high poles to get the job done:

Now friends with infants who can’t walk yet can come over for lunch on Shabbos.

Lots o’ snow

We got about 15 inches of snow today:

Here’s a picture from early October when we installed these new lights leading to our front door:

Of course, this is nothing compared to last year (2/17/03), when we got about 30 inches:

Three cars in a row (see the side view mirrors?)

Tonight’s Lunar Eclipse

Tonight I took some pictures of the lunar eclipse using the SteadyPix mount to attach my Casio QV-2000UX camera to my Meade ETX-60AT and Celestron 8″ Star Hopper Telescopes.

The total eclipse lasted for about 30 minutes, as the moon barely passed fully within the Earth’s shadow. Even at totality, the moon was still distinctly brighter on one side. The first three images are before the total eclipse, the last two after.

Taking pictures afocally is a major pain! Hopefully someday I’ll have a digital camera with threads for attaching accessories, so I can use something like this to attach my camera to the telescope.

It was really neat watching the moon get darker – during the total eclipse, the moon was a dull red color.

Here’s a picture I took back in 2000 – since the moon is first-quarter, the sun light lit up the crater edges nicely:

This week’s ride to work

Hoo Rah! A new best AM average speed. If I were in the Marines, I would yell “Semper Fi!”, but the closest I got to the Marines was the Boy Scouts, and hollering a lusty “Be Prepared!” doesn’t have the same mystique.

I installed my new rear xenon strobe and a second headlight (see 10/28/03), so we’ll see how it goes tonight.

I tried a slightly different route today, which while slightly shorter involved a killer hill. I suspect my speed would have been even higher had I stuck to the old route.

AM Climate: Cool (55ish) and nice
Distance: 14.86 Miles
Ride (moving) Time: 46:48
Total Time: 53:40
Avg Speed: 19.05 MPH
Max Speed: 38.1 MPH

Before I left work, I installed my front fender, which kept me much more dry on the way home. Having the two lights on the fairing was the best arrangement yet, but the light still illuminates the fairing, making it hard to see. I’ll try mounting the lights on the fender and see how that goes.

PM Climate: Raining Lightly
Distance: 14.70
Ride (moving) Time: 58:06
Total Time: 1:10:00ish
Avg Speed: 15.18 MPH
Max Speed: 33.1 MPH

Here She Comes!

Here comes Hurricane Isabel – looks like it will pass about 160 miles West of our house (indicated by the red dot on the map) early Friday morning:

Am I supposed to cover my windows with plywood? It will have been over land for about 300 miles before it passes by, so it should have calmed down somewhat, but then again “calmed down somewhat” from 155 MPH winds might still be pretty nasty.

We’ve been robbed!

When we came home from buying our van last night (Wed. 9/10/03), our low voltage path lights were not working. Tonight they were also not working, so I went to check the lights in the garage – I assumed the breaker for the outsie power had tripped. When the lights in the garage came on, I thought I had perhaps unplugged the transformer for the lights. I noticed there was nothing plugged in, and if fact the cord that comes in through the garage wall was missing, so I walked around the side of the house and discovered that the transformer had been torn off the garage’s exterior wall, and the wires leading to the sidewalk lights had been cut. Grrrr. Trish will call Ruud to find out how much the thing costs, and then she’ll call the Police. We suspect it was stolen while Trish was taking me to work on Wednesday – when she came back, the garage door was open. Perhaps it had been left unlocked when I put my bike away that morning? In any case, we were only gone an hour. Oh well.

Our new people-mover

Our new 2003 Honda Odyssey LX:

…We bought it yesterday in Queens. We used the Motley Fool car buying method with great success!

Folly. Utter Folly.

Today, I received this E-mail regarding my online account application at Washington Mutual:

Date: 9/3/03
From: response@wamu.com
Subject: Re: DDATypeAccount
September 3, 2003

We’re sorry we are unable to open a new account online for you
at this time. Our decision is based on information we received from
Experian, a consumer-reporting agency. There are discrepancies with the
date of birth provided on the application.

So here’s my question: If I mistyped my birthdate (among the many pages of information I was required to enter) why not call to confirm the information? I guess if you mis-enter one piece of information, you have to start all over again. That’s just plain silly.

Answer: A lot!

I have a largish berry bearing bush (try saying that five times fast) outside my den window. Its not uncommon for me to look up and see a squirrel or cardinal munching on the berries. Today, I looked up, and for the first time, I saw a woodchuck.

He was chucking wood!

Never mind the berries, he was eating leaves and branches. A member of the Marmot family (Marmota monax, to be precise), the woodchuck, or groundhog (also known as the “Whistlepig”, apparently) is a largish rodent, about the size of a cat:

It was raining quite a bit – they don’t always look so soggy.