Wow another three weeks just disappeared and I've now completed my 27th lap around the sun. I always liked that description of birthdays from the late Arthur C. What have I been up to lately? Well I've been getting my fair share of whippings at chess and until a few days ago we have had a full house. Yep we had our friends Mark and Claire crashing here and then my parents came over for a week and the whole time we had Asia's family friend Anna also staying with us. So it feels like it has been pretty busy in between entertaining, eating out and general socialising. Not to mention that work has been crazy busy recently, although crazy busy is much better than dead quiet, which is what it was for a little while at the beginning of the year.
In other news, a friend of mine from Toastmasters invited me round to her house to have a look through her hubbie's home built 14 inch reflecting telescope. What can I say? It was truly amazing, the first time I have seen the night sky with anything other than my naked eyes - you might even call it a religious experience, in the atheist sense of course :). We first had a look at the moon which was impressive enough - all the contours and craters and basalt plains so close you really felt like you could reach out and touch them. We then had a look at the "star" of the night, Saturn. You know, you've seen hundreds of pictures of this majestic planet but nothing can prepare you for actually seeing it there it the night sky surrounded by its beautiful rings and intriguing moons. I really could have stared at it for hours. We followed this up with a view of the highly unstable Eta Carinae, a candidate star for a Supernovae and then checked out the famous (at least in the Southern Hemisphere. triple star system of Alpha Centauri, otherwise known as the western of the two pointers. The whole experience left me wanting more, so it's time I think to join a club and get myself an instrument.
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