Last week, I took a class on Spring and Hibernate which sounds pretty strange unless you happen to be a Java programmer in which case it makes perfect sense. So this week, I’ve been busy trying to put my new-found knowledge to work at work. Okay, I warned you, boring stuff. Meanwhile, the basement continues …

Boring StuffRead More

Hmm, since I last took time to write we’ve come back from our vacation to Missouri, went on a vacation to the Berkshires (annual camping/astronomy trip), came back from that, emptied our basement and begun "remodelling" (in quotes because ripping out the walls and digging out the floor is more like "reconstructing"). Oh yes, and …

Too Much HappeningRead More

Hubble Creek is a small creek that runs through the edge of town in Jackson, MO and, except in the driest of conditions, always has a small flow of water with a few pools where water may be as much as three feet deep. There are some small bluegill and sunfish, plenty of minnows and …

Crayfish in Hubble CreekRead More

After a 24-hour delay, we made it to St. Louis. Having lost the first day of our vacation to travel woes meant we lost our scheduled day of unwinding and went straight into activities. Friday evening was still pretty laid back and apart from accumulated sleep deprivation, Saturday was fine. The kids had fun in …

Made it!Read More

But not by choice. We’re stuck after storms mangled all air traffic in the northeast. So the first day of vacation was spent in the airport. Let’s see, it started with car service giving us repeated assurances that they would be there in a few minutes (4-5 minutes, then 4-5 minutes later it would only …

Visiting Charlotte, NCRead More

I'll be setting up my 8-inch Dobsonian in Shore Road Park in the middle of the ball fields for stargazing with PS102 children and parents.   I know it's a bit late for a school night, but there's not many choices for this year.  Rain date will be Monday, same time and place.

Well, I’m not a happy camper after a recent go around with Canon’s online support. I exchanged email with Mike Unsold of ImagesPlus about getting both of my Canon 350XT (aka Digital Rebel XT) cameras working at once. I had originally purchased ImagesPlus after emailing Mike and learning you could control more than one camera …

Canon DSLR and Canon SupportRead More

No, this isn’t what you do once you’ve fallen asleep and your body goes on autopilot…. I recently caved in and bought a new laptop with Windows XP. I despise Microsoft and now have to deal with self-loathing for my collapse. But this allowed me to also jump to my main goal which is to …

Robotic AstronomyRead More

The Astronomical Society of the Pacific has a wonderful program called Family Astro that has various activities you can do with groups (such as families) that are fun and impart some astronomical insight. One of them is called Worlds in Comparison and involves making a set of models of the planets to the correct relative …

Worlds in ComparisonRead More

I’ll put this in the better late than never category. The PS102 Science Fair has come and gone. Jonathan did a report on Mallard Ducks. He was quite proud of it in the end, but Maria was about ready to scream before it was done. Jonathan had to do all the illustrations and writing, but …

PS102 Science Fair Post MortemRead More