Seen What I Can See

I rushed home from work on Tuesday evening because I wanted to experience the opportunity of viewing the planet Mercury. It was an exciting event.

I started watching the stars during the time we spent camping out in Ryan and Camilla's backyard last year. The first planet I saw was Venus, the brightest of the bodies. I then found Jupiter and Saturn. Once identified, they were easy to find with your eyes. You could make out the four moons of Jupiter and the rings of Saturn with a telescope. I then found Mars.

The only planet left to discover was Mercury, which is difficult to find because of how small it is and its proximity to the sun. The Sky and Telescope website pointed out that Mercury would be located near the new moon on Tuesday, November 30th. I waited to sunset, drove to Sunset Cliffs, and searched the western sky for Venus and the new moon. You can see Venus in the upper left corner of the photo below. The moon is in the lower right corner, but hard to find.

The next photo is a close-up of the moon. Its a narrow crescent on the right side of the photo. If you zoom in a few inches to the left of the moon you will see a blury white pixel, this is Mercury.

Both photos above were taken with my cel phone. I used the digital zoom to enhance the moon in the second image. I could not see Mercury with my naked eyes. Fortunately I brought along a pair of binoculars. I was able to see the planet using these. I took a photo through the eyepiece of the binoculars. See below.

The planet is in the upper right corner of the image but very hard to see. Mercury will appear once I zoom and crop the image above. See below.

Mercury is the blurry white dot on the lower left side of the photo. 

While the image in real life was slightly more impressive, the real excitement came from realizing I have now seen every planet that can be easily seen with either the naked eyes or binoculars. The only planets left to view are Uranus and Neptune, both requiring expensive telescopes.

I have met another novice stargazing milestone :)

Thanksgiving Dinner

Michelle hosted a group of friends and family for Thanksgiving. Marty and Wayne from Colorado, Bruce and Nancy from Pasadena, and Henry, Niki, Little Henry, and Oliver from across the street joined us for a tasty dinner in our backyard. See below for photos from Michelle's place settings. It was a beautiful evening.

Weather Watching

I spent the last few days watching the weather change at the end of Point Loma. The first photo was from a couple of days ago. The next few are from the same day but only an hour apart. There were a lot of beautiful clouds to view.

Backyard Tigers

Michelle and I joined a fantasy football league from work. Our team is called the Backyard Tigers. Here are two of our logos.

Baja California Sur 2016

Michelle and I just returned from our trip to Baja California Sur. We enjoyed the scenery and weather and caught some fun waves.

Follow this link to view a photo album from our trip.

Professional Photos

Mario, our contractor, recently paid for a professional photographer to come into our house and take pictures for use in advertising for his firm. See below for the photos. We love how they turned out!

Night On The End Of The Point

It isn't too often we get the opportunity to view the city lights from the end of Point Loma. The Cabrillo National Monument closes at 4:30 PM. Once in awhile the monument is open for a special evening event. Last Sunday Steve Correia invited Michelle and I to attend a fundraiser for the monument. We brought our camera along to capture the evening sky.

Some of the photos below are looking north to the submarine base. Others look south towards Tijuana. We were also treated to a full moon rising over the eastern horizon. A beautiful evening.

North Island and downtown San Diego.

 The submarine base and dry docks are located towards the left side of this photo.

 The lights of Tijuana.

San Diego harbor entrance.

Moon-rise over San Diego.

A view of San Diego with the Cabrillo National Monument Visitors Center on the right side of the photo. The photos above were taken from the viewing area outside of this building.

The bees are back

Michelle, Jack, and I spent the morning eating breakfast burritos on our deck. We listen to the birds and the bees. The avocado tree is sprouting new flowers and we can hear hundreds of bees flying around pollinating the crop. Looks like we'll have a full harvest in a few months.

Week 37

Michelle and I came home yesterday to find this on the kitchen counter. Our home remodel is officially complete and it brought us joy and sadness. We love our new home but we are sad we won't see Mario, Cesar, Adon, Tio, and the rest of the crew around anymore.

I always told Cesar he had a really nice hammer. He left it on the counter with a note saying it was a gift to us. It made us cry because Cesar used this hammer every day as he built our house. It was a special tool to him. 

Michelle always says we live in the house Cesar built. We love every square inch of it and we especially appreciate the friendships we developed with Mario, Cesar, and the rest of the crew. We enjoyed sharing stories and laughing around the table in the backyard.

Thank you for everything.

The end of january

It's the end of January and our project is really winding down. 

The fence has been completely installed and stained. We love the look! It has been over 7 months since we were able to look at the patio furniture. This morning I removed the remaining tools and supplies and set up the couches. We forgot how comfortable they are! 

We had some remaining tile left over from the back porch so we asked Cesar if he could install it on the front porch. Now both of our porches match! 

What's left to do? Just some odds and ends. For example, the front door has been stripped of its paint. Now it needs to be sanded cleaned up and restained. The doors to the bathroom need to have their stoppers put on. The water filter was moved from an outside location to under the house. Now they need to patch up the hole created for the water heater when it was located outside. There's a few bricks that need to be put under the fence to keep the skunks out and a few more Bricks need to be placed around in order to finish up the planters. I need to reinstall the outdoor speakers and some wiring, and when we are finished, I will probably power wash the bricks. The cabinet handles for the kitchen finally arrived. The cabinet maker is stopping by next week to install them.. 

Other than that, are project is almost complete! Michelle is parents will be here in 2 weeks. We expect to be completely finished before they arrive.