Winter Solstice

Well, it's finally the shortest day of the year. Since I hadn't done it
before I knew that I needed to take a picture when the sun was at it's
highest point just to show everyone how low the sun is during this time
of year. By the hand method, the sun was at 5 degrees above the
horizon. (if you stick out your fist at arms length, from the bottom
knuckle to the top is supposed to be ten degrees. Using the "stack"
method, you should have your hand directly above your head after nine of
them, indicating ninety degrees... My hands get pretty close to that.)

From looking at this picture it does a pretty decent representation of
what "high noon" looks like. The whole panorama was taken at 12:45pm on
December 20th. The high temp yesterday was about -10 degrees
Fahrenheit, so you can also see all the steam from fireplaces and
furnaces. Also, the sun was almost directly south at this time.

Today the sun rose at 10:58am, and set at 2:40pm, which gave us about 3h
41m of sun... So the highest point the sun reaches should be right in
the middle of those times... I'd say that picture was taken very close
to the highest point.

What's the good news? Tomorrow is 13 seconds longer than today...

Ski Plane

So, I guess it was something to do on a lazy Thanksgiving weekend. I
helped my friend Steve put skis on his airplane, but unfortunately it
got too dark for us to want to take it out that night. It's amazing to
me just how light those things are, but I guess that's good for staying
in the air.

It was strange to run into a guy that just recently got his A&P license
where I was at for Thanksgiving. It's interesting enough for me to
consider school again, but not for a little while.

Haste The Day - Walk On

It seems like I've heard the song a hundred times, but when it came on the play list randomly, it seemed so fresh to me. I dono if it was because I caught some other meaning in the words, or if it's something that I needed to hear right now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GN1roEt7CVI

Lyrics:

Walk on past me
Never say my name again
I see through you
Your lies will no longer stand
Walk on past me
Never say my name again
I see through you
Your lies will no longer stand
Beauty fades
What's inside shines through
Offered all and gave me nothing
Suffocation setting in
I can't breath when you're around
Believed lies
I see through you
Somehow you see me all too well
And there's no hiding behind lies
If I could only run fast enough
Now I'm running out of time
Walk on past me
Never say my name again
I see through you
Somehow you see me but you see me all too well
I see through you
Walk on past me
Never say my name again
Walk on past me
Never say my name again
Walk on past me
Never say my name again
I see through you
Somehow you see me all too well
And there's no hiding behind lies
If I could only run fast enough
Now I'm running out of time

Paul

Smokey the Tree

Well, I finally downloaded some photos off my camera and relised that
it'd been over a month since I wrote something on this blog... So much
for trying to be better about writing this stuff...

Anyway, here's a cool photo of a tree by the place I live that kept
bending further and further over the road. I took some pictures of it
when it was clear, but the pictures of it in the smoke turned out to be
much more impressive. At some point I figured I'd come tooling down the
road and see the tree lying there blocking my way, but I never saw it
fall. I'm guessing someone cut it for firewood or something...