Looking Outward and Learning

The Summer Triangle

By Tomruen at en.wikipedia - Own workTransferred from en.wikipedia, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11126314

Copyright © 2018

By Ralph F. Couey

Except cited references and images

Cheryl and I have started to spend an evening here and there at Ala Moana Beach Park as a way of decompressing from the pressures of our daily responsibilities.  It's a nice place from which to watch the sunset, as our Facebook friends have noted recently.  Usually by that time, the tourists have largely cleared out, so we end up with a relatively empty stretch of sand.  One of the delights is an unobstructed view of the sky as it darkens, and the appearance of stars, one by one as Earth's great beacon moves below the horizon.

I have been sitting in the back yard doing this for a few weeks and while it is peaceful and relatively cool, I don't get a huge sky view because of houses and trees.  Also, recently I acquired a free app on my phone called, appropriately enough, Skyview.  It's easy to use.  Activate it, point the phone at a particular star, and the app identifies it for you.  Granted, it's a bit cumbersome, but still, it is a great educational tool for those taking their first tours of the sky.

So, this week I learned about the asterism called "The Summer Triangle."  It consists of three of the brightest stars in the sky, Deneb, Altair, and Vega, the brightest, or Alpha stars of their respective constellations.  (An asterism, by the way, is a stationary pattern of stars in the sky smaller than a constellation.)  Never satisfied with simple answers, I undertook the task of educating myself about these bright points of light.

Walking My World

The Appalachian Trail in Autumn.

One of the most beautiful places and times in the world.

Copyright © 2018

By Ralph F. Couey

Sam Mellinger is a sports columnist for the Kansas City Star, and a regular weekly feature of his is what is known as "Mellinger's Minutes," a weekly Q&A with his readers.  Like all writers, aspiring and otherwise, I have those I read assiduously.  Sam is, hands-down, my favorite, not only because he's really, really good, but also because reading his stuff is for me a humbling experience.  I love to write, and have been a columnist in the past.  But to read his words is both to recognize the gulf of ability that exists between a piker like me and a full-blown professional writer like him, and also to continue to inspire me to elevate my own writing to a higher and more lyrical plane.

In this week's column, he discussed various aspects of the Chief's recent hard-fought loss against New England.  But he was asked by one reader to describe his favorite places to run.  That question and his response sent me into one of those treasured spaces of introspection from which good writing hopefully springs forth.

Musings On a Night Sky

The sky over Pearl City looking to the southwest

from the downloadable app Cartes du Ciel

Copyright © 2018

By Ralph F. Couey

I have taken to spending the post-sunset hours in the backyard with my feet up in a zero gravity chair looking up at the sky.  By that time of the evening, the air has cooled somewhat, and at times there is a pleasant breeze making things very comfortable after the heat of the day.  There is a lot of light pollution here, but there are still a few stars visible, and of course the brighter planets.  

Now, in the process of preparing to relocate, we rid ourselves of a lot of stuff, but somehow upon arrival discovered we had inadvertently included a pair of 10x50 Bushnell binoculars.  I'm not at all sure how we acquired them, or why we still have them.  But they have come in handy from time to time.  Tonight, remembering them hanging on a hook in our room, I took them outside with me.  

I set up my chair in a spot where I had a pretty good slice of the sky visible towards the west and southwest, free of the two large trees in the backyard and the neighbor's roof.  I hadn't consulted a star chart before doing this -- not wanting to work too hard at this -- so I wasn't sure exactly what I'd be looking at.  But the first object I turned the glasses towards was a bright point of light fairly low in the southwest.  As soon as the object came in view, I knew exactly what it was:  Jupiter.  

When I was in the Navy, one of the things I enjoyed doing after late watches was to go up on the signal bridge.  Up there was a very powerful set of binoculars mounted in a steel frame.  The purpose of them was to spot and identify ships on the horizon.  But when you turned them in the vertical direction (and as long as the ship was in calm seas) you could see some pretty remarkable things.  Jupiter was always fun because if you looked carefully, you could see several of its moons.  If you knew where to look and it was the right time of year, you could see Saturn, although the rings could not be resolved.  Mars was a visible red disk, and there were other things you could see as well.  At the right latitude, you could catch stunning views of the stellar nursery of the Orion Nebula.

The Good Parts of Walking Uphill

The day dawns over Pearl Harbor

Copyright © 2018

By Ralph F. Couey

Five weeks into our stay in Hawai'i, a semblance of routine is finally taking hold.  There is a schedule of sorts, which now provides me some spare time here and there.  As part of that, I've started walking again.

Last year, I tallied over 1,200 miles locomoting bipedally on the streets and hiking trails of various places.  I was very proud of that, especially since I exceeded my goal by over 200 miles.  Assuming, as we often do, that nothing significant would change, I set a very ambitious goal of 1,500 miles for 2018.  

Oh, the foolish whims of man...

Over the past two years at my best I was logging over 100 miles per month.  Of course, I had nothing else going on, except cooking and grampa time.  But back in April, I took a job at Target in Aurora, Colorado, which limited the number of hours I could spend exercising.  Then in late summer, Cheryl got word that she had landed her dream contract in Honolulu.  What followed was a long eight weeks of selling, donating, and storing our worldly possessions, getting the car ready to be shipped, and attending to the plethora of details accompanying a major relocation.  Hence, my mileage totals began to drop precipitately.  August, the time when we were packing, shipping, and relocating, the best I could muster was a tad less than 28 measly miles for the whole month, which in the past would have been a below-average week.  

Even after arriving, there was all we had to do to get settled in and established.  I transferred to the Target in Ala Moana, but given my responsibilities toward my 92-year-old mother-in-law, an outside job simply became too difficult to maintain.  Now, things are settling down and a rhythm is re-establishing itself.  Cheryl's oldest sister comes in on Mondays and Fridays to take mom to visit her sisters, which gives me time to shop groceries, run errands, and of course, walk.  Tuesdays we go to the Ala Wai Country Club where mom has her karaoke group in the morning, after which is lunch.  Wednesdays is Ground Golf at Blaisdell (aka Pearl Harbor) Park.  The rest of the week I stay at home, doing laundry, and keeping an eye on the aging energizer bunny, making sure she eats right and doesn't overdue things.  Saturday, Cheryl is home and we usually go to the farmers market for fruit and vegetables.  Sunday is the (thus far) 5-0 Kansas City Chiefs at 7:00 am, then church and an afternoon spent lazing around the house and sweating profusely in the heat and humidity.  In amongst those times are those hours when I can with a clear conscience don my exercise gear and hit the pavement.