Hiding a Full Moon With Something Other Than Pants

In case you've been living under a rock this past week (or on the moon *snort*), there's a full lunar eclipse tonight in a little under two hours (at the time of posting). Lunar eclipses are much different than a solar eclipse because a) you can view them with the naked eye and b) they take several hours to complete. There has been a fog cover over Victoria today and I can not see any indication of stars from my apartment at this time, but nonetheless, I will hike to Central High School and park myself out in the field to see if I can see anything. Please, please, please let the clouds be gone!

If the weather cooperates, I should see something like this.

Technically this lunar eclipse doesn't fall on the winter solstice because that happens at 3:38pm tomorrow, but in the grand scheme of things, most of North America will be seeing this eclipse on the 21st so... The last time this happened was 372 years ago. If you plan on raising nerdy offspring--I can't be alone in this plan--this will be something you can tell them about for years to come. Of course, there will be another lunar eclipse in approximately four years time but not on the solstice!

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go brew a big batch of hot chocolate!

Photo Presentation

I had mentioned a few weeks back that I was going to be displaying some of my photos at work. My office was looking at leasing artwork from the AGGV but at the suggestion of one of the employees decided to display employee artwork instead. Having seen some of the work of other people who've put their name forth, I'm very excited to see the different displays over the coming months.

When you consider that I only have the last three years of my life captured in photos on my computer, I have a lot of photos (as opposed to alot of photos, which I secretly wish I had). After much deliberation (and perhaps some cough syrup) I decided to go with photos that played with light and was some how able to narrow it down to five (again, cough syrup).

Morning Sunbath

Magi y Chai, Tanzania

Dhow and Sunset

Nungwi, Tanzania

Gary Oak Sunshade

Victoria, BC

Shell Centrepiece

Victoria, BC

Barrel and Vines

Victoria, BC

I made the pictures as large as I could for the post but if you click on them you get ginormous size!

GBC Book Review: The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency

First off, multiple people recommended this book to me because I've lived in Africa. Little geography lesson: this book is set in Botswana, I lived in Tanzania. Not the same place. Botswana is in southern Africa, Tanzania is in east Africa. Although they share more in common than they do with many west or north African countries, it's like telling someone who lived in BC that they should read Anne of Green Gables because they spent time in Canada.

Having said all that, one of things I did really like about The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency was its imagery of Africa. Without going overboard on the sentimentality, Alexander McCall Smith did a good job on creating a vivid image of Botswana. There was a balance of both the good and bad aspects of living there which I appreciate. It is so common for books, both fiction and non-fiction, to sway to either end of the spectrum when it comes to life in Africa. Smith does tend to look more at the good, but he doesn't shy away from talking about the bad.

Given all the talk and praise I had heard for this series, I actually wasn't that blown away by the first book. A series of unconnected mysteries which are often solved with very little fuss are held together by the overarching story of Mma Ramotswe, who has opened Botswana's first detective agency run by a woman. I love a good detective novel. I love trying to solve the crime before the protagonist but this book didn't really allow for that and that stopped me from really getting into it.

I have the second book in the series and I'm sure I'll get around to reading it, but it has moved down my list in order of importance. Overall, if you're looking for a light read for the beach or your daily bus commute into work, this is a good mindless diversion. If you're looking for a gripping whodunnit that you can sink your teeth into, stick with Agatha Christie.

One Flu Over The Christmas Nest

Sign Number One that I'm not over the flu... I think my title is hilariously punny!

I've been laid up with a nasty, nasty flu for the last four days. Today is the first day that I woke up and actually wanted to get out of bed... as opposed to the other days when I only got out because I get better Internet reception in my living room and without cable, that's my only way to watch TV.

Don't get me wrong, I still sound like I should be in some sort of quarantine, but I can hold a thought for longer than five minutes so that's a win in my books. I've been meaning to post stuff (hey, I'm stuck at home, why not write?!?) but instead, I'd open a post, stare at the screen until I was done my cup of tea, and then just watch another episode of Being Human. Very productive few days around here, let me tell you!

I wasn't scheduled to work today so instead, I'm going to tackle the Christmas shopping while the stores are (hopefully) still relatively empty.

Recommended Online Reading

I'm writing another post as I type this but the hour is creeping closer and closer to my Boozy Brunch with my three favourite ladies so I really should get off my butt, shower and put on some pants [EDIT: Actually, with these fine gals, pants are optional]. So instead of my post, I'm going to give you a link to an awesome site I discovered thanks to WilWheaton and BadAstronomer.*

It's called The Big Picture and everyone should have it in their RSS feed. (I also think everyone should have an RSS feed but that's another post). It's a daily story told in pictures. From current news stories to collections for a retrospective, the photos are Ah. Maze. Ing. There was a recent one about the sulphur mines in Indonesia. It's both breathtakingly beautiful and heartbreaking at the same time (the lack of gas masks for the miners just tears at me). But my favourite part about the Big Picture? This is the third year they have done a Hubble Pictures Advent Calendar.

Merry Dorkmas to me!

*Everyone with a passing interest in science should also have the Discover Blogs in their RSS feed. Then you get to follow awesome people like Bad Astronomer, Science Not Fiction, and Not Exactly Rocket Science.

Frohe Nikolaustag!

It's St. Nicholas Day. In Germany and Switzerland (and other parts of Europe, but they're the ones I know) this is the morning you walk up to gifts from St. Nick placed in the stocking at the end of your bed (or just the end of your bed if it's too large) and then Christmas is just gifts from your family.

My ex's family used to send me separate gifts for today and Christmas but now that they no longer work in the post office, they just send them all at once so I don't have the little surprised to look forward to in early December. I was feeling a little bummed about that this morning until I found this link.

Oh NASA, thank you for the St. Nikolaus Day present.

Open the Gates and Seize the Day!

What is sure to be an incredibly busy weekend (meeting in Shawnigan tomorrow morning, staff party tomorrow evening, hangover on Sunday...) kicks off with a good old fashioned girl's night tonight. Tonight I get to introduce two of my best friends to one of my all-time favourite films of my childhood: Newsies.

This movie defined my tween years. My best friend (whose name I will keep hidden for fear she will hunt me down and beat me) and I would rent it almost every Friday night for a year before my mom finally bought me my own copy. We knew all the words, sang along with the songs, and incorporated some of the choreography into our own dances. It was, in all honest, a wee bit of an obsession for us. We may have even created back stories for some of the characters, and continued the story line after the movie. May have. I refuse to actually admit to that in print.

I was a little shocked one night to discovered that neither of these friends had seen it. These were girls who knew lyrics to all the same musicals that I did. These were girls who had squealed with me when Patrick Swayze appeared in Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights (still waiting for #3 The Swim to Miami). These were girls who joined our facebook group "Christian Bale's Chompers Anonymous" (muh teef). In short, these were girls who should have seen Newsies multiple times!

Luckily, one of their sister's (who has seen Newsies and has loved it as much as me) totally agrees. We discovered our mutual love of the film when I made a comment about it on facebook. I had just received the DVD for Christmas (my love for Newsies is well documented in my family so when someone saw the DVD while shopping, they knew it had to be in my stocking on Christmas morning) and, of course, had to watch it immediately upon returning home. I still remembered all the lyrics despite not having seen the film in at least 10 years so I worked the lyrics into a status update thinking no one would get it.

Someone did.

We've been planning this evening since that comment. It's finally going to happen.

Dese is for da Newsies!