what's joe up to...

Spent today at Victoria Elementary School in Riverside as one of more than 200 volunteers from Target for our company sponsored Extreme Library Makeover - I read over 60 pages of "The Witches" to a class of 5th graders. After I got home, we drove out to Joshua Tree National Park and set up camp for a night of stargazing. The weather was really clear and the Clear Sky Clock was showing favorable conditions. Surprisingly, even though both loops of Cottonwood Springs were nearly filled, we didn't see anyone else with a telescope. It looked like a perfect night was shaping up - until... A bunch of teenage kids showed up in the next camp site over, started a bonfire, and had a bunch of flashlights/headlamps blaring. They were loud all night and the only thing good that came from them was the smell of the cajun chicken they were cooking (and it did smell good). Will and his girlfriend (Evelyn) actually drove out and got there after 10p - crazy thing is that both of them had to be at work at 6am the next morning! I think they had a good time overall. Conditions didn't end up being that great, so we kept it to fairly bright objects with the Christmas Tree Cluster being our favorite of the night. OK, so even though there was a bunch of lights ruining the darkness and smoke messing up the seeing, it was still a good night. It is always a good night when you are out camping under the stars and watching Jupiter cruise across the sky from inside your tent.

Bought a Hummer H2 yesterday. Really fun to drive and surprisingly easy. More details to come when I have a little more time to post.

We adopted two terrier mixes from the Moreno Valley animal shelter - Orion and Astro. They were brought to the shelter after being found on the street just a couple months old. They seem pretty happy here, cruising around our place, investigating and chasing each other around. They spent a good amount of time snoozing and sleeping - probably much more peaceful here than in the shelter. Here is a couple pictures of them from the shelter and then back at home tonight.

We spent some time last week in Wisconsin looking for a new place to build our home. After failing to be able to build at the Mill site , we were looking for around 10 acres of vacant semi-wooded land with some elevation change and a southern view to build on. We found a great place with a road going up to the edge of a high sandstone bluff. In the Google Earth image below, South is towards the upper right corner. We put an offer in on the property this week, hopefully it works out - this is going to be one great place to build a home. From the top of the bluff, there is nearly a 180deg view of the eastern horizon looking out around 20 miles! There aren't many other homes in the area so light pollution won't be a problem for building an observatory. Will post more once everything works out and we will start posting development plans at www.ourmodernhome.com if we get that far.

Headed out to Joshua Tree National Park with the telescopes last night. We got to the Cottonwood Springs campground before sunset, but both the A and B loop sites were full so we drove down to the nearby trail head parking lot and set up there. Unfortunately you can't camp here so we would have to drive home after we were done. We set up the telescopes (Obsession 18" UC and TeleVue NP101) and watched the crescent moon as it set over the nearby mountain ridge. It was really neat watching the dark part of the moon moving behind the mountain as it was barely lit up by the Earth shine. The night started out great, Saturn was cool with its rings nearly edge-on, then tried to make out the Horsehead Nebula but it was to far down and into the sky glow from the Palm Springs area. Looked at M51 (Whirlpool galaxy), then on to galaxy cruising in the Virgo Cluster. M61 and M104 (Sombrero Galaxy) were the highlights. By then, high wispy clouds were moving in from the southwest so we looked at M13 (Hercules Cluster) since it had come up not too much earlier and by then, you could barely make out the Big Dipper so we packed p and drove home.

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After work last night, we headed out to Cottonwood Springs Campground in Joshua Tree National Park with our Obsession telescope to do some stargazing. We got there and had the telescope and tent set up by 9pm. It was one of the clearest nights we've seen out there so far. It was also nice and cold - still some snow left around the parking from the winter storm that passed through last week.

We spent this weekend (Nov 16th) in Wisconsin surveying an 11 acre piece of property ( in this area ) that we are considering buying. It is actually quite a neat location with a large, steep hill occupying most of the acreage. After the whole mess and fall through with the Mill property, we are looking for a new place to build a home - Anne really likes it and I could go either way. It will be a difficult construction project if we go through with it, but the views from the top are great - it is one of the highest points in the area with the southern view direction being nearly flat to the horizon. It took about three days to complete the entire thing thanks to Anne's sister who was able to get us the surveying equipment. Luckily the weather held out and except for being cold, we didn't have much snow or bad weather. There was lots of walking up and down the hill carrying various pieces of equipment and after three days, I was spent. Hopefully it all works out!

We spent the day today traveling to Wisconsin via Denver and MSP.
We're here for the weekend to land survey a potential new area to
build a home. Our "plan A" hasn't turned out so good due to politics,
local opinion, and red tape (you can read about it @ www.OurModernHome.com
). The post below is a picture of the area we are looking at.

Went for a 11.5mi run this morning at Santa Rosa Plateau. It's finally starting to cool off in the mornings now. It was nice and cloudy but kinda humid (my sunglasses kept fogging up). Saw 5 tarantulas and two deer along the way.