Month: September 2020
Aurora Borealis
Besides family members, there are other Instagram accounts I follow, such as iflscience, lightsnature, lovely_earthshotz, iss (Space Station), setiinstitute, starlitlandscapes, nasa, and others. Recently, one of them posted an aurora borealis video that not only blew my mind but brought tears to my eyes. I thought, “If anyone wanted proof there’s a god…” Of course, I know the scientific explanation of how these lights are created. But, the fact that such mesmerizing beauty can result from a few cosmic particles interacting with a few other particles seemed to raise the question, “Why should it be that way?” This reminded me of the old adage about a tree falling in the forest, whether it makes a sound if there’s nobody there to hear it. Would the incredible beauty of the northern lights exist if there was nobody there to see it? If one generalizes from that question to all of the other beauty that exists in nature on our little planet, not to mention the cosmos, perhaps one would discern an answer to the age old question, “Why are we here?” Seems obvious to me at the moment.
Time to Paint
September 26, 2020
General
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John
It’s a Saturday afternoon and I thought it was a beautiful day for doing some of the work outside that the painter wants us to do before they start on Tuesday. As a result of the interior painting fiasco in the first quarter of 2019, we have a LOT of stuff piled outside the back of the house. It all has to be moved away from the house so they (not the same painters, of course) can get to it. As I said, I thought it was a beautiful day to do work outside. I’m back inside, sitting in front of a fan, drenched in sweat, trying to cool off and regain some confidence about not dying from over-exertion. Turned out to be 90 or more degrees with “feels like” around 93 or so. I remember when I was younger and would grab a tennis racket and my son and play for hours on a day like this. Is how I feel now the result of bad conditioning or old age? Both, probably. Maybe I’ll see if I have a picture of that junk out back. Did I mention I’m composing this on my phone? I don’t see an icon or anything that looks like how to insert a picture. Did I mention that the painters are former teachers from Stephen’s and Kimberly’s junior high school days? It’s true.