I haven’t posted anything on the blog recently as I just last week returned from a conference in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The image you see here is of the famous Sugar Loaf Mountain as seen from the even more famous statue of Christ the Redeemer which overlooks the city.
The image was tweaked and cropped in Lightroom and made into a black & white using Nik Software’s Silver Efex Pro.
A few weeks back we hiked the Pu’u O’o Trail, which starts from the 22-mile marker on the Saddle Road. It’s a really nice hike which takes you in and out of forests of ohia trees and open lava fields.
We came across some berries which I cannot name. Of course, this is going to cause havoc to my tagging and keywording, so if there is anybody out there who recognises them and knows what they are called, then please leave me a comment!
We have to do this hike again, simply because we didn’t complete it. Nevertheless, there and back again made it more than a 4-hour hike, and Mira only began to moan about it after 3 hours – not bad for an 11-year old I think.
It was ever so peaceful, with the only interruptions to the silence being birdsong.
Mad…. absolutely mad!
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/02/tough_guy_challenge_2009.html
This was a quote from our observer of the past few nights as I talked to him last night. They had just abandoned the summit because of the high winds. It is now Saturday morning and, as is customary for most Mauna Kea astronomers, I checked the weather page.
This is what I found in the UH88 panel.
I don’t know if the UH88-inch telescope’s anemometer has got stuck or is broken, but I suspect that it has as 125 mph seems really high to me, especially as you compare to what is currently being measured at the other telescopes. I’ve just tried a couple of reloads over the past 10 minutes and all of the other numbers have updated slightly, except for the wind speed. Comparing to UKIRT (which is next door to UH88-inch) the wind is ONLY at 50 mph.
Looking at the JAC’s meteogram we can see the wind speeds measured at UKIRT and JCMT over the course of the night.
The line at the top is UKIRT and that below is JCMT (which lies in the valley below and west of the summit and so usually registers lower wind speeds). It seems like we hit a peak of 90 mph last night and its about 60 mph as I write this.
I guess it’s fair to say that there is still a stiff breeze blowing.
Found this over at John Nack’s site originally from the Onion News Network. Very funny.
Apple Introduces Revolutionary New Laptop With No Keyboard
As with all things geek-and-gadgetary, I’d wait for v2.0 if I were you. Apparantly, that one will be lighter “due to its lack of screen, hard drive or wheel”.
One of the Christmas presents that Mira received from us was the adoption of a dog, called Robin, from the Rainbow Friends Animal Sanctuary, based in Kurtistown just outside Hilo. Yesterday was the first opportunity we had since Christmas to make our first visit. I must say that I was really impressed by the facilities and the amount of care and space that each animal has. Rainbow Friends is a non-kill animal sanctuary and all the animals are well taken care of. They take in dogs & cats which haven’t had a slice of luck in life, care for them and then try to find new homes for them if they can.
The adoption scheme we went for allows us to visit Robin at least once a week. We met Robin for the first time yesterday. She is very gently and friendly and at 7-years she still has lots of energy (yes, she has a boy’s name!). Robin has lots of friends to play with at the Sanctuary and lots of space to play in. To get to know her better, we took her for a long walk in and around the grounds.
As we are still living in rented accommodation whose contract doesn’t allow us to keep pets (we do have a goldfish though ….shhh) adopting Robin in this way is the next best thing. And we are helping out a good cause. The Sanctuary needs as much support as it can get. All the people that work there are volunteers (the Sanctuary cannot afford to pay anybody) and the dedication of the volunteers is remarkable and admirable. If you are able to help in anyway then visit their website to make a donation, or go along to the Sanctuary and maybe even adopt an animal for yourself.
Meeting for the first time
We had a really good christmas this year and Santa was good to all of us. We somehow managed to get ourselves onto the right list – a clerical error perhaps?
As reported by Tom, the weather throughout the Xmas period was very wet and stormy. Not just rain but thunder and lightning also, which kept us awake for most of Christmas night. We were getting up to 1-2 inches of rain per hour at the height of the downpour. I didn’t realise how bad it was until I read the following on the weather underground web page:
… Record daily maximum rainfall set at Hilo Airport…
A record rainfall of 9.84 inches was set at the Hilo Airport
yesterday. This breaks the old record of 3.56 inches set in 1981.
That’s almost THREE TIMES more rain than the previous record! But at least we on the Big Island kept our power. On Oahu power was lost last night and as I write this at around midday, power is only just coming back to parts of the island.
The reason this concerns us is that we leave for Oahu in just a couple of hours. As a surprise present this Xmas, I got tickets for us to go and see a performance of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony by the HSO at the Neal Blaisdell Concert Hall. One day soon, I may show you the picture of the moment when I made my wife cry on Christmas morning!
Ok – it’s officially christmas in the mirmilant household:
The girls spent most of the morning decorating the new tree (except the lights, apparently that’s daddy’s job!) and the front of the house. And this evening, we put the lights on, lit some candles and I decided to put the camera on a tripod and experiment with the lighting and some long exposure shots.
Snow arrived on Mauna Kea as reported in the post below and by Tom. Some neighbours of ours actually drove up to collect some snow in their trunk. This is a tradition here as soon as the snows come in the winter. You see many trucks going up to the summit. The people get out and shovel snow into the back of their trucks (or trunks of cars as in the case of our neighbours!) with their tees, shorts and flip-flops, and then drive back down before it all melts!
Mira decorated our one beautifully, complete with hula skirt, flower behind the ear and hat to protect from the sun!
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