Posts Made By: Christine Canelos Welsh

What are you doing in there??

A friend of mine gave me this plant a few years ago. After I planted it, it got immediately torn up in a hailstorm. The next year it got tromped on by painters. The next year it got tromped on by siding installers. This year it seems to have recovered okay.

Things are just booming this year. This was a scraggly plant I picked up at Home Depot two years ago on clearance. I think I paid like a whole buck or something. I must have a hundred blooms this year.

On the ballot in Illinois is a resolution to amend the state constitution to allow voters the ability to recall a governor.

In the interest of full disclosure (lest I be accused of trolling ) I have to vote on this issue in less than a week. My first reaction was "heck, YES". Upon further review, I'm not so sure. Recall elections are hugely expensive, especially for states already in financial crisis (like mine), time consuming, and most likely subject to the same kind of inflammatory campaign rhetoric as regular elections. Potentially, enough people could garner enough support to remove a governor just because they don't agree with him. There is already a process in place to remove a governor that engages in allegedly criminal actions. As such, Illinois was able to remove Blago before the end of his term. Do we really need a recall provision?

And, because I am really really really not trolling here, I am looking for opinions based on legal/constitutional points of view, not bipartisan hyperbole. I would especially like to hear from residents of California, since they personally experienced a recall vote in recent history.

ccw

I thought they were ordinary coleus seeds. Apparently not. The plants reached over feet tall and were so top heavy they toppled their heavy ceramic pots on windy days. Poppet liked to use them for cover while keeping an eye on the squirrels.

My people left for the day and I'm so depressed I can't even eat my cookie.

I'm just going to lie here on mom's pajamas and sulk until she gets home.

But if she's late, I'm going to puke on the oriental rug, I swear.

I didn't do much in the way of photography this summer. So the day before the first predicted frost, I hurried out and snapped a few of my favorite blooms.

My favorite in the fall....I love their fiery color against the ferny leaves.

Hi Martin,

We did no formal record keeping, but I thought I'd share a few observations on our viewing adventures in suburban Chicagoland.

The Geminids are my favorite shower! I haven't observed them in a few years for one reason or another, so I thought I'd make an effort this time around. It was predicted to be clear after moonset so my husband Mike and I set the alarm and got up around 1:15. When I raised the shade to see if it had stayed clear, Mike spotted a nice bright one through the window. I think that's a 'go', I said.

But when you live in the Midwest you take your changes with the weather and ya gotta be a die-hard for winter observing. The thermometer read +7 degrees F., cold even for us in December. No problem, we just needed to prepare a bit. Let's see...

Insulated pad for the lawn chairs? Check.
Insulated coveralls? Check.
Down parkas? Check.
Sleeping bags? Check.
Hand and foot warmers? Ch...uh, we're out of those. Dang...okay then,
Wool hiking socks and boots? Check. And one last thing...
the click-o-meter? Check.

We went out back only to discover that the neighbor across the yard had ALL of his shades open and his interior lights blazing. There was nowhere to set up our chairs that didn't have either his lights or the streetlights in our faces, or a tree in the way. But we made the best of it and found one patch that wasn't the worst and got ourselves situated. Within moments we were rewarded with two nice meteors that shot textbook-like right out of Gemini. Off to the races!

With a chilly breeze blowing, the cold was a bit much even for a couple of die-hards, so we didn't quite make an hour. But between 1:40 and 2:30 we clicked off 28 meteors between the two of us. Not bad for urban observing! On the whole, they were pretty typical for Geminids - white to yellowish-white, moderate in speed, leaving very little visible trails. I'd say most were in the mag 2 - 3 range, but there were at least six that were mag 0 or brighter. We estimated our limiting magnitude at the zenith to be about 3.5.

After going in for a couple hours of sleep, we got up for the day. It's still good and dark at 5:00 a.m. so I had some coffee and went back out. Mike had to leave for work so I was on my own. I only clicked off 5 more between 5:20 and 5:50 a.m. before I had to get ready for my own day. It would have been nice to stay out a little longer and watch the dawn break. Darn that day job anyhow!

Regards,
Christine

I made sure there was no one unloading any plate glass when I pulled over to take this picture..... 8O

....and you can forget about your clean floors, too. So there!