I've been meaning to post an entry for a few days now, but there never seems to be enough hours in the day. We had a fairly busy weekend, galavanting across the countryside and working in the yard.

On Friday I had a good workout on the treadmill and weights, although I was feeling a bit sore the next day. We'd gotten out of the routine for a few months unfortunately, so it has been good these past few weeks to get some regular exercise again.

On Saturday we took Carrie's old car in to be emission tested, followed by breakfast at a local pancake joint, and much shopping. We also spent a fair while raking and de-thatching the front lawn, in preparation for seeding and fertilizing. The latter task took considerably less time. I took care of the back lawn on Sunday, without being quite so thorough. With a bit of luck our lawn might look half-decent when the new grass springs up :)

We watched Cool Hand Luke, starring Paul Newman, over Saturday and Sunday. I really enjoyed that, and I'm looking forward to catching more of the chap's movies over the coming weeks. The egg-eating scene was particularly memorable....

On Sunday I did some solar observing, attaching the solar filter over the end of the telescope and hoping it'd be enough to block out the blinding light (it was). The sun was hard to find, since everything else comes up black. There was also some ghosting which added to the difficulties. I finally found it by attaching my digital camera over the 40mm eyepiece and panning around. I couldn't pick out any flares or sunspots, but it was definitely active around the edges. I took the camera off and had a gander with various eyepieces.

After I was done looking at the sun, I finally aligned the finderscope and telescope on a distant electricity pole and could see individual wires and components attached to the box at the top. Amazing! I also tried collimating (aligning) the telescope with the laser collimator, and got it closer to the centre of the primary mirror, but still not quite perfect. It ought to do for now, anyway.

I'm hoping to take a closer look at the moon now that it's slowly reappearing in the sky. That's assuming the damned clouds ever clear. I swear there weren't this many clouds before I got the telescope!

In the afternoon we went out for doughnuts and apple cider, as we do each autumn. It turns out the two places we went to we'd actually visited before, much to our surprise. We also picked raspberries at one place, which was fairly entertaining.

Oh, and an update on the raccoon menace. One night last week I turned on the outside light and saw two of the blighters woofing down seed scraps underneath the bird feeders by our back porch. They didn't look nearly so menacing, for some reason. Since then they've been back several more times, devouring kitchen scraps Carrie left out for the squirrels and chipmunks, and taking an old suet cake off our hands. I guess we've only got ourselves to blame....

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There's not much new on the writing side of things. I've sent stories out, and had some rejections trickle in. I spent a few minutes going through my list of stories in Sonar, retiring some of them to the 'trunk' and finding markets for others.

I scribbled down some ideas for the anthology, even though my chances aren't looking too good for getting something submitted by the deadline. I also had some promising ideas for the next draft of 'Keeping Time' while I was jogging the other day. I jotted all that down and will ponder for awhile.

I still owe a few people some stories, too. I'd better get to 'em soon, lest they think I'm a slacker ;)

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2005 Stats:

2005 Word count:	26,104
Stories written:	5
Total submissions:	35
Total acceptances:	0
Total rejections:	29
Waiting for response:	5
Books read:	9
Fiction Mags/Chapbooks read:	8
Audiobooks:	57

What I'm Reading:
Black Seas of Infinity, H.P. Lovecraft (SFBC collection)
Star Ware: The Amateur Astronomer's Ultimate Guide to Choosing, Buying, & Using Telescopes and Accessories, Philip S. Harrington
A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson (unabridged audiobook)
Locus January '05 (I'm waaaay behind)
Astronomy September '05, and Sky & Telescope September '05