Three Thousand Words

Last Saturday (May 16th, 2009), Adam and Lynda took Adam's nieces, Grace and Kiana, to a little beach on the east side of San Francisco Bay. Adam captured some arresting images on that outing, including these three:

To Grace's left is the skyline of San Francisco. Directly beyond her is the Golden Gate Bridge. Slightly to her right are the hills of Marin County. She is looking directly toward the place on the Bay where her father's ashes were scattered two years ago.

Kiana tries to give her passenger ladybug the benefit of the doubt.

We can all fly, you know? We just have to try. And we just have to believe.

(All photos by Adam Harrington, who, I hope, will post them to his Flickr account without too much nagging by his father, who really wants to reference them from his own Flickr account. But I'm not pressuring him, no, of course not.)

100 Days On

Oolie, graphic effects by Photoshop.

Thursday marked 100 days since this remarkable cat wandered away into a place where I can't communicate with him. What's remarkable about that is that I noticed the occasion. I've lived with more than a dozen mammals who have pre-deceased me, and the only ones whose anniversaries of departure stick with me like this are of the two-footed variety.

Except for Oolie, the Black Freighter, evidently.

And his absence continues to have odd repercussions among the remaining cats, well beyond what we'd expect. Oolie was, unquestionably, the top cat, the ace, the big deal, the boss. Never mind that it had been years since he was physically capable of beating up anybody... his aura and attitude was all that he needed to intimidate. When he vanished, three of our five remaining cats were in a pickle: who's the boss? They still haven't figured that out! The clear favorite is big Alnitak, the tall Maine Coon with a sometimes nasty attitude -- but the other two ace-programmed males, Finn and Al's nephew, Cooper, don't seem to be willing to let that happen by fiat. There isn't constant bickering, but there isn't the common deference that there was toward Oolie.

And his absence continues to have unsettling repercussions among the remaining two-footed critters around here, too. We see him all the time, striding around the periphery of our vision.

Defiance Redux

Doug's old band, Defiance, is at it again. They are in the finishing stages of production of their first new album in years, and you can get a tiny taste of it below, in a video taken in studio by the lead guitarist's, Jim Adams's, wife, Siobahn.

Jim was always, and continues to be, just damn good.

Here's Jim, laying down some lead tracks. This ain't no flying-V ukelele player, folks.

The Best Ball of All: Baseball at the Edge of Teen

This post is for Andrew Rusca.
But anybody else is welcome to watch the game, of course.
Please click on the images to see much better versions.

Looking in from behind the right field fence, first inning. The venue is the Will C. Wood School's baseball complex in Alameda, California, an island city in San Francisco Bay. The right fielder, #13 on his back but #1 in our cheers, is Andrew. (Photo by Adam Harrington.)

Last Saturday, April 18th, Adam and Lynda invited me to Alameda to watch Lynda's son, Andrew Rusca, play with his Little League team (the Diamondbacks) against the league's A's. It was a gorgeous day for a little drive, and a great opportunity to see how Little League had changed since I was of that age. (Not much, really, as it turns out: the uniforms are fancier, and there are a lot more regulations concerning safety and injury issues, but a fastball is still a fastball, a line drive into the left field corner is still pretty surely a double, and the big kid on the other team who yells a lot is still a jerk.)

Andrew started the game in right field for the Diamondbacks. Here he measures a fly ball for the grasping. (Photo by Adam Harrington.)

I had hoped to see Andrew pitch, since he does very well on the mound, but he had pitched in the team's previous game and according to pitch-count regulations was ineligible to pitch on Saturday.

The view from right field in the first inning. (Photo by Adam Harrington.)

Above: In the bottom of the second inning, Andrew (batting fourth) led off and made his way to second base, but only after two were out. He leans toward third (actual off-base leads are forbidden in Little League until the pitch is thrown, just as was the case half a century ago)...

... and, rounding third, tries to score on a single...

... makes a textbook slide as the throw from the outfield comes to the catcher...

... and is CALLED OUT ON THIS PLAY. Can you believe it?? After this play, the Diamondbacks' manager came out to argue with the ump, but to no avail. (To all of our credit, the adults in the stands didn't make a peep -- but, damn, he was safe. Really.)

Between-innings entertainment: a gorgeous, elegant CKCS-Terrier mix enchants the photographer.

Adam and I talked about Andrew's batting stance and swing between his first plate appearance and his second (above). Andrew's a big kid for his age, and really, really wants to pop one over the fence -- an urge that can lead a kid to overswing and try to "kill" the ball, leading to an undisciplined, unproductive effort. Adam expressed some worry that Andrew was falling into that trap, but I didn't see any evidence of it on Saturday. What I did see was a patient, controlled batter with a compact, efficient, level swing -- the kind of batter I hated to see half a century ago when I was a pitcher!

... and, in this at-bat, that compact, level swing paid off with a laser-shot double down the left field line.

Andrew coasts into second base as the throw comes in from the left fielder to the shortstop.

Andrew surveys the territory from second base after his double.

Ready to go to third...

... where he is stranded as the third out is made. No matter how good you are, you still need your teammates to come through.

Mid-game, Andrew was moved from right field to first base on defense. Above, he takes a throw from the third baseman on a ground ball...

... recording the forceout at first, but -- seeing a runner break toward home from third base...

... fires the ball back to home, where the runner is O-U-T. Double play!

A later at-bat, and that great compact swing is still alive...

... putting Andrew at first base...

... from which he takes off for second...

... and puts on another sliding-form clinic. Better result this time, though.

He eventually makes his way to third...

... and the batter slices one that might allow Andrew to score...

... but it wasn't to be. Baseball, she breaks your heart.

As I drove back South after the game, across the causeway from the island of Alameda to the East Bay mainland, I stopped to look across the estuary to the Oakland Coliseum complex.

It struck me that my sons and I -- and, as they matured into men, their families and I -- had sat in those stands for many, many afternoons over the past 40 summers, and always the final score was important when we left. Did the A's win? Did the A's lose?

And I was struck by the fact that I didn't even remember the score of the Little League game I had just seen. I had been connected to the details, not the uniforms, as I was when I played the game. What I remember most clearly about playing the game 50 years ago, when I was Andrew's age, are the little things -- the pitch well-thrown, the ball well-struck, the out or the safe arrival at a base -- not whether my team won or lost. Watching Andrew go through the details of his game took me back to that sense of baseball, and he handled those details extremely well.

And that pleased me.

Thank you, Andrew, and I hope to come back to watch you play again sometime soon.

I Used to Be Able to Do That...

... when I was a lot younger. I think.

Grace-the-Granddaughter.
Photo by Lynda Hermosa.

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Lookit What I Got In the Mail TODAY!

... one in an ongoing series.

PART I: COOL STUFF IN THE MAIL:

OH MY

Oh my, oh my, oh my.

I have heard its praises sung in academe, its values debated in high halls, its import profoundly enunciated from all the far-flung corners of realms governed by TCP/IP, and its products displayed on every monitor and slick paper, everywhere.

Photoshop.

I never had it in my hands, though. Until now.

Two thoughts:

1) It's a good thing that I spent my first 61 years doing other things, because the next 61 are probably going to have to be devoted to figuring out how to use this damn' thing, and

2) Thank God (and Martha) for deep academic discounts. I feel like I've just gotten the keys to a Maserati for $1.98. How does any ordinary person afford this stuff?

What's really scary is how quickly its power can be applied, even before someone becomes particularly adept with it. The disks for Photoshop arrived in our mailbox while Diane and I were in San Francisco, visiting the Legion of Honor art museum on one of our Friday "Playin' Hooky" outings. As part of that, we walked across the street to visit (and pay homage to, on this Good Friday) the San Francisco Holocaust Memorial sculpture by George Segal.

I took this snapshot of the sculpture, looking through the barbed wire toward the Golden Gate, the Marin Headlands, and freedom:

... and toward an alert-yellow traffic hazard sign, too, unfortunately (upper-right quadrant).

When we got home, the Photoshop disk was waiting for us in the mailbox. After I installed it, and after I had glanced at our photos from the day, the first thing I wanted to do was to see if Photoshop could get rid of that bright lemon distraction.

It could, and it did, with very little expertise required on my part:

No sign? Nope, no sign.
(How can any jury believe "photographic evidence" now?)

In anticipation of receiving Photoshop in the mail, I visited a number of bookshops looking for "manuals" or "how-to" books. The major bookshops had entire sections -- bigger than the entire libraries of some small towns, I reckon -- devoted to Photoshop guides. Given what I was able to do with that distracting sign with only a few minutes' fumbling, I am staggered by what I've got in front of me in the way of a learning curve.

'Scuse me while I set out to climb a virtual El Capitan! How exciting!

PART II: NOT-COOL STUFF IN THE MAIL:

Received on the same day as the Photoshop disk's upper: this major downer.

I don't care how damn' free it is, I'm not opening this offer. If I conk out, Diane will do what traditional widows do here in the Santa Cruz mountains: sometime in the next rainy season she'll drag my sorry carcass up the hollow a ways past the last cabin and into the woods, sprinkle it with gasoline, and set it afire.

Been done afore, ay-uh. Lots.

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Martha, My Dear!

Martha Kanter's Facebook Face

My friend Martha will probably be going to Washington soon, as the Obama administration's new Undersecretary of Education.

Martha Kanter is currently the Chancellor of the Foothill-DeAnza Community College District, in which I have been employed as head of (and, for a while, the only member of) DeAnza College's astronomy department for the past 20 years. I first met her in 1993, when she came to DeAnza from just down the 280 freeway. Previously VP of Instruction at San Jose City College, she had just been tapped to be only the second President of DeAnza College, succeeding the locally-legendary A. Robert DeHart.

We all looked at her like she had come from some Mel Brooks version of Mars. DeHart had been dignified and almost aloof; Martha is gregarious and joyful. DeHart was very tall and almost forbidding; Martha is about five-foot-nothing and as welcoming as your favorite auntie. DeHart had established a clear chain of command; Martha takes everyone's opinions very seriously, even students', for God's sake. DeHart accomplished magnificent things for DeAnza College. Martha Kanter did not shy from that legacy. Her ten-year term as DeAnza President terminated only by promotion: six years ago, she was designated Chancellor of our District (which we share with the older and smaller Foothill College.)

It took her about five minutes, it seemed, to win us over in '93, and it seemed like she did it one person at a time. When she arrived, I was beginning my stint as an officer in the Faculty Senate. By the time she had really hit her stride as President in '95, I had entered my term as Senate President. As a result of our positions, we served and worked together a great deal, and I had a chance to see first-hand her remarkable skills in working with smart, contentious people with high opinions of themselves (faculty, in this case, but it would later become evident with other groups, too, like CEOs of Silicon Valley principalities.)

She's a superb politician, in other words, in the best sense.

But she's also a person of great dedication to her cause: making sure that society doesn't waste its ability to benefit from any person's potential because that person couldn't go to college. She has dedicated her working life to the cause of making higher education available to as many people as possible who might otherwise have been denied access, and she has achieved astonishing things in that effort throughout her career. As Chancellor of our District, for example, she has energized the Silicon Valley high-tech community to support public education in substantial and unprecedented ways, has orchestrated a partnership with NASA and UC to transform part of the former Moffett NAS into an innovative shared technology education campus -- and has convinced the voters of our District to overwhelmingly approve more than half a billion dollars in capital expenditures for our two Colleges (including my beloved new Planetarium renovations), a record by any measure for a Community College district.

Martha is not only a believer in what community colleges can do for society, she has become a prime mover in allowing that potential to be realized in California.

And now she will be able to bring that joyful energy and vision to a national stage. Yesterday, the Obama administration announced that Martha Kanter is their choice to be the new Undersecretary of Education, a position that has public higher education as a major focus. While her nomination is subject to Senate ratification, I can't imagine that she would be rejected. I'm pretty sure she's paid her taxes.

I'm biased, I'm prejudiced, sure. But I really, honestly think that there couldn't possibly be a better person alive for that job.

God bless, and God speed, Martha.

Chancellor Martha Kanter (left) with her two Presidents: Brian Murphy of DeAnza and Judy Miner of Foothill.

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New Blogroll Link: Margaret Ryall

Margaret Ryall

Margaret Ryall is an artist and educator in Newfoundland. I found her by Googling around for Birr Castle and the Bothy, as I do frequently, since that place is so dear to Diane's and my hearts. Ms. Ryall stayed in the Bothy for a fortnight in July of 2008, researching a body of work that will ultimately comprise 16 images that, together, "read" the garden of the Demesne.

That alone would have earned her a place in our appreciation. But her insight, expertise, and ability to express the technical aspects of fine art composition and production earn her a place of significant admiration. A seminar conducted by Ms. Ryall and Brian Fies would and should command an impressive tuition, since their talents and teaching abilities are unquestionably above merely top-tier.

As an introduction to Margaret Ryall's abilities, both in creation and instruction, please visit:

Her detailed recipe for critique, and
Her keen advice concerning enriching a center of interest in a visual composition.

While couched in terms of painting, this latter piece is equally applicable to photography. (And while not so directly applicable to cartooning, there is much that she says that could inform line-art structures. I think.)

As I often say, I'm hard-pressed to draw anything beyond a breath, but Ms. Ryall and Mr. Fies's presence in my daily reading allows me to better enjoy the works of those who can express themselves with facility and skill in visual media. They boost me along, sort of, to at least ride along on their wings and help me to enjoy the view.

And their expertise in wielding words is pretty cool, too.

Thanks to Ruth: Makin' More Noise than We Did At Home Sayin' the Rosary

(Title adapted from Johnny McEvoy's introductory chatter for his live version of "Spanish Lady.")

Two people whom I have never met, and who I don't think have ever met each other, have unknowingly conspired to take this Friday evening away from me in a most enjoyable way.

Mike Peterson recently posted this list of songs on his website. It's a playlist of sorts, one that his band in his youth, the Bogsiders, might have recorded if they ever had the chance. Longtime friend of this blog, Ruth in coastal South Carolina, took that playlist a step further, tracking down YouTube versions of the songs done by great, great Irish bands, and put them together into a collection that can be played sequentially as an album.

So I did. Several times over.

And I was thrilled, not only by the memories and inspiration and keen sadness and youthful joy that the songs evoke, but by eagerness for Diane's and my next journey to Ireland.

And, inevitably, I was drawn back into our collection of photos from our 2006 stay, and to specific images:

The high Wicklow Gap, near the site of the battle of Glenmalure, 1580.

"Follow Me Up to Carlow" (performed by Planxty in Ruth's compilation) memorializes the battle's ultimately futile victory:

From Tassagart to Clonmore, there flows a stream of Saxon gore
Och, great is Rory Óg O'More, sending the loons to Hades.
White is sick and Lane is fled, now for black FitzWilliam's head
We'll send it over, dripping red, to Queen Liza and the ladies.

... not to mention to Queen Liza's (Elizabeth's) pirate (Diane's ancestor, Drake) and godson (my ancestor cited in the top bar of this blog.)

Proud redhead, County Kerry, 2006. Maybe when we go back in '10, I'll get a picture of a Kerry pig.

From The Dubliner's version of "McAlpine's Fusiliers":

Oh mother dear, I'm over here and I'm never coming back
What keeps me here is the rake o' beer the ladies and the craic.
I come from county Kerry the land of eggs and bacon
And if you think I'll eat your fish 'n' chips be Jasus your're mistaken.

Portumna end of Lough Derg. This peaceful park became one of Diane's and my favorite places for its beauty and its solitude.

Lough Derg is essentially a wide stretch of the River Shannon, starting at Portumna in the North and stretching several miles southward to the Limerick City area, including Co. Limerick's Garryowen, immortalized in "Sean South" (performed by the Wolf Tones -- a lovely twist of an Irish band monicker -- in Ruth's compilation):

Sad are the homes round Garryowen
Since they lost their joy and pride
And the banshee cry links every vale
Around the Shannon side that city of the ancient walls
The broken treaty stone, undying fame surrounds your name, Sean South from Garryowen.

Mike, thank you for the list. Ruth, thank you for the music. Ireland, thank you.

Sometimes the banshee cry does, indeed, link every vale.

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Almost as Nice as Seeing Stars in Little Girls' Eyes...

... is having the wherewithal to put them there.

Setting up a little planetarium show for the girls, Sunday, March 22nd, 2009.
Please, PLEASE, click on the images to see larger, better versions.

This past weekend was one of those on which Ft. Harrington was blessed by a visit from some of our East Bay family. Adam and Lynda brought Grace-the-Granddaughter and her friend Scout down on Saturday and stayed in Boulder Creek until early Sunday afternoon. We figured that Grace and Scout are old enough now to enjoy a session in Granddad's planetarium, so we arranged a private time in the facility for them and other family and close friends. The planetarium is on the route back from Boulder Creek to the East Bay, so it was a convenient place for several of our friends and family to meet on Sunday afternoon.

Saturday evening: "Yes, Emma, you may kiss my hand." Grace now thoroughly understands the special relationship Cavalier King Charles Spaniels have with young humans.

Saturday evening: Grace's friend, Scout, absolutely radiates joy. (She evidently has also radiated away her incisors recently.) Here, she cavorts with the usually-elegant Alnitak. (Guinness, at lower-right, displays the only highly-reflective part of his now-adult body.)

On Sunday morning, I trekked down from Boulder Creek to the planetarium ahead of everyone else, giving myself time to set some things up -- including the above welcoming projection on the dome's simulated daytime sky...

... and it was a big hit with the girls!

Sherwood's workstation.

In addition to Adam, Lynda, Grace, Scout, Diane, and me, a number of other close friends and family joined us in the Planetarium (including Scout's Mom, Dad, and brother, and Grace's mom). My great good friend Paul, the only other full-time astronomy teacher at my college, joined us, too, giving up a good chunk of his rare free time to play with the Harringtons. So, of course, I put him to work.

I still don't have the expertise necessary to photograph planetarium shows as they unfold -- and, actually, I wouldn't have had time to do it anyway. But here's a short rundown of what we did and saw in the Magic Chamber:

Part I: We used the digital planetarium system (data housed in a bank of ten quad-core pc's) to fly around the Solar System. Particular points of visitation included Earth, the Moon, Mars (and Phobos), and Jupiter (and Io.) [*]

Part II: We used the spectacular Konica-Minolta Infinium-S new-generation optical-mechanical star projector (the blue ball in two of the above photos) to tour the nighttime sky as it would be after dark this evening in Northern California, urging everyone to go outside tonight and see it in the best planetarium of all: the real sky. Paul guided this part of the program with his typical good humor and expertise -- despite the fact that I hadn't warned him ahead of time that he'd be doing it!

Part III: We used the Planetarium's digital system to screen a short hemispherical-projection, immersive animation about what it takes to be an astronaut.

I'll depend on Adam to tell you in comments about whether or not everybody enjoyed the show. Meanwhile, I'll let the smiles in the next photo -- taken after we were done -- give you a little clue!

Most of our guests had left by the time this was taken, but we got most of the family members in! Front: Grace and Scout. Lynda is kneeling behind Scout. Back row: Scout's mom, Robin, rests her hand on Scout's brother Turtle's shoulder, two of Scout's neighbors (whose names I didn't write down!), Grace's mom Adrianne, Adam, me, Diane.

(Lucile, Ryan, Christel, and Casey: sorry you couldn't come! But there will be plenty of chances for a next time.)

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[* Because there have been requests for it, here's the playlist of the music I used for the Solar System flyaround segments:

Introduction (instrumental): Pastures New by Nickel Creek (Album: "Nickel Creek")

... and a HUGE shout-out to Dann Todd for turning me on to Nickel Creek!

To the Moon and back: Standing on the Moon by the Grateful Dead (Album: "Built to Last")
Out to 30AU: Reasons Why by Nickel Creek (Album: "Nickel Creek")
Mars: Boadicea by Enya (Album: "Paint the Sky")
Jupiter: Mo Ghile Mear by the Chieftains with Sting (Album: "The Essential Chieftains")
Jupiter back to Earth and to California: Heartland by Celtic Thunder (Album: "Celtic Thunder: Act Two")]

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Spring Pictures of My Dog

There are many, many animals here at Ft. Harrington. Three of them are dogs. Two of those, Emma and Jax, are special beyond expression, and are loved to an extent that would probably be considered obscene in poverty-ridden places.

But they are not My Dog, with a capital M and a capital D. That distinction goes to Kelsey and to Kelsey only. However, Kelsey is not cute by any stretch of the word's use, nor is he the product of multi-generations' planned breeding. He's a mutt, one found wandering in a pack in an industrial area eleven years ago. Taken to the nearest shelter, he wasn't given much chance of being re-programmed to be a good family pet.

Through a long series of co-incidences, though, he wound up in the high forests of the Santa Cruz Mountains, in a place where he could be some of what he wanted to be, and sacrifice an acceptable amount of the other things: he could be a watchdog, a guardian, a protector... and a lesser member of a pack (not expected to be the alpha, which he was never cut out to be.)

His first two or three years here at Ft. Harrington were tough for all of us, but he eventually learned his place, and our place, and the place of all the other animals here. And so we all have enjoyed a decade of great, great joy: Kelsey in his place, and us in ours, and love and confidence and joy.

He doesn't get much play here, or over on Flickr, or on PicShers, because he's such a working part of our Fort. But he deserves more, so here are recent pictures of Kelsey-the-Dog: (click, please, on each of them to be taken to larger views):

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sherwoodh/3337320944/

God bless you, Kelsey-the-Dog.

Updates: Fine Crystal and Astronomical Murder

UPDATE: Waterford Crystal Factory Still Shut Down
The venerable Waterford Crystal glass factory in Ireland is still shut down, despite its sale to an American firm. According to the most recent story in the Irish Times, the rights to the "Waterford" name will be used by the purchaser, American firm KPS Capital, but whether the goods that name will be attached to will be ones actually manufactured in Waterford is still up in the air. If, years from now, you splurge on a fine bit of glass from "Waterford," you might do well to Czech the box to see where it was really made.

UPDATE: Kepler Exonerated! Tycho Done In by Contract Hit!
About a year ago, this blog laid out a series of bits of evidence that legendary Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe was murdered, and that a prime suspect in his murder was none other than Johannes Kepler. Recent evidence seems to exonerate Kepler, but swivels the finger of suspicion at a more famous figure of the time, Danish King Christian IV. Christian IV evidently paid off a Brahe family member to off Tycho, based on some sordid family issues. There is now even some speculation that Shakespeare's famous line in Hamlet that "something is rotten in the state of Denmark" may have been an allusion to the affair, since that work and Tycho's murder were pretty much contemporaneous.