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Issue #964
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From Russ

The Ontarion

Hi All,

I would imagine that some of you have been frustrated these past few days in your attempt to view Mercury. She is illusive at the best of time but perseverance does pay off. With clear skies the pre-dawn display has been pretty nice and includes the winter constellations moving westward, and a crescent moon moving eastward where it visually passes both Venus and Mercury. Now, it’s almost impossible to miss Venus. You’d have to be looking the other way or have your eyes closed to do so. However, Mercury is always a challenge to see because she is so close to the sun in her orbit. She is never visible when the sky is still dark and can only be seen once the sky starts to lighten. At this particular time in her orbit she can be seen at dawn, in the east (obviously) as the sun is coming up. But that creates it’s own problems. Mercury is tiny (relatively) and by the time she should be visible, the sky has started to lighten as daylight approaches. So here’s the trick. You need to know where to look. It’s that simple. Once you know where, you can let your eyes scan that little patch of sky and low and behold, a tiny twinkle of light becomes visible. To know where to look, any astronomy web site or any astronomy app will show you. If by chance the sky has become too bright for your eyes to pick her out in the growing light, you can still see her using binoculars. In fact, binoculars and telescopes can often pick out the bright planets in full daylight because they ‘gather light’. That’s how they work. The objective lens is for light gathering, not for magnification. The ‘size’ of a scope’s main lens has nothing to do with magnification. That’s a function of length to eye-piece ratio. But don’t worry about that. The point is, Mercury is currently visible if you want to see her. You just have to put in a tiny little bit of effort.

Did you know, Mercury wasn’t always the closest planet to the sun. Astronomers now figure she formed way out, perhaps even past the orbit of Mars and was bumped from that orbit by a much larger object, perhaps Jupiter but they don’t really know who or what it was. As well, it turns out there is ICE on Mercury. That sounds impossible due to the high temperatures present on her surface but there are crater holes near her poles where the sun never shines, ever. In those locations the temperature is as forbiddingly cold as the sunlit surface is forbiddingly hot. Also as well, her inner iron core is way bigger than it should be for a planet her size and the assumption is that it may have been a collision that sent her toward the sun. That collision may have blasted away a lot of her lighter materials. We don’t know and she ain’t telling.

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Most years over the past decade I’ve handed out home-grown, do-it-myself, home made CD’s of whatever music I’d been working on during a given year, as Christmas gifts. Rather than some stupid Chinese made plastic piece of junk bought at Walmart, I have always figured that something, anything, ‘made’ by someone no matter how small, little, or silly, was the best kind of gift. (Sue gives out home-made fudge and peanut brittle). Interestingly, I’ve actually had a few scoffs from a very few recipients of my self-made gifts but thats ok. I don’t bestow gifts upon those individuals any more. Where I’m going with all of this is that I’m putting together another CD of the audio recordings I’ve done over the past year. (I could also put together a video DVD of some of those silly vids I’ve been doing but I wouldn’t want to subject anyone to that). I’ll be handing out my ‘latest’ CD to some of my local friends and I’m quite happy to send a copy to any of you who might want one. The catch is, you have to let me know that you want one because I’m not sending anything to anyone who really doesn’t care one way or the other. There will be 10 or 12 songs on the CD, all of which you have already heard if you’ve followed the links in these letters. So, let me know if you want a copy of my latest ‘masterpiece’. It’s that simple. You get one if you want one, you don’t if you don’t.

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Ok kids, this weeks video entertainment is another Eagles’ song called ‘The Wait’. I have no idea why it’s called that because there really isn’t anything in the song about waiting. It perhaps should have been called ‘The Load’ or ‘Take A Load Off’ or some such thing. And, it needs harmony because there is a bell chord in the chorus that required 3 voices to pull off. Well, there is supposed to be a bell chord but thats hard to do in a solo situation, so in this case there isn’t one. So, if any of you know why its called what it is, let us all know. Other than that, enjoy if you are so inclined.

The Wait

doug

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From Russ

What say?

I can think of only 3 readers who would ‘give-a damn’ about my story for this week’s Squamidian (Come to think of it – that’s about all we ever hear from!), ‘hear’ goes anyway:

It’s been six years since I had new ones – ‘plugged them in’ for the first time yesterday – wore them until I ‘hit the sack’ – found them very comfortable – could have slept with them, but why bother? Nobody talks to me while I’m sleeping (except maybe in my dreams). Wearing them as I type – gosh this keyboard is becoming noisy in it’s old age! Never knew I breathed so loud! Never knew my stomach gurgled like a plugged sink! All these years I thought it was only ‘silent gas’ I was passing! Have to get out the old oil-can – this swivel chair squeaks something awful! Can hear every footstep, even on carpet, never knew I walked so ‘funny’!

Coffee maker sounds like popping corn – hmm, still tastes OK.

Now I’m back, just took my shower. Now, I’m reading the Instructions – “Do NOT get hearing aids wet”.

Pulling them out, I quickly wiped them dry with a tissue.

“Do NOT wipe your hearings aids with ANYTHING but the special cloth provided”.

The hearing-aid technician warned me to read the entire booklet before wearing. But, the so-called booklet is about the size of the book that came with my last new car purchase – never read THAT before driving it off the lot either!

PS The female technician was a tall, slender, thirty-something, with long, shapely legs. She was wearing a mini-skirt and very high-heeled shoes. She had dark-brown, come-hither eyes, cruel lips that demanded kissing, and a cute little “tush” you could hold in two hands. She gave me full instructions about getting accustomed to the new hearing aids. I never heard a word she said.

PPS I may be your OLD Uncle Russ, but, I’m still “young-at-heart”.

Uncle Russ

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This spot is available!

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THE ONTARION REPORT

Hello Everyone!

Well the world is almost rid of Trump! Just a matter of stopping his legal BS and Biden can get on with being a real President! I’m still hoping that there is no civil war to break out because of Trump’s idiot supporters. I’m shocked there haven’t been any mass shootings by Trump’s dummies! They are a bunch of gun toting red necks for sure.

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To change the subject to something less interesting, we’ve gotten our Christmas decorations down out of the loft in the garage and Carole has started to decorate since Remembrance Day is over! Many of our neighbours are putting up their decorations as well during this lovely spring-like weather! I fear it’s all coming to an end though and the temps will be dropping out of sight soon. Guess there will be loads of snow on the ground real soon! Just thinking of snow makes me think back to when we were kids and all the fun we had sledding behind Prueter public school on the hill that dropped onto the playing field. We had so many good times on that hill with our pieces of cardboard and other means of conveyance. I had a selection of items to choose from to slide down that hill. Santa brought me a toboggan one Christmas and I had that until the Year before I got married. I also had what was called at the time a “Flying Saucer”. It was an aluminum Disc about twice the size of the lid off a garbage can. I think they are made out of plastic these days and I’m not sure what they are called in modern times.

Kids were quite creative back in the 50’s for sure. Two of our neighbourhood kids were the Beal brothers, Mike and Gord and their step father built them a “Bobsled” out of hard wood with steel runners on the bottom and it was an amazingly fast snow vehicle that would hold 4 kids at a time. We would make sliders out of anything that was slippery. I remember sliding down that hill on my flying saucer and flying over a large jump we had built out of snow and Ice. I can’t tell you how many times I almost broke my back falling off that thing in mid-air! LOL! I went flying further than the saucer in most cases! Remember coming home late after dark with my hands and feet frozen so much that I could hardly walk and standing by the heat register as we called them to thaw out. My pant legs were so frozen that my mum would stand them up in the bath tub to thaw them out for the next day! My feet and hands were so frozen and red that they would burn for hours after we got home! It’s a wonder I have any fingers or toes left to this day. I doubt that today’s parents would even let their kids out on their own to play on the hills until such late hours as we did. Times have really changed haven’t they? With Covid happening, today’s kids will most likely not have much if any winter fun this year playing in the snow. Oh well, Cavid too will eventually pass and things will get back to normal within the coming year I hope!

That’s about all for this week folks!
Thanks for tuning in and I’ll look forward to talking to you all again next week in The Ontarion Report!

Bye for now …. Greg.

PS: Something To Think About>
What did you do for winter fun when you were a kid? Drop Doug a story about your winter fun as a kid!

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