Friday, February 22, 2008

Ventura CROP Hunger Walk 2008

CWS CROP Hunger Walk half-banner
It's time to start recruiting walkers - we're holding this year's CROP Kickoff this coming Sunday at 2pm. Although the walk will begin and end at the usual place, Ventura First United Methodist Church, the Walk to Emmaus is using the church this weekend so we're holding the kickoff at the Unitarian Universalist Church on Ralston. Join us on April 13th!

These videos don't mention that 25% of what we raise in Ventura stays in Ventura. The money will go to Project Understanding, Catholic Charities, Family to Family, and FoodShare.

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

A Total Lunar Eclipse on a Clear Night!

The last total lunar eclipse until 2010 happened tonight and I actually got to see some of it! I was at work but went outside a few times and saw these phases. (After having used the GoodWidgets photo stack on March 1st, I liked it so much I'm re-doing this set of photos so they don't take up so much scrolling time.)
The disadvantage to these stacks is you can't click on the photos to see them in their original larger size. So I've left the later stages in their own individual shots.
Here are some diagrams from the StarDate Online site that illustrate what happened:
By the time work was over, the moon was coming back:
By the time I got home, the moon was full, and pretty soon, it was in the clouds and back to normal!


Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Presidents Day Ski Holiday


We just got back from a great four-day holiday to visit and ski with Sam and Jenn. Dick connected with us and we all had a fun time - great spring conditions after the massive snow dumps of a couple of weeks ago! Snow is expected back much of this week, so there will be more when we come back. Click on the title of this posting to see some of our pictures.
I had good and bad things happen camera-wise. I fell on the last run of the day in an ungroomed area of Kirkwood and didn't realize my Pentax Optio had fallen out of my vest pocket (it was so warm I didn't wear my parka with all the good pockets). Hence, all the pictures we posed for were lost. I bought a Flip Video camera in time for the trip and used it for the first time this weekend. The videoclips are really sharp and the sound is pretty good. I'm learning to put clips together using Windows Movie Maker and created this little movie. Now if I could just learn to ski as smoothly as Sam . . .