Venus is bright tonight
06/06/2012 11:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
izmeinaStrange days in Serpent Land. It has been a long long day. First the six hour stint at the mad house starting at 7am and resisting the temptation to spend this rainiest of days curled up in the serpent sack, slinked off to downtown Dursleyville followed by the favorite haunt of Freo.
A mad mob called Living Smarties have meetings on the first Wednesday of the Month. Missed the last one and did not want to do the same this time.
The original plan was to go straight to the pretty old port town. But a visit to the happy hippy haunt at Juicy Beetroot Cafe last Friday led to the discovery of a leaflet announcing the goodbye tour of one Bob Browne. This event just happened to be taking place at the local council meeting hall. This is one seriously convenient location. Silly Izzie should have gone online that very evening to book tickets but was a complete nervous wreck that day. Procrastinating python that the Izzie is, left this important matter until Monday. By then the event was officially sold out. But it turned out there were double bookings. Found this out on Tuesday evening when an email said that we could ring and book by credit card. But aside from having no juice in the mobile phone, first venturing online around 8pm was way past office hours. The only thing to do was to visit the Greens HQ the very next day in search of tickets.
The official position is still that the event is all sold out. Gave them the Izzie owlery location and mobile phone number just in case and will most likely take the chance of just turning up in case of last minute cancellations
But it was sort of ironic that this deviation from the original plan meant that a visit to the Juicy Beetroot cafe was no longer possible
Did attend the Living Smarties event about the experiences of a couple in their grand adventure of not just one month but living a whole year plastic free.
It was educational and interesting and the serpent is certainly tempted to try such a crazy thing. But could also quite happily have slinked off earlier to the Lair for lots of online lurking and celebration of this supremely beastly day
But the other big event of the day that the serpent did not witness due to goblin slavery and cloud cover was a certain astronomical incident
Radio National has been obsessing over the transit of Venus for the last week or so.
Saturday and Sunday were full of juicy stories about this event. The serpent ears were most definitely glued
On Sunday as part of the annual Fremantle Heritage festival did the graveyard tour. This started at 2pm but the serpent arrived early. While pottering around the cemetery was listening to a radio broadcast about the history of the up and coming auspicious astronomical event
Got to thinking that the Izzie favorite activities include star gazing and visiting graveyards. What a wonderful way to put our puny human existence into perspective
While slinking amongst the graves got to hear a most interesting quote
"Jeremiah Horrocks: [Reading] I watched carefully on the 24th from sunrise to nine o'clock and from a little before ten until noon and at one in the afternoon, being called away in the intervals by business of the highest importance which for these ornamental pursuits I could not with propriety neglect"
Got to thinking that his main claim to fame some 400 years after departing this mortal coil were these very observations. No one know knows or cares about his 'business of the highest importance' and the so called 'ornamental pursuits' are now Jeremiah Horrocks's link to 'immortality'
20/20 hindsight is a wonderful thing.
At first was a bit miffed to discover that the serpent would be at work at the time of this auspicious event but then as more explanations were forthcoming got to thinking that if the transit involves Venus crossing the path of the sun it would be a most stupid thing indeed to attempt to peek. It would be sort of like a baby solar eclipse or like watching a pimple moving across the surface of an egg.
Did potter outside and take a few token peeks at the vague blob of light that was the sun hidden amongst all the clouds
Well at least unlike some 400 years ago we have the internet and lots of pretty pictures for those of us who did not get to see the action in real time
One astronomer said that around the time of the last transit in 2004 his son who was of the 'Harry Potter generation' raved about the Marauder's Map where you could see your own location and that of other people and 'isn't that just amazing?" He added that some 8 years later thanks to GPS and smart phones this fantasy is now reality and who knows what cool gadgets will be around in time for the next transit of Venus.
Izzie must pay a visit to some astrology websites to see what sort of spin they have. Since this event is only viewable by telescope and only in the last few hundred years it should not have been given much significance in the past
But somewhere off the coast of Australia, a bunch of folks in a poky little boat built in the image of James Cook's Endeavour will have been star gazing too
The original voyage changed everything. If not for Captain Cook's secret mission from His Majesty's Government to be pursued after the transit of Venus observations, the froggies or the Dutch might have settled in Oz before the Brits. Izzie or her ancestors would have never darkened the shores of this strange southern land and she would have been one of many homogenous flobberworms living a miserable existence in the wild west of Ireland
It seems that the most important matters in life are randomly determined. If playing dice is good enough for God then it is also good enough for Izzie
A mad mob called Living Smarties have meetings on the first Wednesday of the Month. Missed the last one and did not want to do the same this time.
The original plan was to go straight to the pretty old port town. But a visit to the happy hippy haunt at Juicy Beetroot Cafe last Friday led to the discovery of a leaflet announcing the goodbye tour of one Bob Browne. This event just happened to be taking place at the local council meeting hall. This is one seriously convenient location. Silly Izzie should have gone online that very evening to book tickets but was a complete nervous wreck that day. Procrastinating python that the Izzie is, left this important matter until Monday. By then the event was officially sold out. But it turned out there were double bookings. Found this out on Tuesday evening when an email said that we could ring and book by credit card. But aside from having no juice in the mobile phone, first venturing online around 8pm was way past office hours. The only thing to do was to visit the Greens HQ the very next day in search of tickets.
The official position is still that the event is all sold out. Gave them the Izzie owlery location and mobile phone number just in case and will most likely take the chance of just turning up in case of last minute cancellations
But it was sort of ironic that this deviation from the original plan meant that a visit to the Juicy Beetroot cafe was no longer possible
Did attend the Living Smarties event about the experiences of a couple in their grand adventure of not just one month but living a whole year plastic free.
It was educational and interesting and the serpent is certainly tempted to try such a crazy thing. But could also quite happily have slinked off earlier to the Lair for lots of online lurking and celebration of this supremely beastly day
But the other big event of the day that the serpent did not witness due to goblin slavery and cloud cover was a certain astronomical incident
Radio National has been obsessing over the transit of Venus for the last week or so.
Saturday and Sunday were full of juicy stories about this event. The serpent ears were most definitely glued
On Sunday as part of the annual Fremantle Heritage festival did the graveyard tour. This started at 2pm but the serpent arrived early. While pottering around the cemetery was listening to a radio broadcast about the history of the up and coming auspicious astronomical event
Got to thinking that the Izzie favorite activities include star gazing and visiting graveyards. What a wonderful way to put our puny human existence into perspective
While slinking amongst the graves got to hear a most interesting quote
"Jeremiah Horrocks: [Reading] I watched carefully on the 24th from sunrise to nine o'clock and from a little before ten until noon and at one in the afternoon, being called away in the intervals by business of the highest importance which for these ornamental pursuits I could not with propriety neglect"
Got to thinking that his main claim to fame some 400 years after departing this mortal coil were these very observations. No one know knows or cares about his 'business of the highest importance' and the so called 'ornamental pursuits' are now Jeremiah Horrocks's link to 'immortality'
20/20 hindsight is a wonderful thing.
At first was a bit miffed to discover that the serpent would be at work at the time of this auspicious event but then as more explanations were forthcoming got to thinking that if the transit involves Venus crossing the path of the sun it would be a most stupid thing indeed to attempt to peek. It would be sort of like a baby solar eclipse or like watching a pimple moving across the surface of an egg.
Did potter outside and take a few token peeks at the vague blob of light that was the sun hidden amongst all the clouds
Well at least unlike some 400 years ago we have the internet and lots of pretty pictures for those of us who did not get to see the action in real time
One astronomer said that around the time of the last transit in 2004 his son who was of the 'Harry Potter generation' raved about the Marauder's Map where you could see your own location and that of other people and 'isn't that just amazing?" He added that some 8 years later thanks to GPS and smart phones this fantasy is now reality and who knows what cool gadgets will be around in time for the next transit of Venus.
Izzie must pay a visit to some astrology websites to see what sort of spin they have. Since this event is only viewable by telescope and only in the last few hundred years it should not have been given much significance in the past
But somewhere off the coast of Australia, a bunch of folks in a poky little boat built in the image of James Cook's Endeavour will have been star gazing too
The original voyage changed everything. If not for Captain Cook's secret mission from His Majesty's Government to be pursued after the transit of Venus observations, the froggies or the Dutch might have settled in Oz before the Brits. Izzie or her ancestors would have never darkened the shores of this strange southern land and she would have been one of many homogenous flobberworms living a miserable existence in the wild west of Ireland
It seems that the most important matters in life are randomly determined. If playing dice is good enough for God then it is also good enough for Izzie
