Post Venus Meetup
Jun. 9th, 2004 04:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skyringBloody thing. Early arvo and I set up the telescope outside, get a nice crisp image projected onto the side of the shed, where I've stuck up a white sheet of paper. At ten minutes to three there's a few thin clouds making the projected image a bit fuzzy, and it didn't get any better from there - solid cloud cover rolling in from the west covered up the whole bloody event until a few minutes before sunset when the sun peeped out from under the edge, but by that time low trees were breaking up the image and I couldn't get a clean image.
They did better on top of Mount Ainslie for those few minutes, and one of those shots made it onto the front page of the Canberra Times - an ordinary camera with a telephoto lens was used. With a welder's mask held in front.
Double-header evening just on sunset so I was rushed. SQL SIG meeting at Microsoft HQ. Security against hacking attempts using SQL injection and related stuff. Interesting and a bit of a worry.
Starting immediately after was the Canberra Meetup, this time at Starbucks in Civic. Only two others showed - this is my third and every time it's been a whole different set of Bookcrossers. Dunno what this says about me. Carol an ex-Wisconsinian and a local young lady - the same one who released those three books in Kingston that I found when looking for a PIF-RABCK last year.
We had a good old natter and swapped books.
Got home and found a 13YO girl had journalled one of the copies of Jaws I left in the orthodontist's waiting room a couple of weeks back. Sweet!
And Sonora has journalled the copies of my book sent to St Louis. Six weeks after the event. Must have had a lot on her plate, which is fair enough. Apparently one's been autographed by all present and is being sent back to me! Others are here and here and one has been kept by the Bookcrossing team.
I've been watching the birds on my feeder. Rosellas, mainly, and the odd crested pigeon or two on the bricks below, picking up the spilt seeds. Yesterday the cockatoos discovered the feeder and tried hard to get aboard. These are big birds, powerful birds, noisy birds, playful birds responsible for an awful lot of vandalism on street lights and so on. They waddled out along the dowel supporting the hanging feeder and tried to swing themselves down, but found the job too difficult and flew away. And then one decided to play with the string holding it up. Just a snip of that powerful beak and the whole thing came crashing down, spilling seeds everywhere. Cockatoo flew off happily. Lucky the terracotta bowl stayed intact and I was able to set the whole thing up again, this time using a cup hook on the end of the dowel, with a bit more cord to hold it on.
I've started a gallery on Yahoo to save pictures of the birds feeding. Please forgive my tinny little camera.
They did better on top of Mount Ainslie for those few minutes, and one of those shots made it onto the front page of the Canberra Times - an ordinary camera with a telephoto lens was used. With a welder's mask held in front.
Double-header evening just on sunset so I was rushed. SQL SIG meeting at Microsoft HQ. Security against hacking attempts using SQL injection and related stuff. Interesting and a bit of a worry.
Starting immediately after was the Canberra Meetup, this time at Starbucks in Civic. Only two others showed - this is my third and every time it's been a whole different set of Bookcrossers. Dunno what this says about me. Carol an ex-Wisconsinian and a local young lady - the same one who released those three books in Kingston that I found when looking for a PIF-RABCK last year.
We had a good old natter and swapped books.
Got home and found a 13YO girl had journalled one of the copies of Jaws I left in the orthodontist's waiting room a couple of weeks back. Sweet!
And Sonora has journalled the copies of my book sent to St Louis. Six weeks after the event. Must have had a lot on her plate, which is fair enough. Apparently one's been autographed by all present and is being sent back to me! Others are here and here and one has been kept by the Bookcrossing team.
I've been watching the birds on my feeder. Rosellas, mainly, and the odd crested pigeon or two on the bricks below, picking up the spilt seeds. Yesterday the cockatoos discovered the feeder and tried hard to get aboard. These are big birds, powerful birds, noisy birds, playful birds responsible for an awful lot of vandalism on street lights and so on. They waddled out along the dowel supporting the hanging feeder and tried to swing themselves down, but found the job too difficult and flew away. And then one decided to play with the string holding it up. Just a snip of that powerful beak and the whole thing came crashing down, spilling seeds everywhere. Cockatoo flew off happily. Lucky the terracotta bowl stayed intact and I was able to set the whole thing up again, this time using a cup hook on the end of the dowel, with a bit more cord to hold it on.
I've started a gallery on Yahoo to save pictures of the birds feeding. Please forgive my tinny little camera.
