Jacob has a busy summer schedule with a ton of classes on Outschool. Greek Gods, mythology, astronomy, trivia, a bunch of topics. But ultimately, it works out to about an hour a day. On top of that, he’s playing Fortnite with friends online, a bit of XBox for other stuff, and reading. Overall? A recipe for eventual boredom.
So while Andrea and I are working full-time, we’re taking breaks here and there to break up his schedule. Usually we try to switch off so he gets two playbreaks in the day, one with Mom, one with Dad.
Today we did it together and broke out the board games. We started Settlers of Catan, played for an hour, and then he had to jet across the room to his computer for his latest class. Mom and I went back to work. Then, later, he and I did some Lego together for a new project, followed by finishing the Catan game. I know lots of people who get bored with Catan, need the expansion packs to keep it interesting for example, or have nailed the “optimized” placement of settlements, cities and roads. We kind of do a bit of a random layout of numbers, while ensuring nothing is too hard to get, but each time our game is different. One time we played, I somehow failed to get wheat early on, which was REALLY frustrating, yet I still managed to win through armies and roads. This time, we started playing, realized that some of the numbers weren’t fairly distributed, adjusted so it wouldn’t be a two-sided game only, and early on it looked like a winner. We were all getting resources and doing stuff quickly. I thought it might be a fast game.
And then? We stopped rolling one number (10) which controlled the majority of our wood. And we were blocked for wheat. Do you know how many things you can do without wood or wheat? Zero. It was a LONG game. Andrea finally put us out of our misery.
Then we had dinner, considered a movie, and Jacob opted for playing Moonshot Euchre, which we haven’t played in a few days. Again, a LONG game. And we never finished. We’re not even CLOSE, actually, but it was 9:30 and time for a little penguin to crash.
I also finished another book that he is going to read, and it was REALLY good. Now I want to talk to him about it, but Andrea is likely to read it too, and now I have to wait for all three of us to finish! Sheesh. 🙂
Overall, I think it was a good day together, even if we’re not on vacation yet.
Today I choose to spend more time with my son playing games.
What conscious choices are you making today to create a new reality?
I mentioned earlier that I was going to buy new binoculars, and I will eventually get around to writing about them. However, in the meantime, I now “have” them, and can use them. So over a few nights, I have gone out to the backyard, setup in 30s, and just looked. I’m not going with a specific goal in mind, nor surfing the sky, just looking.
Unrelated, but I’ve also taken a few pics with my smartphone to see what I can get, and I’m looking forward to experimenting more at the in-laws’ cottage later this summer. Another area to push myself on.
But tonight around 9:00 p.m., I hopped in the car, went down to the river where the horizons are good, and waited to see if I could see the comet again. However, I also had an ulterior or secondary objective in mind. I wanted to see what I would see on the moon with the new binos.
Unfortunately, the clouds were terrible, and I didn’t think I would even find the moon. I had already figured out it was the smallest of slivers, just 2.2% of the surface was lit, the smallest I’ve ever tried for honestly. And BAM! Between my app and the binos, I nailed it. That was super cool. I’ve never seen it that small of a sliver before. There is a small set of astrophotographers who specialize in trying to get the smallest sliver possible. Someone even set a record a few years ago, the smallest possible sliver that can still be seen. I’m not even close to those small numbers, but I saw the 2.2% sliver. Quite cool.
The comet? Not so cool. It is much higher in the sky now, almost three fists up, and almost directly under the middle of the Big Dipper’s basket. Or, in Ottawa prose, EXACTLY where a huge swath of clouds were going by. Another guy and I were there waiting, and I pointed out the moon to him, plus Jupiter and Saturn, but he was only really surprised by the moon and looked for about half a second. He was there for the comet. But it was not to be. It socked in really well and no comet was to be had anytime soon.
I took a few more pics at home, trying to see what I can get with my smartphone on a tripod, and I really need to spend some time setting up a bigger tripod option and to have it figured out before the cottage. I REALLY want to try imaging a bunch of constellations and I need stability to do that.
But overall, I was mostly pushing myself to use the binos to just get out and observe, even without a plan at this point. To engage, to search, to view, to learn.
Today I choose to push myself on my astronomy hobby.
I love to read, but I find it hard to work into my schedule. Which is not to say my schedule is “full”, I just mean there aren’t natural times when I’m likely to read.
When I was in elementary school, I would read in school when I was supposed to be doing school work, read while I walked home sometimes, read until supper, read until bed, and read on the way back to school the next morning where I would get three more books (I was in Grade 3 or 4 as I recall).
Later, I would read on buses while commuting, but that was always a crapshoot as to whether I would feel nauseated or not.
But lunchtimes? That was ME time. Grab some food, ignore the world, and read. A friend of mine that I met at french training was really struggling because he had to drive to the school. Normally, he would read on the bus in the morning for almost 40 minutes on his way to work, plus over lunch, and then 40 minutes on his way home. He had LOTS of time. Once he started French? He was basically down to lunch hour. It was driving him bonkers.
When I’m at the office, I drive to work so reading-by-commute is out. I do read at lunches sometimes, but I also often use that time to read news articles more than books.
These days, my book reading often goes in binges. I rarely have a book “on the go” so to speak…I’m either reading intensely or I’m not reading at all. We bought books for Jacob on the weekend, and I need to read three of them for mature themes and content before he does. Today, I plowed through the last 3/4 of I Am Number Four by Pittacus Lore. I’ve seen the movie and practically fell asleep; the book was much better, and while it is about war, there is some normalcy in there too. I don’t know that Jacob will enjoy the book, but I’m fine with him giving it a try. He read Maximum Ride by James Patterson, and there are some similar but less fantastical elements. More sci-fi than fantasy for this one.
But I took most of the evening off from my to do list to just sit and read. Yeah, sure, I was burning some files from one media to another, did a couple of chores, wrote this post, caught up on some discussions I’m part of online. But mostly I just sat here and read while the other stuff hummed along. And I finished the book. I feel like it took me longer than normal though…440 pages in total, and I was already about 100 pages in when I started reading tonight, but it still took me over 3 hours. But I definitely zoned out in there. Want to know the weird part? I did it while sitting at my desk. I didn’t even move to a comfy chair. I guess that means the story was engaging enough that I didn’t even notice! 🙂
I have traditionally NOT been a binoculars guy when it comes to astronomy. If I’m totally honest, I’m even a bit judgey for those who respond to newbies questions about what type of telescope to get with “get binos, great way to get started” advice. It’s a common refrain, by experienced amateurs, and I think it can be amongst the worst advice to give anyone.
Why NOT recommend binos to newbies?
First and foremost, the learning curve is enormous for the sky. Yes, you can look at stuff easily and pan quickly, but almost EVERYONE starts with hand-held binos. Which shake in your hands. It is VERY hard to get decent sized binos to stay solid unless you are naturally still OR you rest against something with your harms. But they don’t tell people that, they just say “buy binos”.
Second, for many people learning, sometimes the best aspect is sharing it with others. Like kids. Can kids hold the binos steady? No. Not easily. So tell them to look at X, pan sideways and down a bit, blah blah blah….aaaand they’re gone. You’ve lost them. If you have a telescope and you set it on the object and say, “Here, look through here”, they will see what they’re supposed to see, generally speaking.
Binoculars combine low magnification with the highest degree of unsteady viewing and the worst learning curve to find objects. What could go wrong?
There are TONS of people who start with binos, get bored, and give up. Because someone knowledgeable told them that starting with binos was good, and if they find it wasn’t for them, they decide astronomy overall is also maybe not for them. Let me give you an example of why they might struggle.
If you want to find the Hercules Cluster, a small globular cluster of stars, and assume that you have dark enough skies to find it and see it, then you will likely have to start at a nearby known star, follow a small trail of stars by hopping from one star to another to work your way down the sky, and BAM, there’s your cluster.
Yet here’s the thing though for a telescope. You can find the first star, look at a map, look back at the eyepiece, look again at the map, figure out what the first “hop” is, make the hop, look back at the map, look again, etc. It doesn’t run away from you when you look at the map. It stays on the target.
If you’re using binos, and as I said, most people do NOT attach to a tripod initially, then you have them in YOUR HANDS, look up, see your starting point, put your hands down, look at the map, look again at your starting point, look up, put the binos down, look at your map again, etc. You’re “losing” your spot each time. If any of those markers are small or faint, or if you have to do three jumps, the first time star-hopping is going to be REALLY frustrating to figure out.
Binos CAN be good, I’m just not sure they come with enough context or caveats. Your big advantage though is that in binos, you see a HUGE swath of sky at a time, so the likelihood is that your telescope might take 3 jumps to do what in your binos only takes 1. But, again, it is less magnified, and you can’t see as much detail.
Making a choice
For me, though, I’m working on a personal guide to introductory amateur astronomy. If I’m going to write about binoculars, I have to know how to use them and the parameters I’m considering. Including owning a pair, trying various setups, etc.
Recently, famed Canadian astronomer Alan Dyer wrote an article in Sky News about the best binoculars for beginners in Canada, and he listed a number of choices. His cut-off was $300 and ones that are generally available in Canada, which is a pretty good starting point for me. One of my complaints about a lot of bino lovers is that when asked about bino models, they frequently recommend binos that cost $500-$1500. The RASC Observers Handbook has a similar snobbyness in it towards only high-end binos, well out of the price range of most beginner astronomers. For the same price, they could have a telescope that would kick butt three times over. But I digress.
Am I potentially “complicating my life” by expanding? Absolutely. But I’m also simplifying somewhat. Right now, for example, Comet Neowise is all the rage. I could go down to the river, set up my telescope, do all that work, OR I could just look through the binoculars. I do want to get good at using them. Yet I was still on the fence.
Until a webinar like the one I mentioned yesterday on astronomy answered me a different way, which is a bit similar to the original advice of astronomers. If you’re using 8x42s, it’s a good way to learn your way around the sky pretty fast.
Not a good tool necessarily for getting into astronomy, but a good tool to use when learning the night sky, star hopping, and constellation mapping. That’s a more practical bit of advice, and not limited to newbies.
So today I choose to expand my astro gear with binoculars.
I feel like from the time I woke up, to the time I’m writing this at night (9:33 pm.), I failed to make any good choices at all. There were choices in there, but I wasn’t conscious of most of them, and for the ones where I tried to make better choices, I feel like my internal scripts ran stronger than personal will.
The morning was relatively simple, since I had ordered groceries yesterday for pickup today. Nothing exceptional, basic stuff. Then I drove to a friend’s house who makes masks for friends and picked up new ones for Andrea, Jacob and myself. I had two, but had broken the strap on one, and the other is a bit small, plus Jacob had kid-sized ones that were too small. The new ones are both larger for the face (women’s sizes for both Andrea and Jacob, since they have virtually the same dimensions) and adjustable for the loop length. Neither activity is really an “active choice” type of blog entry though, more passive reception (for the groceries and the mask).
Then I headed out to Bell’s Corners to Dusty’s, a local fresh fruit and vegetable stand. I considered claiming that as a “choice” in that I’m going out of my way to support a local business, but it is not even really “new”. I did it last Sunday too, and while I did it today, I don’t feel that committed to it. I could easily go to any stand, it’s just a little more work to go to that one in order to support them. We’ve shopped there for a couple of years, so I’m happy to see them open again. I didn’t need much — some fresh strawberries, some blueberries, cherry tomatoes and a red pepper just because they seemed fresh and we might do nachos this week. As I said, I considered it for the blog, but I wasn’t really feeling it as an empowering choice. I have to buy the stuff somewhere, and it’s minor to buy it there. If they weren’t open, I’d buy it somewhere else.
For lunch, I used up some leftovers, nothing exciting there. I thought I might have something from the afternoon, as a week ago we went to Preston Street for gelato and I was thinking of it as a potential Sunday night tradition we could do in the summers. Except tonight, Andrea was booked for a call, so I was thinking this afternoon. Which meant Jacob had to come with us for the two deliveries and then we would go for the gelato.
And TBH, I think this is where I started to completely crash. Jacob has been lethargic for a bit now, doesn’t want to go outside, and just about everything we suggest, his response is basically “I guess”. Even when it is things that he chooses. Honestly/candidly? As understanding as I try to be of mental stuff, as lord knows I have my own motivational issues, it’s beginning to piss me off. Today, to get him to go out, since gelato isn’t his favorite, I gave him the choice of what we would have…Dairy Queen, gelato, Baskin Robbins, Chocolats Favoris. Something he could choose. He grudgingly went. We did the deliveries, he prefers soft serve ice cream most of the time so DQ wasn’t a surprise, and we started thinking about what we wanted. Jacob’s choice? A slushie. Really? We’re going to DQ just for him, so he can have the ice cream he wants, and he’s choosing a slushie? Sigh.
Whatever, moving on.
We get back home, Jacob miraculously feels better (who knows, maybe he was actually feeling off in the car because he does get car sick, and playing on his phone the whole time doesn’t help with that). So I need to do some electronic reconfiguration for his room, with a new power bar, charging station setups, etc. Nope, he wasn’t feeling it, he just wanted to crash.
Okay, why not? It’s Sunday, I crashed too. Recharge the batteries. Except I didn’t. I woke up with a splitting headache, everyone’s in a crappy mood, and despite the fact that I work really hard to never let my true temper show, I came pretty close to just letting fly at one point.
I shake it off, play Rovio’s new Angry Birds 2 (what was the earlier sequels called? Seasons?), distract myself. Go upstairs, Jacob is just lounging, doing nothing basically, and I wanted to do the charger setup. Nope, not interested right now. Let’s do it tomorrow. Don’t get me wrong, I gave him the choice, and probably 8:30 p.m. is not the best time to interest him in something new for the day, but I would have liked to make progress on SOMETHING today.
So I’m giving up for the day. I don’t know what the “choices” are that I have left to make today, but I am not optimistic that I’ll make any progress, so I am definitely resetting the clock on this Seinfeld chain. My record for consecutive blocking on choices stands at: 8 days.
I’ll take a 2 day hiatus for Monday and Tuesday to get my brain ready to go again, and restart on Wednesday. Let’s see if I have better luck for my next attempt.
