“Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.” Ralph Waldo Emerson
This is an image created from the Hubble Space Telescope of the galaxy NGC 5486. It is an example of what is known as an irregular spiral galaxy and is about 110 million light years from earth in the constellation Ursa Major. It was first discovered by William Herschel in May of 1785. The pink regions in this image are areas of star formation.
On a separate note about constellations: “Constellations are not only patterns of bright stars, but also a system that astronomers use to divide the sky into regions. There are 88 of these regions, and each has an associated constellation depicting a mythological figure, an animal, or even an item of scientific equipment. This strange celestial menagerie contains everything from Ursa Major’s great bear to a toucan, a sea monster, a telescope, and even a painter’s easel!” Image and Text Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, C. Kilpatrick
“To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never to forget.” Arundhati Roy
This image was created using the Hubble Space Telescope. The celestial object depicted is one that defies classification. It is named Z 229-15 and at first seems to be a spiral galaxy, but also has an active galactic nucleus (AGN). An AGN is a region at the center of a galaxy that is exceptionally bright due to a supermassive black hole at it’s core. And it is also what is known as a quasar. This is a subtype of AGN based on brightness and distance from earth. The image is approximately 390 million light years away in the constellation Lyra. Now add to this, another aspect of being a type of quasar that has to do with it’s brightness. It is bright but not that bright, which allows us to see other stars, so it is considered a Seyfert galaxy. So, in a nut shell it is a Seyfert spiral galaxy with a quasar-subclass AGN. NASA calls it, “everything, in one place, all at once.” Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, A. Barth, R. Mushotzky
“Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark, in the hopeless swamps of the not-quite, the not-yet, and the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish in lonely frustration for the life you deserved and have never been able to reach. The world you desire can be won. It exist.. it is real.. it is possible.. it’s yours.” Ayn Rand
This image is of a barred spiral galaxy and was created using the Hubble Space Telescope. It is the galaxy designated as UGC 678 and is about 260 million light years from earth in the constellation Pisces. This galaxy was flagged for a closer look by Hubble, when an automated system, that was looking for hazardous asteroids, discovered the remains of a supernova explosion. Astronomers are now trying to use the data to better understand the star that caused the supernova. Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, C. Kilpatrick, R.J. Foley
“Don’t let the expectations and opinions of other people affect your decisions. It’s your life, not theirs. Do what matters most to you; do what makes you feel alive and happy. Don’t let the expectations and ideas of others limit who you are. If you let others tell you who you are, you are living their reality — not yours. There is more to life than pleasing people. There is much more to life than following others’ prescribed path. There is so much more to life than what you experience right now. You need to decide who you are for yourself. Become a whole being.” Roy T. Bennett
This is an image from the Hubble Space Telescope that is known as a “Jellyfish Galaxy” because of the bright spiraling lines of gas that appear to be hanging from the bottom. This particular one is labeled JO204 and is almost 600 million light years away in the constellation Sextans. The effect is created by what is know as “ram pressure stripping” or the pressure exerted on a body moving through a fluid medium. An easy to understand earthly example of this is when you are riding a bike and you feel the pressure of the air against you, even if there is no wind. Any lose clothing or hair will flap around you as you move through the air. These galaxies experience pressure as they move against the intergalactic medium. The less bound gasses are stripped away and this is what helps to form the tendril like structures. Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA; M. Gullieuszik and the GASP team
“We are all alone, born alone, die alone, and—in spite of True Romance magazines—we shall all someday look back on our lives and see that, in spite of our company, we were alone the whole way. I do not say lonely—at least, not all the time—but essentially, and finally, alone. This is what makes your self-respect so important, and I don’t see how you can respect yourself if you must look in the hearts and minds of others for your happiness.”Hunter S. Thompson
This is an image from the Hubble Space telescope of NGC 1333. It is called the reflection nebula and it is located in the northern constellation Perseus. And is about 960 light years away. It was first discovered by the German Astronomer Eduard Schonfeld in 1855. NASA used this nebula image to celebrate Hubble’s 33rd anniversary.The telescope was named after the astronomer Edwin Hubble and was deployed by the space shuttle Discovery in April 1990. It has made more than 1.5 million observations since it was put into service. Image credit: NASA, ESA, STScI.
“The thing is, the more stuff you have, the more places you travel, the more beautiful things you see, the more wonderful people you meet, the more you will realize that none of that fixes anything, you are still alone with whatever is broken inside you.” Samuel Decker Thompson
HEY!! I AM LOOKING AT YOU!! THAT’S WHO!!
If you are reading this then you have continued to survive Covid 19 and so have I!! Yea for both of us again!! Hopefully you are not one of the 16 million Americans with some form of long Covid.
Due to the decrease in reporting on Covid from most of the world’s governments and public health agencies there is not much information on what is actually going on in the world with the virus. In the United States, the best place for the moment, is the CDC. If you want to check it out yourself please see this link: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/covid-data/covidview/index.html
Of course the CDC information is about a week or two behind by the time it is reported.
What I find interesting about the monitoring of the Covid situation is that we spend more effort in monitoring Flu and Norovirus. And while we can get a bad flu year every now and then, Norovirus rarely causes the devastation that can happen with Covid. It does make you wonder how much of this is still politically and economically influenced.
There are two new variants of concern, XBB .1.9.1 or Hyperion and XBB.1.16 or Arcturus. The second one, Arcturus is now detected in over 20 countries and has created a recent surge in cases in India. As of right now it can be assumed that XBB.1.16 will continue to increase in frequency around the globe, but at this time it does not appear to be causing an increase in hospitalizations or deaths. The World Health Organization did upgrade it to a “variant of interest” due to it ability to spread over existing subvariants and evade the immune system. By the end of the month it was greater than 10 percent of reported cases in the United States.
The FDA on April 18th authorized a second booster of the bivalent vaccines for those over the age of 65 or are immunocompromised. This was based on data showing that immunity wanes in these populations over time.
If you are interested in more information from the remaining reliable sources please check out these links. I have included the CDC waste water reporting section. It gives the best estimate if Covid is increasing in your area, but remember it is a week or two behind what is actually going on:
April was another good month for getting outdoors. The wind and weather patterns held again and for the most part the air quality was good. We did have some very warm days with a lot of sunshine in April and with it, our ozone levels went into the moderate to high range by each afternoon. Most of this being formed by the burning of fossil fuels: i.e. tailpipe emissions. Nitrogen oxides and other volatile organic compounds added in with the sunshine and heat to create ozone. And this is not good for your health, no matter what your age. So the key, for the month of April soon became readily apparent – get out early before it forms. Particulates were not an issue for the month for the most part. I am guessing that the “get out early” way to protect yourself will be for the rest of the spring and summer. Until we can switch over to a majority of vehicles being electric this will only get worse, unfortunately.
This picture of Marvin and Janet was taken on April 1st, 2023 at about 6:45pm in the evening. It was a beautiful Colorado evening.
The four pictures below were taken on April 3rd, 2023 at about 3pm in the afternoon. They were from a trail run with Marvin in an open space behind Fort Collins called Horsetooth Mountain Park. The temp for the day was cool so we were out a little later in the afternoon. In the shaded areas there was still some snow on the ground.
This is the iconic rock structure that gives the park and the lake it’s name. It is the idea that it looks like the back molars of a horse. You can easily see this rock formation from the city. I am not sure if this was the native American name for the rock formation or even if they had a name for it. And it seems that no one is exactly sure when the “Horsetooth” name started, but it does seem well suited to the shape of the rock.
Here I am looking South East over the lake and part of the city of Fort Collins.
Marvin on Tower Road in the park. A great steep 3 mile section to do hill repeats on, if you’re so inclined. Lol.
This picture is looking South towards the cities of Loveland, Longmont and eventually Denver. This is one of my favorite views in the park.
The two pictures below were taken on April 6th, 2023 at about 3pm in the afternoon. The temps were still in the 50 degree range for the day and this kept the ozone in the low range. So another beautiful day for a trail run with Dogboy. These pictures are from another open space behind Fort Collins called Reservoir Ridge.
In this picture Marvin and I are right down at the lake (Horsetooth Reservoir). In another month or so all of this will be underwater from the spring run off. When the lake is full, it’s max depth is about 200 feet.
This picture is looking South across the northern most dam that creates Horsetooth reservoir. I believe that there are four total. The land to the right of the lake is Lory State park and Horsetooth Mountain Park.
This image was taken on April 12th, 2023 at about 11:30am in the morning. This trail is called the Powerline Trail due to the high tension lines that run along its length. This one I can access right from the neighborhood and it’s total length is about 4 miles one-way. I love this trail due to the fact that it has a dirt path that runs along side the concrete tail. There is a park and restrooms at one end of it so it makes a great trail if you just want to get out and do “back and forth” miles without a lot elevation gain. My nick name for it is the “Powerline Treadmill.” Lol
This image was taken on April 18th, 2023 at about 11:45am in the morning. This is a picture of one of the Great Blue Heron rookeries in Fort Collins. There are several around the city. This one is at the eastern end of the Spring Creek Trail.
The two pictures below were taken on April 19th, 2023 at about 1pm in the afternoon. Here I am in another area of open spaces behind Fort Collins. Specifically Pine Ridge and Maxwell Natural areas and a trail that is known as the Foothills trail that runs along the eastern side of the lake. This is one of the things that I love about Fort Collins, there is a plethora of trails for just about any outdoor activity.
This is looking south on the east side of lake. The trail that I am on is called the Foothills trail and runs for a few miles of shoreline.
This is looking north and I am at the top of the Maxwell Natural Area. Fort Collins has done a good job of connecting different trails over the years and this has really paid off in giving the public access to a great outdoor experience that is right in the city’s backyard so to speak.
Well I won’t bore you with anymore pictures. Lol. Time to move on.
It was another good month for reading and I would like to share a few book recommendations.
The first book I would like to review is called “The Day the World Stops Shopping: How Ending Consumerism Saves the Environment and Ourselves” by J.B. MacKinnon. The author is the same one that co-wrote a book with author Alisa Smith called “The 100-mile diet,” in which they decided that for one year they would only consume food that came from within a 100-mile radius of their Vancouver home. Pretty hard to do when you think about it.
The current book by J.B. MacKinnon, is one that I came across when looking for books on climate change. A part of decreasing the carbon footprint is slowing our level of consumption. And it turns out, slowing our consumption, is one of the best ways to take a bite out of the carbon dilemma so to speak.
Of course there have been several books written on this subject over the last 15 years, but what makes this book a little different is that the author uses a “thought experiment” that was tested in real time by the forced shutdowns of the pandemic. The book was published in May 2021.
The idea being, what would happen if shopping was to come to an almost complete stop? How would we deal with it, would the world end? In the book he goes through all the different areas of concern with the experts, from issues of planned obsolescence with our possessions, to food production, to vacations, to possible job loss or gain, health, etc… And on a different note, he covers some areas that you might not associate with consumption. One of my favorite sections of the book was on the use of air conditioning and how it did not really come into being for the private individual household until the 1960s. And how this created its own issues. One being, the hypothesis that keeping people at a constant temperature all the time, neither too cold nor too hot, might have led to an increase in metabolic disease syndrome. Very interesting.
Another aspect that I liked with this book is that it points to ways that you can make a difference, on the individual level, in the climate crisis so to speak. Very similar to being minimalist. You just buy less. Lol. Just that simple. Buy less.
Ok, enough of the soapbox. I listened to the book as an audio book but it would work in any format. You can probably find this book at your local bookstore or on Amazon. Here is the Amazon link: https://a.co/d/4uQi8im
The next book I would like to recommend is called “Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity” by Peter Attia MD. Now that I am older, I am always on the look out for books on longevity and this is a perfect example of one that I came across during a recent search of the literature. I had heard about Dr. Attia from a Star Talk podcast with Neil deGrasse Tyson. They were doing an episode with him about Human Lifespan extension and the meaning of medicine 3.0. If your interested you can find this episode and many more at this link: https://startalkmedia.com/
I found the book quit interesting and it helped to solidify some beliefs that I had about longevity and exercise from other sources. The first big one was the fact that exercise is the single best way to improve your health and longevity. It is better than diet, medication and just about anything else that has been tried by humans. A second one dealing with exercise is the idea of staying in the zone 2 training category for about 80 percent of your workouts. I have consistently tracked this level of training with a heart rate monitor for the last 6 months and I have seen consistent improvements each month. The third one with exercise is you need to become a decathlete. If don’t remember or don’t know, (I didn’t) let me familiarize you with what a decathlete is. In simplest terms, it is someone that participates in ten different track and field events at the Olympics. The idea being for us “mere mortals” is that you need to do a variety of exercise types. People run into problems when they do too much of their favorite sport with not enough variety. If you’re a runner, biker, swimmer, etc.… and that is all that you do, you’re going to run into over training issues before long. By being the “decathlete” you are a much more rounded athlete and significantly lessen the risk of over training, burn out and most importantly, injury.
This book is not just about living for as long as you can, it is about living as long as you can with being as healthy as you can. And this includes our mental health. Dr. Attia goes in to significant depth in describing his own challenges with mental health and how this cannot be ignored if we want to live a long and healthy life.
This is a great book and well worth the read. I got the book as an audio book but it would work in any format. You can probably find the book at your local bookstore or on Amazon. Here is the Amazon link: https://a.co/d/arSWlbv
Last but not least, I would like to show case one piece of new artwork that I finished in the month of April.
This is the fourth painted Wolf Face I have done. It is called Canis 4. I have always had a fascination with wolves. They have always seemed larger than life to me. The wolf has been a common theme in mythology since time immortal. Especially in the cultures of Eurasia and North America. I got the initial idea for doing a series of large wolf faces several years ago while reading the Game of Thrones books by George R.R. Martin. After watching the HBO adaption, I knew I had to do this. Instead of trying to do a realistic version, I thought it might be more interesting to create paintings that evoke more of the potential mythology of the wolf.
These are large acrylic paintings that are done on OSB or Oriented strand board. The boards or sheets were given to me by my neighbor when he was remodeling his basement several years ago. He was in the process of throwing them away but thought I might want them. In keeping with North American wolf symbolism, I cut the sheets into circles to symbolize creation, death and rebirth.
The diameter is about 47 inches across, and the weight is about 50 lbs.
In support of Prochoice and Separation of Church and State, I will donate 10% of any sales to Planned Parenthood or the Freedom From Religion Foundation, but only if you wish me too. If not, I will be more than happy to keep money! Lol
Well I have come to the end of another blog post. Yea! And I hope you have enjoyed reading it as much as I did writing it.
So take care my friends and if you have not gotten vaccinated or boosted, even if you have had Covid, then get it done. It would be a damn shame if you were to die or suffer significant disability with this virus when vaccines are readily available in this country. So until next time Adios!!
“It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.” Carl Sagan
“Questions you cannot answer are usually far better for you than answers you cannot question.” Yuval Noah Harari
“May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous…, leading to the most amazing views.” Edward Abbey
Life is good, bad, beautiful and ugly – but it is all experience, so drink it up and guzzle it down my friend, for it is all that we are given!!
