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The sky is not completely dark at night. Were the sky absolutely dark, one would not be able to see the silhouette of an object against the sky.

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    Royal Beauty Bright

    If I were more organized a couple of weeks ago I could’ve seen the Aurora Borealis. Maybe you’re familiar with this magnificent natural artwork: the waving colorful “northern lights” spreading across the sky like a wind-ruffled pastel blanket. The best seats for the AB are always to the north, like Alaska or the Arctic, but this year we had a similar instance just driving distance from our house in northern Wyoming. I missed it, darn it.  I’ll have to settle for a look at this week’s Christmas Star instead. Er, make that this week’s “Jupiter/Saturn overlap”.

    The view from my house (directly above Pikes Peak!)

    I’ve always been something of an astronomer wannabe. We have beautifully clear skies where we live and on most nights we can see more stars, constellations, and galaxies than we could possibly count. I’ve even invested in tripod-mounted high-power binoculars to get a better look at all things extraterrestrial. So I certainly didn’t miss the recent headlines about Wyoming’s “southern northern lights”, nor the nighttime blast of this week’s Christmas Star. Any astronomical event visible to the naked eye is worth noting in my iPhone calendar.

    Courtesy of CBS News

    Jupiter and Saturn aren’t really overlapping, of course (talk about an abundance of gas). They just look like they’re a single celestial object as seen from our Earthling vantage point. They’re still millions of kilometers apart in space, the same way stars in constellations aren’t all the same distance away from us. This blog post is a little late, as the best days to see “Jupiturn” were Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, just after sunset and looking to the west.

    Speaking of a little late, let’s talk about the Real Christmas Star (RCS). Surely you’re familiar with RCS, the singularly bright beacon from biblical times guiding the Magi to the birthplace of the baby Jesus (editor’s note: lots of “b’s” in that sentence, Dave). This star moved in a westerly path – as noted in the third verse of “We Three Kings” – like the oversized laser pointer of an invisible tour guide. This star was purported to have stopped directly over Bethlehem close to the events we celebrate on Christmas Day.  This star “with royal beauty bright” was…, was…, (spoiler alert) – well, this star wasn’t a star either.

    Also not a star…

    I know, I know.  We’re talking about events from over two thousand years ago.  Outside of the Bible and pure faith, how can we know the true identity of the RCS?  Well, we know because we have astrophysicists.  I’m never one to blend science and religion but I’m about to make an exception.

    To keep this simple let’s address the basic questions:

    1. When did the RCS occur?  During the reign of King Herod and Emporer Tiberius.  Roman historians (and the Bible’s Book of Luke) give the approximate timeframe as 8-4 B.C.
    2. Who saw the RCS?  The Magi according to the Bible, but also Chinese astronomers according to their own records… which go back to (gulp) before 1000 B.C.
    3. What did the RCS look like?  A morning star, because it was rising.  Not a comet, not a nova, not even a supernova.  In ancient times those three were seen as indicators of negative events.  The Magi certainly wouldn’t have followed something negative.
    4. What was the RCS?  Ah, now there’s the question for the Powerball jackpot.  And that’s where our astrophysicists come to the rescue.  The RCS – like this year’s Jupiturn – was also the convergence of Jupiter and Saturn, only amplified by light from the sun, moon, and at least three other planets.  That’s putting a lot of “balls” into play, isn’t it?  Celestial alignments happen regularly over time so astrophysicists were able to project backward and offer this likely explanation of the Real Christmas Star.

    The RCS alignment from two thousand years ago seems recent compared to its next occurrence.  You won’t get that kind of planet-star-satellite party again until the year 16213.  That’s fourteen thousand years from now.  You won’t be around by then.  Maybe Earth won’t be either.

    I did look to the west after sunset to see the convergence of Jupiter and Saturn earlier this week.  It was bright – sure – but not as if looking directly at the sun.  And knowing it wasn’t a “star” took some of the shine off of it (ha).  Meanwhile, the Aurora Borealis is out there a little more often.  At least I’ll be alive to see its next performance.

     

    Some content sourced from the University of Notre Dame article, “Royal Beauty Bright”.

  • It’s Been a Silent Night

    When singer Amy Grant released “Tennessee Christmas” in 2016 it’d been years since she recorded a holiday collection. In fact, her platinum-level “A Christmas Album” arrived way back in 1983; her triple-platinum “Home for Christmas” in 1992. “Tennessee Christmas” didn’t achieve platinum, gold, or anything else for that matter.  As my brother said at the time, “She never should’ve done it.” He’s right. Amy should’ve released just “I Need a Silent Night” and called it good.

    Amy Grant can still pen lyrics (even if her voice isn’t as strong as it used to be).  “I Need a Silent Night” asks us to find the true meaning of Christmas in the midst of the inevitable commercial distractions.  Instead of “December traffic” and “Christmas rush” and “Shopping and buying and standing forever in line”, Amy asks:

    I need a silent night, a holy night
    To hear an angel voice through the chaos and the noise
    I need a midnight clear, a little peace right here
    To end this crazy day with a silent night

    As if we’ve been granted Amy’s wish (ha), this season has been remarkably placid.  The message of Advent is always “prepare” and that’s what we’re doing.  It’s just – unlike most years – we’re not using words like “rush” and “chaos”.  We’re experiencing more of a “silent night” instead.

    Our Christmas prep never begins until after Thanksgiving (I stand on holiday principles here) but by the following Saturday I was eagerly unpacking the decorations and streaming holiday tunes.  More importantly, I also found myself saying “yes” to just about every reason for the season:

    • Since we can’t have in-person services our church offered Advent wreaths to build and display in whatever room you “go to church” in at home.  We asked for a wreath as soon as they were available.
    • A family involved in our local 4-H advertised festive bags of scented pine cones as a fundraiser for their activities.  We bought two bags and they delivered them straight to our door.  There’s nothing that says “Christmas” like the tiny voice of a five-year-old saying, “Thank you, Mr. Wilson!”
    • Our church set up a virtual giving tree where you can pick presents from a list, buy them, and return them to the church for distribution to needy families.  I bought six.
    • We’ve been baking up a kitchen storm so we decided to put together plates of cookies for our neighbors and deliver them.  Front doors were opened cautiously, to which we said, “Well, this may be the only chance we get to see you face-to-face this year.  Merry Christmas!”
    • We’ll be having drive-in Christmas Eve services this year so our church put out a big bin of ornaments, asking us to decorate them and put them on trees surrounding the parking lot.  I grabbed several.
    • Starbucks moves to Christmas drinks and goodies shortly after Halloween.  There’s this unspoken opportunity to “pay it backwards” by taking care of the car behind you in the drive-thru, and then speeding off to remain anonymous.  I’ve been doing this for weeks.
    • Colorado Springs advertises a Christmas For Kids effort where you’re assigned a needy child’s Christmas list.  You buy the gifts, wrap them up, and pass them on to case workers who make sure the kids get them in time for Christmas.  I sponsored two.

    Most of these Christmastime gestures (and why should they only happen at Christmas, right?) would not find room in our “normal years”.  We’d be rushing about trying to find one last gift, throwing up Christmas lights and decorations, and hastily preparing our cards to put in the mail.  We’d be wrapping presents ’til well past midnight on Christmas Eve.  Yet this year we’re completely organized and ready, including all those meaningful extras I mentioned above.

    Let me “wrap” (ha) with one more holiday task we completed earlier than usual: decorating our tree.  Christmas trees must’ve been in high demand (or short supply) this year because our local lot only had one left in the 10′-12′ range we prefer.  It’s tall and thin (kind of like you see in Whoville in the original “Grinch” movie).  It’s so tall our angel at the top seems poised in the heavens, which is wonderfully appropriate this year.  She was the only decor on the tree all of last Sunday before we added everything else the following night.  So now our tree boasts the usual organized chaos of lights and ornaments.  But it’s only the angel I see.  She’s watching over us and giving us exactly what we need this year: a silent night, a holy night.

    This post is in memory of Marion.

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    Golden Thrones

    Every now and then the local news sneaks in a headline to showcase our local taxes and fees at work. A swanky new visitor center is about to open on the top of nearby Pikes Peak (14,115′) at a cost of $66M. A 250-ft. pedestrian bridge ($18.7M) spans gracefully over downtown railroad tracks, connecting a public park to our new U.S. Olympic museum complex. Increased traffic between Colorado Springs and Denver demands eighteen miles of a new interstate toll lane ($350M).

    Colorado Springs must be “flush” with tax dollars

    These efforts make sense and I’m happy to write the check, especially with the potential for revenue in return. But another project almost escaped my news feed and Mr. Mayor, I respectfully request a refund. We now have a fully-accessible fully-automated self-cleaning public toilet in a small park on the west side of town. Cost: $415,000.  That’s a lot of loot for a little lavatory, no?

    On the surface our golden throne sounds good enough to try out.  It’s a touchless experience once you “ring the doorbell”.  The restroom door opens/closes automatically with a sanitary-sounding hiss.  Circulating air and classical music provide the white noise you need to mask unpleasant sounds.  A bathroom “host” politely pipes in over the loudspeaker to let you know you have ten minutes to do your thing.  After that – reason in itself to just go and watch from a distance – all doors open whether or not you’re buttoned up.  Talk about getting caught with your pants down.

    Our city’s posh powder room comes from Exeloo (great name), an Australian company expanding its footprint into North America.  Besides the fancy features mentioned above Exeloo toilets are self-cleaning, which means they spray down and disinfect their surfaces from wall-mounted nozzles every thirty uses or so.  Makes me think the kitchens of Chinese restaurants could use the same treatment.

    The (cheaper) Exeloo “Saturn”

    Learning more about Exeloo didn’t make me feel better about my tax dollars.  That’s because our city purchased the fanciest model on the website.  Exeloo offers six different “loos”, with names like Jupiter, Saturn, and Orbit.  (Why – because going to the bathroom should be an out-of-this-world experience?)  Our city chose the model simply named “Fully Accessible”.  It looks at least twice as big as any of the others.

    Let me contrast our wet-n-wild washroom with a more modest facility.  Just off the coast at Torrey Pines in North San Diego County you’ll find a nondescript public restroom sandwiched between the beach and the parking lot.  It has no doors.  It has no music.  It’s made entirely of cinderblocks and concrete.  A flush requires an “old-fashioned” pull of the handle, emitting just enough water to clear the bowl.  The sinks offer just a trickle of water to rinse your hands.  The mirrors aren’t mirrors at all, but big polished metal panels with just enough of a reflection.  This restroom is bombproof.

    Which brings me to my point.  Why does my town need a bathroom good enough for a visit from Queen Elizabeth when cinderblock and concrete will do just as well?  The Torrey Pines toilet probably cost $4,000, not $400,000.  The next headline I’ll be reading is how a homeless person took up residence in our well-to-do water closet and now our tax dollars have to fund a full-time attendant as well.

    The first time I experienced a first-class public flush was in Boston Common.  Smack dab in the middle of the grass expanse and softball diamonds we found a restroom similar to an Exeloo, only more like a double-wide RV.  It was a welcome sight after hours exploring the city on foot.  An attendant sat quietly on a nearby park bench, keeping an eye on things.  And the cherry on top of this sanitation sundae: the facility was sponsored by a non-profit called Friends of the Public Garden.  Not a tax dollar to be spent.

    Could’ve had this whole house for less than our Exeloo, Mr. Mayor

    Since we can’t go out to dinner or see a concert or even go to church this Christmas, I think I’ll take the family to see our sparkling Exeloo public restroom instead.  Maybe they’ve scented the circulating air to smell like Christmas cookies or pine trees.  Maybe they’ve switched out the classical music for holiday favorites.  Hopefully they’ve dressed up the attendant to look like Santa.  It’s the least they can do for my tax dollars.

    Some content sourced from the 11/6/2020 Springs Magazine article, “At Least We Have a $300K Bathroom”.

  • Cookie-Cutter Cinema

    We’ve collected a pretty good stack of Christmas movie DVD’s over the years but most are one-time-watch forgettable. Yet no Christmas celebration is complete without sitting down to “It’s A Wonderful Life” (1946) and “Miracle on 34th Street” (1947’s original). Add in a televised version of “A Christmas Carol” (hopefully 1938’s original) and you’d swear all of the best Christmas movies were made before 1950. Of course, the Hallmark Channel would respectfully disagree. Love ’em or hate ’em, Hallmark’s been baking their cookie-cut Christmas movies for over twenty years.

    Unlike most companies, even a global pandemic doesn’t slow down Hallmark.  I just checked my Hallmark app (yes, they have an app) and another forty Christmas originals are coming out of Hallmark’s holiday oven this year.  The first of these (“Jingle Bell Bride”) premiered on October 24th, so if you didn’t find the Christmas spirit before Halloween you’re already way behind.  Drop everything and grab the TV remote – you’ve got movies to watch!  Fresh cookies await: twelve of Hallmark’s 2020 offerings haven’t made their debut yet.

    In life before electronic media Hallmark was the, well… hallmark of the greeting-card industry.  You bought a Hallmark card “when you cared enough to send the very best”.  You went to their “Gold Crown” stores to purchase wrapping paper, stationery, Christmas ornaments, and picture frames.  In brick-and-mortar days Hallmark seemed like anything but a media empire.  So they kind of snuck up on us with their bonanza of Christmas movies, didn’t they?

    We should’ve seen this coming.  Hallmark quietly sponsored a couple of radio-based storytelling programs in the 1940’s.  Then they jumped into in-house productions with their “Hallmark Hall of Fame” (HHF) series.  You never knew when an HHF movie would pop up on TV but it must’ve been fairly often.  HHF is considered the longest-running prime-time series in the history of television.  For the record HHF movies were better than Hallmark Christmas movies.  Way better.  Maybe that’s because Hallmark Christmas movies run a budget of about a million dollars.  That’s not very much, even for a made-for-TV movie.

    Admit it, you’ve watched a Hallmark Christmas movie.  You might’ve even enjoyed it.  But once you stood back and gained perspective you realized Hallmark Christmas movies are really bad.  They’re the very definition of schmaltz.  The acting is God-awful.  The outfits are dusted off from last year’s Hallmark movies.  The piled-up snow looks a little too perfectly placed around porches and lampposts.  The sets are nameless little towns in western Canada with same-looking Main Streets.

    Then there’s the storylines. Dear Lord.  Every Hallmark Christmas movie is the same sugary-sweet cutout cookie baked at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes.  The lead finds herself in a Christmas-related predicament.  She conveniently crosses paths with “him”.  He unwittingly steps in to help with her predicament.  They find themselves on screen together the rest of the movie (read: flirt).  Then – but not until the last two minutes of the movie – they figure out they’ve fallen in love.  Quick kiss.  Holiday smiles.  Roll credits.

    Even the actresses look alike.  That’s because they’re all the same actress.  Well, almost.  A dozen women grace Hallmark’s pantheon of “Queens of Christmas”.  If you recognize Rachel Boston, Candace Cameron Bure, Lacey Chabert, Danica McKellar, Alicia Witt, or a few others, you know the Queens.  Perhaps you’ve seen them on Hallmark’s “Countdown to Christmas” (an hour of Christmas commercials movie previews).  Perhaps you’ve heard them pushing their movies on Sirius XM’s “Hallmark Channel Radio”.

    Why stop at Christmas?  Hallmark Channels want to be considered your “year-round destination for celebrations”.  Accordingly you’ll also find their themed movies around Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, New Year’s Day, and – lest they feel like left-out seasons – the beginning of spring, summer, and fall.  You can even bask in “Christmas in July” if you missed some of the previous year’s premieres (but why would you?)

    Hallmark is a much brighter bulb than any of the actors you see here.  There must be a ton of profit in schmaltz; otherwise why would Lifetime, Netflix, Disney, and Apple also jump into Christmas movies?  Gonna be hard to catch Hallmark: their productions can be found on four television channels, three apps, and that Sirius XM radio station.

    Counting 2020, Hallmark has produced and aired over 250 Christmas movies.  Talk about a marathon: it would take you twenty days to watch them all (after which you’d be surgically removed from your couch).  Not me.  I’ll stick with George Bailey in Bedford Falls, Kris Kringle at Macy’s, and Ebenezer Scrooge and his ghosts.  Real actors, real stories, and genuine Christmas spirit.  No cookie cutters.

    Some content sourced from the 11/17/2019 Wall Street Journal article, “The Most Wonderful Time of the Year: Netflix and Disney Battle Hallmark for Christmas Viewers”, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

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    Mixed Messages

    My dad called the other day for a chat, but not before letting me know my answering machine was full. Since he couldn’t leave a message he just called over and over ’til I finally picked up. But here’s the thing: I don’t have any messages on my answering machine.  It’s not full at all.  So after the call I said to my wife, “Dad’s almost 92. I’ll forgive him a little confusion now and then. Probably mixed me up with one of my brothers.”

    I still have one of these

    Do you still have a landline in your house, the one with a bulky handset and built-in answering machine?  If you do, it’s tethered to the wall with wires, which then connect to a march of telephone poles outside (more wires), which eventually route your call to wherever it needs to go.  Imagine – in a world of wireless – a phone call with a physical connection from one end all the way to the other.  It’s positively antique.

    [Random thought: once the world is fully wireless what’ll we do with all those telephone poles.  Caber toss, anyone?]

    Go ahead and mock my out-land-ish outdated phone – at least I don’t have a party line.  Back in the day, if you lived in the sticks you shared a single physical line with your neighbors.  You were a “party” of subscribers who often found themselves talking over each other (“crosstalk”) or connected to the wrong party at the other end.  Party lines it is said, were the birthplace of gossip.

    The reason I stubbornly cling to my landline is probably not the same as yours.  I keep my landline exclusively for those calls with my dad (er, and to divert telemarketers from my smartphone).  My dad can’t hear very well so anything wireless is a challenge, especially when you get the occasional syncing issue in the conversation.  On a landline Dad hears LOUD and CLEAR… even if he doesn’t always acknowledge what I say.  Are his calls worth the monthly subscription fee?  He’s 92!  You bet they are.

    Now let me ask you this.  How often do you call your own phone number?  Why would you?  Pick up the phone and you get dial tone – all good.  Set the answering machine to “on” so people can leave messages – even better.  Except when they can’t.  Let’s suppose – “hypothetically” – your phone company redirects your phone number to a random voicemail box.  And that mailbox is already full.  How would you know?  Only if you called your own phone number, right?  Or, only if the one person who calls you (“hypothetically” your dad) insists he can’t leave a message.

    Damn.  Dad was right after all.

    Here’s the best part.  I can’t even call my phone company to fix the problem.  Why?  Because I “bundled”.  You know, where you combine TV, Internet, wireless, landline, and whatever else you have so they’re all billed and serviced through a single provider? Mis-take. Try calling your satellite TV provider to ask about landline phone service.  After you explain what a landline IS, the young person at the far end transfers you to a “specialist” (someone much older who actually understands landlines).  That person acts as intermediary between you and the phone company.  There’s a lot of, “Can I put you on hold for a sec?” and, “You still there? and, “Hold tight, we’re still working on it” and even the occasional, “You did say this was a landline, right?  Y’know, you really should get rid of your landline…”.

    Long story short, it took me the better part of a week but now my dad can leave messages on my answering machine again.  He also says I should listen to my father more often.  (For younger readers, this is an excellent example of “eating crow”.  Look it up.)

    Electric Light Orchestra (ELO) – the English band of the ’70’s who somehow fused pop, rock, and classical – had their biggest U.S. hit with Telephone Line.  Its final verse begins, “Okay… so no one’s answering.  Well can’t you just let it ring a little longer, longer, longer?”  No ELO, I can’t let it ring a little longer – the phone company rerouted my number to a full voicemail box.

    But hey, thanks for calling.

About Me

The sky is not completely dark at night. Were the sky absolutely dark, one would not be able to see the silhouette of an object against the sky.

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