Thursday, February 7, 2008

Enough, already, and more

It seems that we've had far more than our normal share of snow here. There has been "dump after dump" for several weeks now, and some snow has almost always been on the ground. That's quite unusual for us west-coast softies. We've done more than our normal amount of shovelling; it makes up somewhat for the missed walks my wife and I like to take. The other exercise option we have is an old excercise bike we have in the basement, which we use when the weather makes walking uncomfortable for us.

This exercise bike was given to us by a member of our extended family. When we got it, its "odometer" showed just under 300 miles of (stationary) travel - the scenery never changes - now it is showing just over 1,200 miles. This means that we have "biked" around 900 miles - 1,450km - I think that's like biking from Vancouver to Calgary.

Anyway, I'm sure hoping that the weather will be clear for the next lunar eclipse on February 20. This eclipse occurs early in the evening, it starts around sunset (and moonrise) for us here on the west coast. Look towards the eastern horizon, as the sky gets darker, the eclipse should be more easily visible. It's hard to predict, sometimes the moon gets really dark during an eclipse, and is hard to see.




This is a simulated image of how the moon might appear on an uncommonly clear evening at around 6:30pm on Feb 20 from some imagenary lake in the Vancouver, B.C., area. Click on the picture to get a slightly larger view.