Just Another Weekend
Did a pretty lot this weekend. First off it was a 9/80 weekend. This means that I get Friday off. It's common in the defense industry. You work 9 hours for 4 days and then 8 hours totaling 44 hours then 9 hours for 4 days totaling 36 hours. This lets you have every other Friday off.
I had a doctors appointment that I had to go to on Friday but then went and got my hair cut short. Weather's been nice here in Arizona - mostly mid 80's (Yeah East Coasters - shiver!) so it's nice to be able to ride the vette around with the top down everywhere.
Headed over to the Rock Bottom Brewery for dinner as they left a flyer on my car for a free appetizer and I've always liked that place. Later I headed over to Total Wine and picked up a few French wines along with an Italian one (Gotta get ready for my Italy/France trip next year!). Later that night went to the Mills End Open Mic Meetup. It was OK. I'm thinking perhaps I can get the guys at the Phoenix Acoustic Jam group to put something together to perform there.
Got up early Saturday. Needed to figure out where down in Tucson I wanted to hike. The plan was to hike in the morning/afternoon then head up to Kitt Peak National Observatory. I had booked a night observation program and had to be there by 4:45 Pm. Alas it's been cloudy all day. Took me forever to get things straightened up at home and get out the door. Didn't get to the hike until 1:30 Pm so it'll have to be a short one. Pretty cool place. I must come back here.
Called Kitt Peak and they said it'll be cloudy most of the night and that things didn't look good so they'd give me a $4 discount and could do some computer simulations and get to see inside some of the domes, maybe talk to an astronomer or two. I figured what the hell, I've already drove all this way...
Amazing drive to Kitt Peak with the top down, of course. Clouds remained and it's a little more chilly up on the peak (~7000 ft). Luckily I had a light jacket. The guys tried hard to get something going there but it was cloudy most of the time. We did get to go into the big 4 meter telescope and talk with the young woman astronomer from Wyoming doing her research project. That was interesting as was the control room. Normally the astronomer would be busy and we would not get to see as much but as the sky was cloudy she wasn't doing much anyway.
Close to the end of the night the sky cleared somewhat and I did get to see Jupiter - very cool - as well as a dual star. I'll need to come back here in the Spring - if I'm still in Arizona by then...
Originally I thought I'd get a hotel room in Tuscon however I decided to head back home instead of staying in Tucson. Got home around midnight.
Sunday was acoustic jam time. Spend the morning restringing my guitar while watching a video called Darwin's Dangerous Idea that I downloaded from Google Video - all my TV, except the occasional DVD/BlueRay I rent, is from the Internet now. I had prepared a set list and there were supposed to be a lot of people there. There ended up being about 3 other guitarists but armed with my set list and lyrics we were able to get through a number of songs and it was sounding good.
Did some shopping and will be having a London Broil with your basic potatoes and corn along with a French wine (Chateau Bonnet Bordeaux 2005). Still need to get through these Ken Burns Civil War DVDs and perhaps I'll watch some Chicago Hope or maybe the second half of Darwin's Dangerous Idea... Just another weekend...