Look to the heavens

It just occurred to me that some of you might not have seen the comet. Comet 17/P Holmes is normally very dim but in late October it flared up to naked-eye visibility. It is still visible with the naked eye, but it is much better in even the smallest and cheapest binoculars, where it shows up as a huge patch of fuzz. (Believe me, my binoculars are both small and cheap.) And it's not hard to find--takes about 30 seconds even if you don't know any constellations at all. Here's a comet-finding guide I put together.


In related news, I've been taking pictures of the moon through my telescope. The best ones are posted on my Flickr page.


Well, this is Letters to London, not Letters From Space, so here's your value added. I found this in a folder full of fossil pictures. This was a while ago--we were in Berkeley, London was still using a bottle, and he was quite a bit smaller than he is now. I noticed at the park yesterday that my tiny tiger has suddenly turned into a long-legged lanky little boy. He just looks short because his pants are so wide! More pix to come soon...

Fall photo roundup

I just realized that there are quite a few good photos from this fall that I haven't posted yet. Here we are with the hanging skeleton in Vicki's office.


Vicki was interviewed by the local TV news back in September. We were staying in a hotel before flying back to Oklahoma, and the cable was out in our room, so we had to go down to the lobby and watch on the little TV at the front desk. It was pretty cool--London was definitely amazed to see "Mumpa" on TV.


This must be from our Santa Cruz trip, because that was the first and last time that those two rockets have been seen together. It is amazing how much London looks like Vicki's brother Matt sometimes.


That house on the corner is the first house on our street. Right across from our street they are building a shopping center. London and I often take walks down there to look at the tractors and play in the piles of sand and dirt outside the fence. About two weeks ago this tractor was sitting outside the fence, too, so we got a good look at it. London was thrilled.


Lots of new words and sayings to report. Things are counted up in numbers of ones. So if he sees two birds, he says, "There's two ones, Momma!"

Any more inclusive group is "some". The other day we were eating breakfast and out of the blue he says to me, "I don't like some alligators, Daddy." This means, of course, that he doesn't like any alligators. Later I was telling Vicki about it and when I quoted, "I don't like some alligators," London piped up with, "I don't like some alligators too!"

Sometimes they get combined: "There's some two flies."

Daddy: "Did you have some pizza?"
London: "I do had some pizza."
"I ate some P Q cons." (croutons)

London always calls other kids "children". Only it comes out "chirdelen".

Be- is still the all-purpose prefix for directions:
"Someone went be-under us." (from on top of a bridge)

"It went be-past me." (about a ball rolling past)


He is the great joy of our lives. Which reminds me, our friends Brian and Ilsa had a little boy at the beginning of October. His name is Gustav, or "Gus" for short, and he is a cute tiny man. I got to meet him a couple of weeks ago.


How are they ever so small? It confounds me to this day. Where did my tiny baby go?

Parenthood is the coolest.