On the Route Log 10.2.06

On the Route logs are a way for me to share the things I experience and perhaps just think about while out on my early morning paper route.

This morning's musical highlight: my own songs to William Blake's Songs of Innocence. I have about half of them recorded and you can hear three of them in draft form here at my dmusic site. OK, I just went there and it's been changed. You can hear one "Piping Down the Valleys Wild" on the main page and on the music link you can here two more at the bottom of the page. These are songs with, I hope, singable melodies and simple arrangements for small ensemble. Someday I'd like to arrange them for ensemble singing and stage interpretation.

Constellations:
I love to stop and check out the night sky when I can. Last two nights, (mornings) have been very clear. This morning was exceptional. Looking at Orion in the SE, it was easy to see Gemini, Canis Major and Minor, Lepus, Taurus, Aries, (not so easy to see), Triangulum, Perseus, and Auriga. Monoceros, Cancer and the head of Hydra are also in this area but difficult to make out until they rise a little more in the sky. Ursa Major is high enough now in the northeast to see the whole constellation, most know only the "dipper shape". Oh, and also Leo is coming up now, but not all there quite yet. To the north I could see Ursa Minor, which has the "North Star" around which all the Constellations revolve and west of that Cassiopeia, the "W" or "Lady in the Chair". She is also a good Constellation to use to locate others.

If one picks out a certain time of the night, or morning, and certain location in the sky it is easy to see many constellations as they take their turns in that position through the year. If you can stay up for hours at a time you can learn a lot more in a much shorter time, of course. See the sidebar for the Interactive Sky Chart link.

Other thoughts this morning: Tomorrow I teach someone to fill-in for half of the route, actually one of the two that I do, so that on Wednesday I can have a colonoscopy done. I have had, quite literally, a pain in the butt for a long time now. The result of a screening showed that my PSA was in the normal range. The doctor did feel a hard mass in the rectum. This is not the same as a boring mass near the rectory, although I have suffered with both! Getting older is interesting, no? I feel that these are the symptoms of the low level mental and emotional distress I have put upon myself, my illusions getting the best of me. Actually, the body's perfect response to the confusion and limitations of my thoughts and emotions. The body and mind being extensions of the same thing. However hard I try to limit what is unlimited and perfect and in Eternal Ecstasy, always in all ways. Of that I am certain.

Politics: Iraq, NIE, Supreme Court, the latest Washington Sex Scandal,

Other news: Two Americans win Nobel Prize in Medicine


Peace to all.

me in the EE, really



.