Mutterings – Page 20 – Into the West

Dark of the Moon, Light of the City

After weeks of overcast, I couldn’t believe my eyes on the commute home yesterday. A clear blue sky with little to no haze and not a single cloud to be found. Waiting for the sun to set never seemed to take so long as it did last evening. I wasted some time with a quick grocery shopping run on my way home from the Hallmark parking lot. Terry made an awesome salad, which I ate as soon as I got home. He also planned to grill a couple of t-bones we’d purchased last month at the local farmers market in Leavenworth. Even though the charcoal fired up perfectly, the steaks disappointed. It’s been decades since either of us had such a grisly tough steak. We will NOT be purchasing any more meat from that particular local farmer.

I got caught up on Jeopardy and still had an hour to go before sunset. I fed the dogs, did some laundry and watched a rocket reality show hosted by Kari Byron on the Science channel. I ignored most of it (as I do most reality television) and Terry drifted off into his after-supper food coma. I started transferring telescope equipment from the basement to the backyard as soon as the sun set. I left the patio door open so Roxy and Apollo could come visit me if they wanted to. For the most part, they ran along the privacy fence, occasionally barking at evening strollers and/or their dogs.

Just as I attempted to do an easy alignment in the alt/az mounted mode for the ETX-90 and the Autostar, I realized I needed my cell phone for the time (because the Autostar asks for the date and time first when you turn it on). I ran back in the house and got my phone and saw my father had called while I was outside. I admit I was a bit distracted while talking (mostly listening) to him as I attempted to align the telescope. He asked me where Saturn was and I thought it was almost directly overhead. After I hung up, I realized that what I thought was Saturn was actually Arcturus (once I used the Big Dipper’s handle arc to find it among the constellations that I could barely see through the ambient Lansing light pollution). Once I confirmed via the telescope that bright fleck was indeed a star and not Saturn, I drove a ‘spike’ towards Spica and found Saturn in close proximity to another bright star in the constellation Virgo. Here’s what I saw last night facing south from my backyard (well, I saw some of this – except for the view blocked by my tall house, several very tall trees and an electric utility pole in the southwest corner of my yard).

South Horizon to Zenith on 31 May 2011 at 2215

: South Horizon to Zenith on 31 May 2011 at 2215

I attempted several times to align the telescope but failed repeatedly (even the Autostar kept telling me I failed). I could not use Arcturus as one of the two alignment stars because it was so high in the sky I could not use the finder scope. I know, I know, I should have installed my new red-dot finder scope before the first clear night in weeks arrived. Coulda, woulda, shoulda. 😛

I found Saturn and rejoiced in the clear view of it’s rings, using the 26mm and 16mm eyepieces. However, because I couldn’t get the telescope aligned properly, the slewing couldn’t keep up and Saturn drifted out of the field of view rapidly. Then, Saturn drifted behind the electric utility pole and I needed to wait five or ten minutes for the Earth to rotate enough for it to pop out on the other side. My night vision had begun to settle in (since I’d been outside for thirty minutes or so) when my neighbor to the north decided to turn on very bright lights in her second story south facing bedroom, leaving the blinds open. So much light emanated from that room that I could read my star atlas without using my night vision preserving red flashlight. I could have screamed in frustration. What I should have done was grab my camera and take photographs of her through her window and post them in this blog. For crying out loud! Don’t people realize that when you leave your blinds open and turn on every light in the room, it’s like a stage to those outside?!?!? She’s lucky I exercised restraint and left the camera inside.

With my night vision ruined, Saturn still behind the utility pole and the dew rapidly drenching all the sensitive optics, I elected to teach myself a couple of constellations and their primary bright stars, hoping my neighbor would turn off her bedroom lights. Using my new Sky & Telescope Pocket Sky Atlas, I found the charts for May and June evenings and studied the constellations Virgo and Leo. I also refreshed my memory of Bootes and Gemini (which I could barely see sinking into the western horizon, basically just the two dominant stars representing the twins’ heads – Pollux and Castor). Saturn was close enough to Porrima (also known as gamma Virginis) to see it through my telescope eyepiece’s field of view at the same time I watched the ringed planet.

The constellation I spent the most time studying lies just to the west of Virgo and contains several bright stars easily visible in from my light polluted back yard.

Denebola and Regulus are both visible soon after the sun sets. I studied Leo for several minutes, fixing the alignment of its stars into the pattern shown above. I returned to Virgo, since Saturn is traversing through that constellation at the moment. The configuration represented in my star atlas differs from those I have found represented on the internet this morning:

After waiting more than fifteen minutes for my neighbor to turn off her bedroom lights, I gave up, packed up the telescope and transferred it and all it’s accessories back down into my basement. Rain and clouds are predicted for the next few days (of course) during the darkest phase of the moon. I could just cry.

I Spy the Night Sky

I stepped outside just before 9:00 pm to let the dogs out and shocked myself with the sight of actual stars, something I haven’t seen in weeks (it seems) with the unrelenting cloud cover, rain and thunderstorms plaguing the Heart of America this month. I grabbed my camera and tripod and setup just east of my mailbox, hoping to capture photographic evidence of the overwhelming light pollution saturating my neighborhood.

Bambi Court Due North (from in front of my mailbox)

Not only does everyone on my court leave every outside light on, they feel compelled to illuminate their driveways, fences, sidewalks, trees, boats, etc., etc. The clouds in the above picture are actually illuminated by the glow from the Lansing Correctional Facility (just a half mile north of my neighborhood).

Turning around 180 degrees on the tripod, and flipping the camera 90 degrees to the horizontal, I snapped a shot of my new ‘bright night light’ recently installed at the corner of Bambi Court and Fawn Valley:

New 'Bright Night Light' (Installed at the corner of Fawn Valley & Bambi Court)

Again, the neighbors to my south, on the south side of Fawn Valley, seem to be in competition with the Bambi Court Extreme Illumination Foundation.

I could barely see the handle of the big dipper, so I thought I’d try experimenting with long exposures using the Pentax K100D. There was no wind where I was standing, even though I could see the thin wispy clouds moving casually from west to east across the backdrop of the Big and Little Dippers. I set the camera to Shutter Priority Mode and selected a six second exposure for a half dozen shots of the northwestern, north and northeastern skies. The most dramatic shot, after autocorrecting with basic photo editing software (and I apologize for the greenness of the resulting photo), follows:

Bits of Ursa Minor and Draco (behind the clouds)

I packed up the camera and tripod and thought about heading to bed. I tried to read more from the Backyard Astronomer’s Guide but gave up around ten o’clock. I got up to let the dogs out one final time and, as I always do, I looked up when I stepped outside. I always look up. The clouds had cleared away more and I could clearly see the Big and Little Dippers from my back patio. I grabbed the tripod and camera again for some more experimental shots using an exposure of fifteen seconds. The following two photos show Ursa Minor and Major in one shot:

Ursa Minor and Major (Polaris is at 1 o'clock compared to the tree sillouette bottom center)

And there I will leave you to dream of the stars.

Good night and sleep tight!

Corner Yard Saga Continues and Other Updates

A little more than a month ago, on the ides of April, one of the early spring thunderstorms took out the streetlight that graced the corner of my yard. At the time, I jumped for joy at the prospect of stargazing with less light pollution than ‘normal’ in my over-illuminated urban area. Ironically, except for a handful of nights, the sky remained overcast for the past six weeks. I began to wonder if I’d been transported against my will to the Pacific Northwest. I’ve completely missed the pre-dawn planetary line-up (Mercury, Mars, Venus and Jupiter), even on ‘clear’ mornings thanks to haze, humidity and wispy clouds just thick enough to obscure the eastern atmosphere.

This week, the power company installed the new streetlight pole and rewired it to the leaning pole in the southwest corner of my yard. That’s the pole they really should have replaced as with the current thunderstorm activity, I predict it will be the next victim. Either the City of Lansing or the power company opted to continue over-illuminating the neighborhood by installing a standard cobra drop-lens fixture instead of the flat-lens cobra luminaire, which is a full-cutoff fixture, is very effective in reducing light pollution, ensuring that light is only directed below the horizontal, rather than directing light outwards and upwards. Not only are the nights getting shorter (and more humid), I now get to look forward to seeing less stars, constellations, planets, galaxies and nebulae. At least the moon has some chance of competing for a few days each month.

I snapped a couple other photos of the state of that corner of the yard, mainly the huge pile of dirt around the base of the new streetlight:

What to do with the dirt? Tamp it? Water it?

I wonder what type of grass seed the City chose for the patch of yard the snow plow scraped off earlier this year:

I’ll leave you with my final photo of the evening, a bit of flowery brightness to lighten the mood:

Rapture No-Show And Tornadic Two-Step

For nearly an hour yesterday evening, I heard something I rarely pay much attention to … the wail of the tornado sirens. Having lived in Kansas all my life, I’ve had close calls with at least two tornadoes (including the huge one that went through the heart of Andover, Kansas). I usually take a quick peek out the back door to check for the tell-tale signs of imminent destruction … things like green black wall clouds, a distinctive smell, extremes of temperature and pressure. For the first time this Spring, the warning sirens blared continuously over the course of an hour, heralding a dark doom for parts of Leavenworth County. Lansing, and those south, skirted and flirted with disaster, but we saw not a single drop and barely a puff of breeze. All of this reminded me of the Rapture predictions for five o’clock, which also fizzled ignominiously.

My husband and I, and the Rottweilers, spent quite a bit of time outside watching the show to our northwest. The lightning, the thunder, the ever darkening skies as the sun set behind the dark and gloomy storm clouds. I watched the radar as the heart of the storm, and it’s potentially spawning tornadic children, made a bee-line for my mother’s home in Easton, Kansas. I didn’t dare call her during the height of the storm, since she doesn’t have a wireless phone and her cell phone doesn’t get signal from the safe-room in the house (the main bathroom).

I remembered to call her this morning, after reading about the poor town of Reading, Kansas, which suffered one death and the destruction of twenty homes from yesterday’s storms. She was fine as were her four grandsons.

The prediction of baseball or softball sized hail might have inspired my hubby to finally get the other half of the garage cleaned out. He was lamenting (translate that to whining) about losing the Firebird to a hail storm. I did not volunteer to trade places with the Bonneville in the garage however. Somebody upstairs must have heard his plea since we hardly had a wisp of wind from an otherwise very dangerous storm system.

Last evening’s siren serenade reminded me how grateful I am for basements, meteorologists, radar and early warning systems.

Last Time to Dial a Stargate in Just A Few Hours

The final episode of Stargate Universe airs this evening (8 p.m. Central on SyFy). The end of an era in science fiction television sputters to its prematurely canceled end in the episode ‘Gauntlet.’

Don’t miss this important final installment not just of this series, but of modern-day Stargate as we know it. We believe with great certainty that the franchise will be back down the road. But for now, this is the final hour for Stargate fans to enjoy.

— Darren Sumner, founder of Gateworld, (writing in his final weekly ‘heads up’ article “Tonight on SGU Gauntlet“)

I am dreading this evening. The moment I watch the episode, all hope ends for any new Stargate material, at least in the foreseeable future. Perhaps I should pickup a bottle of wine on the way home to sooth my anticipated raw nerves?

Darren penned another op-ed piece today (Wed 11 May 2011) at Gateworld you might be interested in reading. Here’s a snippet from that article:

… what is clear from the swell of support that last week’s editorial received is that Syfy has an image problem on its hands. The network has succeeded in broadening its appeal through rebranding, airing wrestling, and developing scripted dramas that are more accessible to casual viewers than traditional science fiction fare — whimsical procedurals rather than, for example, the arc-based “space opera.” But that change of image comes at a cost.

GateWorld throws down gauntlet, Syfy Channel responds

What a Wild and Wacky Week

Winding back to Tuesday evening, Terry and I jumped in the car as soon as I got home to return the bluetooth stereo headphones to Best Buy at the Legends. In an effort to one-up my surprise anniversary gift of a 24 inch widescreen HD monitor for Terry, he purchased a Nook Color for me. I spent the next couple of hours playing with that new gadget and finally getting the recent software update to download and install.

Not having enough to do, I setup the telescope near the mailbox on the driveway since the night was exceptionally clear for an early May spring evening. I was able to view Saturn and at least one of it’s moons and I saw the shadow of the rings on the surface of the planet as well as some contrast between the clouds of that gas giant. I tried a filter, but couldn’t remember the exact number I should have used from my reading of The Backyard Astronomer’s Guide (Part 1). I swung around to the north-northeast to view Mizar in Ursa Major and attempted to find the Owl Nebula (M97) and as well as M81/M82 (a couple of galaxies). However, the light pollution from the Lansing Correctional Facility and my neighbors porchlights and yard lights (and possibly some haze in the atmosphere) prevented me from find any of the deep sky objects. I packed everything back up and went off to bed.

Wednesday morning, I left early to visit my local Wal-Mart to find a protective cover or sleeve for the Nook Color. Even though two employees were in the Electronics department, stocking shelves, they managed to ignore me the entire time I searched for said product. I found a leather-looking folio-type cover which had the word ‘nook’ on the packaging and purchased it for about $30. Once out in the car, I quickly discovered that ‘nook’ does not mean ‘nook color’ as the product was too small. I had run out of time though to return it immediately and rushed to meet my vanpool and commute to work. During lunch, I took a fifteen minute walk to the Country Club Plaza Barnes & Noble to pickup the cover I had placed on hold via the B&N website. Since most of my lunch hour still remained, I walked back east and decided to try Firehouse Subs. I had just received my order when a couple of my coworkers arrived and asked to join me. We had an enjoyable visit before I headed back to the office building.

I easily transferred the 15 CDs worth of MP3s for the audiobook Elvenbane using the microUSB cord provided and a spare 4GB microSD card I originally purchased for my unsmartphone. The Nook has a regular headphone jack (instead the proprietary one for my Samsung cell phone) which allows me to use a comfortable pair of wired stereo headphones. I enjoyed an hour’s worth of listening during the commute back to Leavenworth. That means in about a week I should be able to finish this book and write up a review for Fantasy Literature. I’m about one-quarter finished and a bit exasperated with the current characters, who are children acting like children, even if they be dragons or half-elf/half-human in origin. I usually avoid young adult fiction and/or fiction that focuses on children, pre-teens or teens because the melodrama usually makes me nauseous.

While on the phone with an IT colleague in our St. Louis office, I received a call from my daughter. I asked her if I could call her back as I’d been trying to connect with the St. Louis person for several days. I surprised myself by remembering to call my daughter back when I finished. Rachelle reported she passed her opera divisional jury easily. The jury panel once again wondered why she was a music history undergrad student and not a vocal performance one. She consoled them by affirming she planned to study vocal performance as a graduate. We also discussed the best way to send her the rest of her summer tuition, debating the merits of PayPal versus a traditional check. She opted for the latter and I mailed said check promptly Thursday morning along with several other items I had forgotten to mail throughout the week.

Wednesdays mean Wolfguard rehearsal, focused for their benefit concert this Saturday afternoon. I didn’t hang around for the first set. Instead, I ran back to Wal-Mart to return the nook cover. Ironically, after finding all of the items on Terry’s shopping list (except for the nine volt batteries!), I spent the same amount that I had just had refunded to me. I made it home in time to catch most of the second set rehearsal.

I had trouble dozing off, tossing and turning until well past one o’clock in the morning. So when the alarm went off at five o’clock I felt like I’d had a nice nap. Joy of joys, Thursday mornings are trash days in Lansing, so I dealt with the garbage and the recyclables before dragging myself to the van for the morning commute. I again listened to Elvenbane while trying to stay awake without the assistance of a caffeinated beverage.

My morning flew by as have the other two days of this work week. So much to do, so many projects to juggle and so many distractions and fires interfering with my well laid plans. Just after the bi-weekly Change Management meeting broke-up and as I was settling down to compile some information, I received a call on my cell phone from an unrecognized number. The woman on the other end was the Director of the Leavenworth Library, calling to tell me my mother had been ambulanced to Cushing Hospital a few minutes before eleven o’clock. I asked the Director what her symptoms and/or condition was and she replied that she had been dizzy and incoherent, on the verge of passing out and once the EMTs were on site, her blood pressure and blood sugar were both very high. I, of course, assumed the worst — that she was having a stroke or heart attack.

I spent the next several minutes making phone calls to determine how best to get home. Since I don’t drive to work, I can’t just jump in my car to return home when an emergency occurs. However, one of the benefits of participating in the Guaranteed Ride Home program for the last several years (first as a carpooler and for the last year as a vanpooler). Never before have I had an emergency occur where I couldn’t find an alternative way home without invoking this benefit. Today was the day. I explained my situation and they provided a limo service for me since I live over thirty miles away from work (although it’s a similar fare if you are going from the Plaza to KCI, since I live very close to KCI, just across the Missouri River on the Kansas side). One of the last call’s I made was to Cushing Hospital ER to get an updated status on my mother. I was able to talk to her (she hadn’t seen a doctor yet) and I told her I probably wouldn’t make it to Cushing until close to one o’clock in the afternoon.

The ride home was uneventful but dreary, as rain had arrived in Kansas City. However, by the time we reached Lansing, the rain let up and the clouds began to break-up and patches of blue sky became visible. In fact, when I parked the Firebird at Cushing, the sun was warming up the recent rain and promising some humidity and haze.

The ER reception desk at Cushing was unmanned, although I sign indicated I should sign in on a clipboard. I hesitated to do so since I was not a patient needing care, but rather a relative seeking to visit an ER patient. After standing around for fifteen minutes, a woman returned to the desk and asked me if I had signed in. I explained I did not need treatment but wanted to see my mother. She shocked me by stating that my mom would be released in a few minutes so I could have a seat while I waited. True to her word, my mom arrived in the waiting area about five minutes later.

The ER doctors had run an EKG and a CAT scan and found nothing of note. He encouraged her to rest for the next couple of days and eat more frequent small meals. Apparently, her appetite has been suppressed recently (in fact, she’s lost enough wait to wear clothes two sizes smaller than usual). I’m not sure if that’s a result from her previous trip to the hospital a couple of weeks ago and the prescriptions she’s been taking for that incident. I got her into the Firebird (which rides low) and took her home so I could switch cars and gather up Terry. I fed her a light lunch to make sure she got something to eat before we drove out to Easton. We stopped by the Library to drop off her doctor’s note excusing her from work for the rest of the day and tomorrow. I drove her car back to Easton while Terry and Mom rode in the Bonneville.

I am grateful nothing more serious occurred to my mother, especially since Mother’s Day is this Sunday! That was my other reason for taking her to my house – her card was sitting on the kitchen table for Terry to deliver that afternoon.

Terry and I stopped at Denney’s Produce on the return trip but couldn’t find many appealing or appetizing veggies. Once home, we talked for a few minutes and then watched three days’ worth of Jeopardy episodes. Then I took Roxy for a walk and saw a vivid rainbow just before the sun set.

It doesn’t look like I’m going to get a break until Sunday. Tomorrow night might be all right, but Saturday is chock full of activities – first Spring book sale for the Kansas City Public Library at the City Market (undecided if I’ll attend), the Wolfguard benefit concert and opening night at Powell Observatory. I feel tired just thinking about the next forty-eight hours.

Product Review: Motorola S10-HD Bluetooth Stereo Headphones

After accepting an invitation as a guest reviewer at FantastyLiterature.com, I began receiving items to read for future reviews, including three audio books. Audio books have increased appeal to me now (during Spring and early Summer) as I can simultaneously pursue my fitness goals and continue reading. However, I don’t own (nor do I want to own) a portable CD player, so the first thing I do when I receive an audio book is to rip it to MP3 format so I can upload it to my phone.

Mossy Mobile Listening Options (early May 2011)

And about my phone … it makes phone calls well and I can text from it, but other than that, I’m looking forward to moving on to a smarter phone. My current intellectually challenged phone is the Samsung t659 from Tmobile, who are also on my crap list for selling their collective corporate soul to the devil in ATT clothing. Among the myriad items I would change, like a larger clock display, flash for the camera, and larger than 2 GB microSD capacity, the headset that came with the phone, while stereo, cause a nearly instant headache from the pain of placing the ear-buds in my ears for more than five minutes.

Proprietary Jack on Samsung t659 Headphones

And to add insult to injury, the Samsung t659 uses a proprietary headphone jack, so I don’t have the option to use a normal set of headphones. And my older Plantronics Bluetooth headset works great for phone calls, but fails miserably and completely for listening to music or an audio book. So I went on a quest for a set of Bluetooth stereo headphones last week.

I wanted to acquire them prior to a long road trip schedule for a long weekend. With such a short deadline, I found less than a half dozen headphones, with mixed reviews (ranging from just two stars to one with a four star rating), only two of which were available locally through Best Buy. I vainly looked through WalMart’s electronics section, but they only supplied normal one-ear Bluetooth headsets. I ran out of time before I could purchase any headset, so resolved myself to either not listening to the audio book while driving to Table Rock Lake or the excruciating pain provided by my factory-issued Samsung headphones.

Motorola - S10-HD Bluetooth Stereo Headphones (via Best Buy)

During our weekend visit to Branson, my husband and I stopped into a local Best Buy and I impulsively bought the Motorola S10-HD Bluetooth Stereo Headphones. I should have resisted the temptation, especially after reading many of the reviews found on Best Buy’s web site. I have a large head, or at least large compared to the rest of my immediate family, with a circumference of approximately twenty-three inches. According to the instruction booklet (I just can’t bring myself to call it a user’s guide or user’s manual because of it’s tiny size), to wear the headset, you guide them over the top of your head and settle them over year ears (like wearing a pair of glasses backwards). Not only is my head larger, I have very thick hair and on this particular weekend, I had styled it and because of rainy weather, applied enough hairspray to ensure a near impervious hair helmet. It was impossible to follow the instructions as written in the booklet.

I had to expand the headset beyond what I felt comfortable doing, reach behind my head, slip the headset around my neck (like a torque) and then move them up and over my ears. The headset was heavy (probably due to the Bluetooth electronics ‘hovering’ over the nape of my neck), pulled down on my ears and put excessive pressure on my ear canal via the ear buds. All-in-all, not much of an improvement, if any, over the aforementioned OEM headset from Samsung, just a whole lot more expensive. On the drive back home across Missouri in an unseasonably cold May drizzle, I could only listen to my audio book for fifteen or twenty minutes at a time before I had to remove the headset and give my poor ears a break. And how are you supposed to wear sunglasses (see first photo above) with over-the-ear headphones?

I gave the headset another try last night while I walked one of my Rottweilers around the neighborhood. I survived the thirty minute walk with Apollo, but my ears were (and still are) smarting from the uncomfortable fit. I expect more from Motorola, a company I’ve come to trust over the years for their audio equipment. On a scale of one to five stars, I would give this product either a zero or, if that’s not allowed, a one star rating. I will be returning this headset to Best Buy this evening (the one in the Legends, not the one in Branson).

Ethical Gymnastics in SGU Body Snatching

I decided to re-watch both the ‘Alliances‘ and ‘Hope‘ SGU episodes Wednesday evening. I tend to roll my eyes during the episodes that use the Ancient communication stones. They strike me as a ‘cop out’ for the non-SF aspects of the show (i.e. human drama, human interest, family, friends, etc. … all circumstances and situations I can find readily enough on most any prime time series).

I realized on my re-viewing that both episodes presented the ‘flip sides’ of the ethical dilemma presented by the body swapping consequences of the Ancient communication device.

In the ‘Alliances’ episode, we ponder the questions:

When it isn’t your body, do you take risks the original owner would not, especially since you get a ‘get out of jail free card’ when you return to your own body?

And, should you discover that your original body has been lethally damaged, why not just keep the body your currently occupying?

In the ‘Hope’ episode, the alternative questions:

When your soul or consciousness returns from the ether (since your original body was murdered while you were using the Ancient communication stones leaving your spirit in cosmic limbo), what’s a body to do? <pun intended>

Are we obligated to find a willing host, either temporary or permanent, for your essence to subsume?

I found it interesting that Col. Young was adamant that Greer be returned to his body when the cowardly visiting scientist attempted to refuse (once he found out his body on Earth had been exposed to lethal radiation levels). And the Senator, within only a moment’s hesitation, firmly stepped up and volunteered to return and diffuse the bomb, regardless of the consequences to her life.

Yet, the very next week, Eli and Rush are fighting to keep Ginn and Amanda in Chloe’s body, each understandably selfishly wanting their recent lovers returned to them. Chloe seemed strangely willing to allow her guests to remain and the only person to voice any protestation was Matt, the other male of this bizarre love triangle.

I half hoped the Ancient communication device would remain offline so we could get back to the mission, whichever flavor that might be (Young’s ‘Let’s Get the Heck Back to Earth’ or Rush’s ‘Damn Earth, the Universe Beckons’), but Telford reared his head before the credits rolled on ‘Hope.’

Crowding Chloe

After last week’s disappointing ‘Alliances‘ SGU episode, I admit to some skepticism prior to viewing last night’s ‘Hope‘ episode. Tuesday evening ratings update: ‘Hope’ gained 7% in viewership compared to last week’s ‘Alliances’ episode.

Destiny’s ‘crew’ (I hesitate to call it a crew, since no one but Rush really wants to be on board) has had no contact with Earth for days, so volunteers are manning the Ancient communication stones around the clock waiting for word about the terrorist attack and bomb threat (see last week’s ‘Alliances‘ episode referred to above). Chloe relieves Volker, who looks ill and dizzy, so he goes to sickbay to see T.J. She takes his vitals and tells him he has high blood pressure (176 over something … can’t remember exactly what). Volker knew he had high blood pressure, was on blood pressure medication, but also neglected to tell T.J. because he assumed there was no alternative homeopathic remedy (wrong). Due to the long untreated hypertension, Volker’s kidneys are shutting down; T.J. breaks the news to him that the only treatment available would be a kidney transplant from a live donor. Destiny’s sickbay apparently doesn’t include any dialysis-like equipment.

So, Volker gets a wake-up call about kidney disease (something I’m very aware of since my husband has been fighting to stay of dialysis for well over a decade). T.J. surveys the crew for matching blood types, eventually finding two matches, one of which is Greer (no surprise there). Without the Ancient communication device and access to Earth’s medical personnel, T.J. faces attempting a kidney transplant with a medic’s training (and some crash course reading from Destiny’s medical database).

Meanwhile, Chloe briefly nods off while connected to the communication stones and Ginn‘s consciousness manages to take control. This turns into a bizarre love triangle (or is it quadrangle) between Ginn and Eli and Chloe (hosting Ginn) and Matt. And as if Chloe’s brain didn’t have enough to do, Amanda makes an appearance, so suddenly Rush is really motivated to ‘save’ Amanda and Ginn. So we went from two couples (both young adults) to three couples in about thirty seconds. Rush’s solution, of course, remains the neural interface chair.

Chloe seemed unbelievably willing to let whoever run around with her body, very noble and self-sacrificial. At least Matt showed some sense, standing up for her right to her own body. Chloe does volunteer to sit in the chair. She’s occupied by Ginn at the time, who has another choking fit (possible remnant of her murder by Simeon from last fall). Alarmingly, as she’s gasping for air, Destiny has a power failure and mainframe reset. Begs the question, was uploading her consciousness linking her life-signs to Destiny’s systems? Young orders the chair turned off, over Rush’s angry protestations (since the transfer may or may not have completed). Chloe collapses into Mat and Eli’s arms. Rush confirms two new programs in Destiny’s memory banks, one of which is active and operating somewhere on the ship.

Back in sickbay, midway through the transplant, with the mainframe off-line, T.J. nearly panics. Amanda appears (only to T.J.) and helps her finish grafting Greer’s kidney into Volker. As soon as the operation is completed, Amanda disappears. We then switch to Eli in his quarters, where we hear someone knock on his door. He sees Ginn and they talk, but can’t touch.

This episode brought several questions bubbling up in the cauldron of my mind:

Why was T.J. unaware of Volker’s hypertension? Wouldn’t the only medical professional for these ‘shipwrecked’ people have set some kind of baseline for each person and checked periodically?

And if everyone’s on a vegetarian diet (as far as I can tell), wouldn’t they be losing weight and a lot of it? How have Volker and Eli maintained their rotund physique on a much reduced caloric intake? Which again leads me back to T.J. monitoring everyone for signs of malnutrition and other symptoms.

Finally, besides Matt, no one asked or discussed the ethics of downloading Ginn or Amanda into someone else’s body. Does that ‘body’ get a say in this process? I doubt Ginn or Amanda want to be zombies (i.e. downloaded into the recently deceased). I equally doubt that any sane person would sacrifice themselves for a consciousness to be downloaded into them permanently. I can see the possibility of something like the communication stones where Ginn and Amanda get a ‘day out’ or ‘walkabout’ or something to spend time with others (specifically Eli and Rush). That’s the least morally repugnant option, provided the host is willing. Otherwise, we’ll be creating the Goa’uld all over again.

I’ll give this episode three stars on a scale of five. Definitely better than last week, but still just spinning the proverbially Stargate futilely.

Plowed Yard Update

Back in early February, when all of northeastern Kansas was being bounded by a blizzard of ice, snow and frigid temperatures, the overeager local City maintenance personnel thought to help me with snow removal not only in my court, by in the my yard as well. (See my previous blog post for the ‘before’ photos).

The City stopped by sometime this week and ‘repaired’ my plowed yard so here’s on the ‘after’ photos:

We’ll see if the grass takes root. I don’t have a hose long enough to reach from the front of the house clear to the corner of Bambi Court and Fawn Valley so I can’t readily water it.

Since I had my ‘good’ digital camera in hand, I wandered back up to the house and took a macro photo of some of the persistent early spring flowers growing on the south side of my house:

Pretty Pink Early Spring Flowers (I have no idea what it is)