I Blame the heat!

No posts for a week! Sorry about that, but I blame the heat! With both of us working full time and the outdoor temps well over 100F, your energy just seems to get zapped away and blogger's block comes on strong. The temperature peaked at 109F midweek then "cooled" to 103 yesterday. Admittedly, it is that time of year - the normal highs are in fact, over 100F, and dew points are still below freezing (it's still amazing to me that your iced drinks don't "sweat"), so it is a "dry" heat, but still, 109! All of us are looking to the southeastern horizon where in the next week or 10 days our "monsoon" rains will come bringing lower temperatures, and the bulk of our annual rainfall. It can't come too soon for a lot of us!


We did have some fun this weekend, though. Melinda got to attend her first astronomy convention as the Astronomical League brought their annual convention to Tucson (who came up with that idea - Tucson in June!). In addition, a local manufacturer of solar viewing devices, Lunt Solar Systems, held a solar observer's meeting, and the International Dark-Sky Association (another local organization) joined for their annual meeting as well. So there was no lack of things astronomical to do over the 3 day weekend. There were some great talks, quite a large vendor display, as well as solar telescopes and some spectacular photos on display (and for sale!). Our friend Marilyn, was down from Prescott where she owns a bookstore, to sell used astronomy and science titles. We had just seen her a few weeks ago at the Canyon, but it was still great spending time and meals with her. At left, our new TAAA president and conference organizer Keith Schlottman introduces a speaker. We attended nearly all the AL talks Friday and Saturday, but today Melinda begged off the light pollution conference, and I only attended the morning session. I won a guide telescope door prize, and I bought two spectacular photos of the Milky Way from national parks from Wally Pacholka, who has an incredible body of work.


We followed up the meeting with a viewing of Toy Story 3 (in 3-D) at lunchtime, then rushed off to get Melinda a nap before she starts work tonight. And I'll likely have a long week at work starting tomorrow, so we're getting back to reality!