Moon

I'm sure you can tell by looking at me that I used to be a huge astronomy nerd in high school. I've had a decent scope for a good while and have recently caught the bug again. So I sold my motorcycle and bought a very sophisticated computer driven telescope. A scope set up for astrophotography.

Last night, I took it over the farm for some dark skies (and a bright moon) to take my first photos. So with the pigs grunting in the background, I learned it is a lot harder than it looks. I present my very first photo.

I've got a lot to learn; like how to get the entire moon in the field of view and get the focus as razor sharp as it is at the eyepiece. This man has my same scope. He shows the maximum potential of my endeavors.

Great Ape

This man devoted himself to the knowledge of these beasts. For him to stay calm in this situation showed that his knowledge trumped fear. It's a good reminder to me that when I recognize fear in myself, it simply represents a lack of knowledge.

Little Scavengers

So the boys went quiet while I watched them the other day. Most of the time this is what my brain tells me it wants. They are usually making sword noises. Rocket noises. Asylum noises. My brain says "I wish these little smack-heads would just give it a rest for a minute." Then when they do go quiet, my brain says "Holy Hell, one of them is probably strangling the other! QUICK! FIND THEM!"

I didn't find a murder scene this time. I found Silas squatting watching Leon chow down on a delicious chunk of Toblerone chocolate. This doesn't upset me as much as it does the queen bee, so I just laughed and took the chunk into evidence.

Then I began the interrogation.

Leon's mouth looked like he had been eating mud pies. I'm convinced his strategy was to simply get the chocolate down and at least he would be standing in the corner for his crime with a tummy full of goodness. He takes the drug mule approach. Silas was clean as a whistle - teeth pearly white, fingers pristine, lips looked like they hadn't touched chocolate in months. Silas looked like a nun on a nude beach. I asked Leon how many he had eaten and he raise one chocolate-tipped finger. I asked him if he had shared any with Silas and he said yes. He's trying to spread the guilt, I thought. I asked Silas if he had eaten any and he just shrugged his shoulders, shook his head and said "No eat any." It looked like he was telling the truth....until I smelled his breath and it smelled like Willy Wonka's wonderland.

These boys be messin' with me!

Supernova

So if you're out under the stars this weekend, you are going to be under the explosive light blast of incomprehensible energy. A white dwarf star located in the Pinwheel Galaxy has died in a blaze of glory.

The astronomy nerd in me couldn't resist finding out exactly what is happening up there, or as it turns out, what happened.

Indulge me the fruits of my research.

A white dwarf is a star that it is at the end of its life. It has completed its cycle of nuclear fusion. The star has condensed itself smaller and smaller and ended its life cycle. How do we even know what a life cycle of a star looks like? For hundreds of years we've been looking into the sky and have discovered a collection of stars in every stage of life. We can measure the heat, light, and movement of stars, and everything we know about them confirms our model of the life of stars.

This white dwarf died a little differently than most. When it completed nuclear fusion, it began to leach mass from its binary partner star. This began to raise the temperature of the dense dwarf, which in turn began a rapid reaction of carbon fusion that resulted in an instant explosion. Think in the scale of an amoeba's perspective on a hydrogen bomb explosion. This explosion is what made the little white dwarf a type 1a supernova. To the best of my knowledge, this is exactly what is happening up there in the Pinwheel galaxy.

But it's not happening at all in reality. The explosion we're seeing increase every night in the big dipper exploded 20 million years ago.

An old universe is an idea I've resisted up until I recently decided to educate myself about how we know the earth is as old as the majority of scientist tell us it is. What I found convinced me beyond a doubt. But I know that for the rest of my days when I hear these claims I will always think "How do they know that?!" This question is actually what led me to understand that the evidence for an old earth is overwhelming. So when I heard my favorite amateur astronomer say that this event happened 20 million years ago, I had to dig deeper.

It's not an easy task even for Prof. Google. I ended up talking directly with a research astronomer about this question. For him, it was as simple as knowing that the white dwarf in question was 20 million light-years away. We just saw the explosion a week ago, so that logically means that the light from that blast took 20 million years to reach us.

But how do you determine that distance for sure? The star appears in the Pinwheel galaxy. We have measured variable stars in that galaxy to determine their absolute magnitude. That is, we have a measuring system that tells us how bright that start burns as if you were standing right in front of it. We then compare that verified magnitude with it's magnitude here on earth. We know that light diminishes at a constant rate as it travels. So the difference between how bright the star actually burns and how bright it is in our sky is the standard astronomers leagues smarted than myself can insert into an equation to figure the distance that light has travelled. The distance the light from pulsars in the Pinwheel galaxy travel happens to be 20 million light-years. When I view this galaxy in my telescope, there is no light falling on my eye younger than 20 million years.

This is convincing to me, but again my interest in these things as an ex-young earth creationists, makes ask "How do creationists answer this glaring problem with their belief that the universe is only 6,000 years old?"

For years now, the majority of creationist have insisted that the astronomical measurement methods are scientifically sound. They deal with observational science and can be tested and repeated and do not rely on evolutionary theory. They also agree with the generally accepted size of the universe.

The most popular argument is that God created light already in transit. After all,  they believe Adam was created as a mature adult. This is the argument I was taught in college. However, this argument has been officially abandoned by the Institue for Creation Science and Answers in Genesis. They reason that we see the light from stars and galaxies move and change and explode. These changes represent events. If we see an event from anything further away than 6,000 light years then that event actually didn't take place (assuming the creation of the universe occurred 6,000 years ago). This would mean God created an illusion of events. The top creationists reject this idea as bad theology. They argue that it is uncharacteristic of God to create such illusions. It is also not a scientific argument as it cannot be falsified. It is essentially an appeal to magic.

So creationists have had to back pedal a bit and now throw doubt on the measurement methods they have for years approved as observational science. They point out that all these measurements (that have been repeated, tested, and proven) actually are based on assumptions that light has always traveled at a constant speed. They claim scientists are assuming this when in reality, this idea has been tested and proved as well.

Every new argument I've found is essentially throwing doubt on the constant rate on which astronomers have been basing their measurements. Astronomers can't even take this challenge seriously because it is an obvious defense of dogma, not a set of scientific observations that seem to contradict our current model of the universe. There is absolutely no evidence that the speed of light has ever been different than it is today.

At the end of the day, no matter our understanding about how it came to be, we can all take a look up at the stars in wonder at the fact that our small and insignificant place in this universe does not isolate us to the point we cannot experience its wonders from 20 million light-years away.

*   *   *   *

For the curious, a complete, fair treatment of the young universe views on these subjects.

Ira

I'm still painting the house. This job has taken every bit of my weekends, and now that the winter is just around the corner, I'm in a mad rush to get it done.

Let me just explain to you how much time this takes. I go about it in sections. So lets say I'm working on a 14' x 14' section of wall and a window. I first scrape which takes about 5 hours. I then must sand, wash and caulk it. That takes another 4 hours. Once dry, I can prime it: 5 hours. Then it's time for the final two coats of paint: 5 hours. That's just for a small section of wall!

Needless to say, I've had a lot of time to myself. I've listened to enough NPR to make a Tea Partier praise Buddha.

The best thing I've found to pass the time didn't come until halfway through the project. My favorite radio program by far is This American Life with Ira Glass. I've never heard a bad episode. Fortunately, they have a smartphone app that allows you to listen to any of the past 500 episodes. So as the hours pass along with a scraper or brush in my hand, they pass with just me and my best bud, Ira. Ira has me laughing under the Gable. Ira has made me cry along the gutter.

Last weekend I spent about 20 hours painting and hanging with Ira. It was great.

Sunday night, I laid my bald head down and fell fast asleep. No joke, this was my dream:

"This American Life is brought to you by our contributers. I'm Ira Glass. Every week we bring you a theme and stories on this theme. This week, Aaron is dreaming and he's having me narrate his dream. He'll later think this is funny and even consider emailing me about it. He'll settle for just blogging..."

Like every dream involving beautiful celebrities, it didn't last long enough.

*   *   *   *   *

Do yourself a favor an listen to this 16 minute act by Michael Ian Black on the Father's Day episode of This American Life.

Just like Steele Creek!

The peak of Everest is marine limestone. The highest peak in the world is made up of marine limestone. Marine limestone!!!

Magic

I'm upstairs working yesterday and hear Beth hollering for Leon. It registers with me just long enough to think he must be into something he shouldn't be. He'll usually go into hiding when he finds candy or a dangerous weapon. Lucky for us, his hiding places are usually terrible, and his patience has a short life, so even if he can stay hidden he gives himself up within 60 seconds.

After a couple of minutes Beth shouts up a worried, "Aaron, help me find Leon. I think something might be wrong because he normally answers by now."

He went out back for just a minute and when Beth checked up on him, he was gone. She had already gone room to room. The front door is locked and he cannot get out front. So I do a sweep of every room calling out bribes and lies to get him out of hiding. This went on for about five very long minutes.

Silas, in the meantime, enjoyed this awesome impromptu game of hide-and-seek. "HOO hoooo! EE-on!"

I have a tragic sense of imagination in situations like these. If he's not hiding, he's in trouble of some kind. He's wandered off down the street or maybe he's got stuck or hung up somewhere and we can't hear him. I had a sinking feeling in my stomach.

I moved my search outside and started looking up and down the street just in case he was trying to get the heck out of here. The search had been going on for 10-15 minutes at this point. That is way too long to be frantically looking for your child. It was SO much longer than any other time he's hid from us. Beth was convinced something was wrong at this point because it was so out of character for him. After I was sure I had looked over every part of the house, closets, cars and yard, panic set in for me. Beth was at the point of tears, and we were wondering if it was too soon to call 911.

Suddenly he's on the back porch with a huge grin on his face nodding his head saying, "That was MAGIC!" He drug the word "Magic" out in a whisper to try to convince us.

He said he had found the smartest hiding place ever. He had stuffed himself in a linen cabinet on the sun porch. We hadn't even opened it because we thought it was an impossible fit. Maybe it was magic?

WHEW. We had a little lesson about impromptu games of hide and seek. I hope he knows now that it's only fun when he lets us know when the game starts.

The rest of the day I had empathy pains for parents who never get the relief we got. I would lose my proverbial and literal...you know. Poopy.

Just in time for the July 4th celebrations!

WOW. We live in incredible times. The future is bright!

Tower of Babel

"At one time the whole world spoke a single language and used the same words. As the people migrated eastward, they found a plain in the land of Babylonia and settled there. They began to talk about construction projects. "Come," they said, "let's make great piles of burnt brick and collect natural asphalt to use as mortar. Let's build a great city with a tower that reaches to the skies -- a monument to our greatness! This will bring us together and keep us from scattering all over the world." But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower the people were building. "Look!" he said. "If they can accomplish this when they have just begun to take advantage of their common language and political unity, just think of what they will do later. Nothing will be impossible for them! Come, let's go down and give them different languages. Then they won't be able to understand each other." In that way, the LORD scattered them all over the earth; and that ended the building of the city. That is why the city was called Babel, because it was there that the LORD confused the people by giving them many languages, thus scattering them across the earth."


This story makes me laugh. Here is ancient mankind just beginning to explore and grow and populate. What an exciting time! Eventually they settle in a plain in Babylon and decide to build a city, and not just any city, but one that exemplifies their unity and power. I understand from Bible scholars that the tower was most likely a Ziggurat - a temple reaching as high as 300ft. A city with a skyscraper! So they get the city ready for the first inspection by the world's first Building Inspector. The LORD comes down to check out their wiring and engineering and thinks to himself, "This is incredible! These people have come such a long way in such a short time! I'm going to deny their permits and scatter these geniuses all over the globe." 


~*POOF*~ the creation of languages. 


Makes perfect sense.

Leon on Gastroenterology

AT LUNCH

Leon: Why do you cut it up in pieces and eat that?
Me: That's just how I eat. How do you do it?
L: Mommy cuts it up and I eat it.
M: Then what?
L: Then it goes all the way down into my big toe. Then it goes into my other toes. Then in my leg.
M: So all the food you eat just goes into your feet and legs?
L: Yep
M: So what is poop?
L: It comes out when you're full of food.
M: How about pee?
L: That's when you're full of water.

Makes perfect sense.

Sunshine

This solar prominence eruption happened yesterday over a period of three hours. Keep in mind that the bright point of explosion is about 20-25 times the size of the Earth.

End Times

Some people believe that life for believers will simply transition into an everlasting period of conscious rest. Non-believers will simply cease to exist forever.

Some people believe that there will never be an end, but a new beginning will be ushered in by the appearance of a special being who will restore order and peace, thus renewing the cycle of existence. They believe this has already happened an infinite number of times and will continue to do so.

Some people believe that the world will be physically destroyed, but not before the believers are removed and placed in the presence of god for eternity. Non-believers will be left to be destroyed with the earth spending eternity in the presence of the enemy of god undergoing eternal torture.

Some people believe that their god will resurrect the living and dead believers into a realm of eternal rest and pleasure, while sending all unbelievers to a place of eternal punishment.

Some people believe that the earth and/or humankind will eventually perish forever into oblivion. There will be no eternal existence of the good or evil. All shall cease to exist.

Some people believe that god will come live on earth for 1,000 years. During this time believers will work with their god to convert all people. At the end of the mellenium, god will separate all people, believers and non, into three eternal camps, none of which involve torture of any sort.

Some people believe that their beliefs will eventually fade away into oblivion and their teaching and practices will be forgotten. Even their most revered leader will be forgotten. After their belief is completely vanished and a new leader will appear reminding everyone of these forgotten principles and restore a new beginning of awakening.

Some people believe we are in the middle of a spiritual battle in which the end will produce eternal peace. At that time the wicked and righteous will be judged by their deeds. Those found wicked will be tortured for 3 days and then forgiven to live in peace forever with the righteous.

On Being Wrong

Kathryn Schulz wrote a book called Being Wrong and gave a TED talk on the subject I found fascinating. She spoke on the nature of being wrong and voiced precisely what I have been mulling over for the past decade or so.

I consider myself well-versed in being wrong. I can say without doubt that I've been wrong most of my life about most things. You could say, I'm right about my wrongness. I was raised to be very certain and sure. Or maybe I tend to be a certain and sure person. My teenage years were not exempt from what seems to be the normal experience of feeling completely right about everything. I was most certain of my faith in the Christian supernatural. This blessed assurance carried me softly and tenderly into adulthood.

All it took was a serious look into the question of "What if I'm wrong?" Schulz asks her audience what it feels like to be wrong and they tell her it's embarrassing and sad. But she says that's what it's like to realize you're wrong. What does it feel like to be wrong? Her metaphor was Wiley Coyote running off a cliff after the Roadrunner. He doesn't fall until he looks down and notices he's in mid air. Before that glance downward it was as if he were standing on solid ground.  Being wrong feels a whole lot like being right before you realize your error. And yet, we all would say we're standing on solid ground.

Why am I so afraid of being wrong? As a person who has made a drastic paradigm shift after understanding I was wrong about so much, I feel like I'm in the place to say that being wrong requires so much change and upheaval - much more than being right. It is a wonderfully comfortable position to be in when you're right - even if you haven't taken the chance to look down to make sure you're on solid ground. Maybe Wiley should have never looked down. Maybe I shouldn't have either.

Schulz appeals for us to rediscover a sense of wonder and allow ourselves to seriously consider that we may be wrong. I have done so in the last decade and can agree with her that it has broadened my understanding of existence and has made room for more people in my world. My new paradigm surely feels right. I have less questions about the contradictions of my experience and my presuppositions. I'm happier.

I'm also keeping an eye on my feet.

Joe Perry 1866-1905

I've been knocking around ancestry.com lately seeing how much of my family tree I can complete with their service. It's been fascinating. They have access to the actual scanned census forms from the early 1900's and literally billions of searchable documents. I've managed to trace most of the family lines back to the 1700's. It turns out the Hill side of the family were mainly farmers in North Carolina, and my mom's side were mainly farmers in Virginia. Good stock if you ask me.

My imagination has been running wild reading between the lines of all these past kin. I found a census from 1900 recording my mom's great-grandparents Joseph and Katherine Perry. It listed them living in Buchanan County, Virginia with a  handful of kids - Grover, Willie, Valerina, Fred, and Robert. The occupation field on the document for Joe shows "Logger" written in calligraphy. I imagined him sitting at the table one evening filling out the census form or perhaps talking to the census worker. He hollered out to Katherine for the ages of the kids who happen to be making a racket outside or running the coon dogs or getting into whatever trouble kids managed to get into at the turn of the century. Norman Rockwell sat in the corner painting his next Saturday Evening Post cover.

Then comes the United States Census of 1910. A decade has passed and with it, Joe the logger has too. Filling out this census was a different scene. Same house. Same table. Katherine fills out the form this year. I imagine a logging accident took Joe from Katherine. He would have been in his early 40's. She listed herself as "Head of Household" and her occupation as "Farmer". Valerina married a man twice her age, and moved in with her mother, no doubt helping out on the farm. The events of that decade shaped their entire universe. It turned that little farmhouse upside down and brought the sorrow and pain that changed everyone of them for the rest of their lives. But all of that is at best a barely audible echo now. I'm sure it affected their history - my history, but it's impossible to see. All those hard days and tears in Katherine's pillow have been rendered down to a census form and stone in a field somewhere.

It's comforting in an odd way. For one, our struggles and character will affect the future family in little ways. Katherine's fortitude surely impacted her children. They carried it with them on into a century of huge change. Perhaps they carried it on to me. Perhaps I'll pass it on to Leon, and he'll do the same.

But at the same time, our lives will be rendered away to records and forgotten blogs. Those nearest me at my death will carry the best parts of me along with them. I'll be as real to them as when I was drawing the same breath they were. But for my grandkids, I'll be the old timer. They'll only know me for my stories of who I was. In turn, their children will regard me as more legend than anything else. I'll be lucky to have even met them. The next generation will know me as the kin who saw the new millennium born. As the generations pass, I become just a set of dates to the living. After death, it sure doesn't take long for your name to disappear as much as you have. Artist, Banksy said, "They say you die twice - once when you stop breathing and then a second time, when someone mentions your name for the last time."

I hope I leave something worth talking about.

Honey

Monday morning, minutes before my alarm clock urged me into another week, Beth came from out of nowhere with a "Honey!" that sounded like she was getting ready to tell me someone died in the night or a stranger was sleeping in our bathtub. Let's just say her tone got my attention.

This was the morning after we watched a documentary called 180* South. It follows a group of guys and a girl and their epic journey to Patagonia to climb Cerro Corcovado. These are guys my age who are not tied down with families and jobs and mortgages. These are guys who are not satisfied with living life in one place for very long. These are guys who make me think, "Dammit! I'm wasting my life." Watching this, the night before Beth's "Honey!" I laid awake trying to translate the zest for life these guys have into my own life. How can I keep the important things in my life and still experience this intensity I just experienced in this documentary. I fell asleep in these thoughts with dreams of freedom.

"Honey!"
"I think I'm pregnant."

I laughed at first because it struck me as the worst way to tell your husband you're pregnant. It wasn't the best way to start a Monday either. I demanded proof and she stuck a pregnancy test in my face and there it was: blue lines. A blue line crossed a circle and a blue line slashed a square. Beth assured me this was code for "Game Over." I claimed a faulty test, but she swore to Thor there are often false negatives, but never false positives.

It didn't take me long to resign myself to another kid coming along. I love my boys. They take a lot of life out of me, but they certainly add a lot I would never have otherwise. We just thought we were done, and the idea of going back to square one was not a pleasant thought at this time in our lives.

All day at work, I would take daydream breaks. Or maybe I worked in between daydreams. The consequences of number three kept crashing in around me. We would need a bigger car within the next nine months. We would need to make more room in the house. We would need to grow more arms by Christmas. The stairway gates that keep Leon and Silas from throwing themselves to their death would have to stay up even longer than expected. I need more money. It is going to be a zoo in this house!

I found myself staring out the window of the coffee shop thinking about baby names and poopy diapers. Israel suggested the name "She It Hill."

After work I ran to Krogers with instructions to get another pregnancy test because the culprit this morning was old and out of it's package. Might as well wait a few days and try again just to make sure. They were behind a glass case. People use them to cook meth maybe? I asked the lady helping me if I looked pregnant. She was amused and said my beard looked pregnant.

So I got home with my loot from the grocers and sat down to a meal. Of course, the topic of conversation was a mix of "What are we going to do with a new human in the house" and "Leon, sit down and take the plastic bag off your head." During the meal I pick up the box of new pregnancy tests and read the instructions: a plus sign for positive and a minus sign for negative. Wait...what? We scrambled for the test from that morning to confirm. That's not a line for pregnant, that's a minus sign! A glorious minus sign to subtract all our worries from this day!

We did a little dance and hooped and hollered. Beth said she is relieved but a little disappointed. I said I'm sailing to Patagonia.

J-Beans

One of my favorite things to do these days is let Leon and Silas pick out one (1) jelly bean from the jelly bean jar we keep around the house for bribery and child trickery. It's winter time and 2 degrees outside so there's nothing much else to do after dark. They love it and request one every hour.

So last night Silas approached me asking for an "Ay-been". How can I resist? So I got the jar out from hiding, and started shaking it to a beat - trying to get these two boys dancing. They immediately jumped into freestyle toddler dance (looks like ants in pants). Right in the middle of their routine, the lid pops off and jellies go flying everywhere.

They both immediately dropped to their bellies on the floor filling both hands and cheeks with beans. When I say immediately, I mean they beat the jelly beans to the floor. That's how fast they got down to business.

The rest of the night was great because anytime they'd come up asking for more I told them there were probably some left in the floor somewhere.

I'm still here

After a post about pottery two years ago, I vanished into the internet's thin air. In the meantime, I've been breathing the thick air of the interlife - that's actual air.

I've managed in the past two years to stay in the same house. I'm still up here on the top of the hill along with all the other people in the police reports. I said "other people" because we made the Blotter last October when someone threw a rock through our window at one in the morning. I suspect Ernest T. Bass, except there was no offer to sing "Eatin' Goober Peas."

I've turned the upstairs front room into my office after getting a stay-at-home job last November. That's the biggest change in the last two years for sure. I've gone from wrapping vehicles with rad graphics and digging post holes, to project managing franchise sign jobs all over the country from the comfort of my own home. This allows me to drink on the job and work in the nude. And although I love my boys to bits (I wanna kiss them on the lips), they are the worst co-workers I've ever had. They haven't done a lick of work the entire time. Even now the gentle murmurs of Leon's whining are wafting up the staircase. Actually, that might be Beth I hear.

Another little change in the last two years goes by the name of Silas here around the house. He came along a couple of Aprils ago. In fact, he came along so quickly I ended up being on the receiving end of his entrance. He's my buddy, and it's been a lot of fun seeing two brothers slowly turn into best buds. They are at least best buds for a couple hours a day.

I think Beth has had it up to here with birthing little boys, so nothing is in the works anytime soon. She's busy enough with the boys and the house and the garden and crafting and making amazing food.

So I'm going to use this blog to practice writing and have some sort of record of our lives. I've got several good stories to tell.

Or maybe I'll just update this every two years.