John Burridge

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I had better luck photographing constellations (although it's difficult to make out the stars when the pictures are minimized).  I think I like this one of the Big Dipper and Arcturus (on the left) the most.

The Big Dipper and Arcturus always remind me of my dad.  He taught astronomy in the seventies, and during the naked eye astronomy portion of his course, he'd have different little nemonic sayings he'd share with the class.  One was "Arc to Arcturus, spike to Spica," telling you start at the Big Dipper and follow the arc of its handle to Arcturus and keep on going until you got to Spica (in Virgo ).  He would frequently point out the Great Summer Triangle, made up of the stars, Altair, Deneb, and Vega.  I can never quite remember which star is which.  Checking my references, Altair is in Aquila the Eagle,  Deneb is in Cygnus the Swan, and Vega is in Lira the Lyre.  Dad would point out and name the constellations, and there was a good chance that when he was talking about Vega, he would try to keep a straight face and say, "Lyre, Lyre, pants on fire."

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Dreams:  I'm sure I've been having them, but I'm not recalling much of them.


Design:  After laser cutting some white oak, which cuts more cleanly than birch plywood, I want to make tessellated tiles like this one.  The difficulty is that it's difficult to come up with a design that is simultaneously clean and preserves all ten five pointed stars around the larger ten pointed ones.  So far the only way I can think of to do it involves making a dodecahedron with each ten stars around an eleventh as one of the pentagonal faces.

On the health front, I've had a revelation.  My joints don't hurt because I'm getting older or the humidity is changing.  My joints hurt because I'm lifting weights at the gym.

I'm inordinately pleased with myself for having made a star globe out of cut paper.

This is the latest cutter-plotter project.  I made a panel out of ten sheets of heavy paper, glued them into to halves, and then glued the two halves together.

When I was finished, I posed as one of my favorite Burne-Jones paintings.  (...and on the eight day God made paper projects).

Now all I need to do is add an LED light for the center.

This weekend, we visited with my folks in Redmond. Saturday night, Mark and I took their dog out for a walk. We were pleasantly surprised by stars in the sky; a snow storm had been dusting the place and we thought--to paraphrase Shakespeare--the heavens would be thrifty and all their candles would be out. Jupiter blazed in the zenith, outshining ruddy Aldeberon in near-by Taurus. The Big Dipper stood on its handle; the handle's arc pointed where Arcturus hid below the horizon. The other way, the bowl pointed at Polaris and beyond to Cassiopeia. In Eugene, Cassiopeia is pale and colorless; in Redmond, all the stars had shades of blue and red.

Sunday morning was a difficult one. I'm didn't sleep so well, and I accidentally discovered the snooze function on the Dancing Girl Music. So, instead of arising to write, I snoozed. Twice.

I did some non-manuscript writing, still recumbent on the couch I slept on. But my heart wasn't in it and I went back to sleep because A) an extra hour of sleep wouldn't be a bad thing, and B) it's Sunday, and if I am going to choose an early morning not to write, Sunday morning might as well be the choice.

I also was thinking about the story I'm working on and how the character's motivations aren't clear -- resulting in both the protagonist and antagonist suffering from stupid character syndrome. I was awake enough to ask, "If he's a powerful magician, why does he need to bribe her to follow him into the temple?" and "If she's worried about her boat and doesn't completely trust him, why does she go with him?" but not awake enough to be able to answer the questions.

(In typing this at the end of the day, I can see that I need a third character to address this. Answers: "He doesn't need her if he can make use of his assistant instead" and "She follows him in because she's nosey and pushy enough to want to help the assistant." And now I have tomorrow morning's scene to work on.)

I woke up about two hours later, feeling, if not refreshed, at least like I'd gotten enough sleep. I've come to the conclusion writing at 5 AM in the morning works better if one has gone to bed at nine than eleven. Oh well.

We had some fun in the snow--I got some pictures that I'm going to have to post once I get them uploaded.