Saturday night, I took Daughter #1 and one of her friends out into the country to meet up with four other gentlemen who had set their telescopes up for some moon, star, and planet gazing. The telescopes were all 8" to 10" Schmidt-Cassegrains and the weather was about as perfect as it could get, except for a very heavy dew and an extremely bright moon. As they were setting up, they predicted that the girls would provide the "Oh, Wow!" moment each first-time stargazer makes once they got a chance to see the moon and Mars -- and they were absolutely right. One of the gentlemen had a binocular lenspiece that made viewing Mars much, much easier. Their must be substantial global warming on Mars (it must be difficult -- though not impossible -- to blame this on President Bush) because the polar ice cap was awfully small. We also got to see a number of star clusters, a few unique star patterns and a ring nebula. I look forward to going back out on another clear night with a new moon or no moon, and prefereably much farther away from St. Louis.
I missed the President's speech on Sunday night since the family (and three of Daughter #1's friends) went to see The Lion King at the Fabulous Fox Theatre here in St. Louis. It was a wonderful show, with excellent music (not entrirely the same as the movie), fascinating costumes, marvelously creative set designs and superb performances. The young Simba and Nala were outstanding. I can heartily recommend it if you have the chance to see it. And if you have the chance to see anything at the Fabulous Fox Theatre, take the chance to do so. It is an amazing palace built in 1929 and renovated a few years ago in a style that has been called Siamese Byzantine. You just have to see it to believe it.
And then there is football, and fantasy football. It looks like I'll be 2-6 in week 1, due primarily to the bad luck of playing the top score or nearly the top score in the league in each of my losses, though the non-performance of my "stars" (Tomlinson, Manning, Harrison, Favre, and Brady) certainly contributed. Oh, and note to Mike Martz: Kurt Warner may be a better QB than Marc Bulger, but not if he's trying to play with a concussion. Nice to know that Mike cares about his players' health so much.
It's early.