How Long Can it Go?

  Back in the 1960's when I was a teen and the Beatles had just conquered the world, there's nothing I would have liked more than to grow my hair long. The trouble was I had curly hair and my parents were dead against long hair.

 But now, on the other end of my life, I find my hair much less curly (though now white) and my parents, long gone, offering no objection. The few times I've asked Tom whether he minded me letting my hair grow he'd always say "do whatever you want. I don't care".

 So with the objections all gone I got a haircut on 9-7-2021 and decided to see how long I could go.

 I'll answer that question right off: 506 days.

 I got no haircuts in 2022 but finally decided after  72 weeks and two days that I'd had enough.

 And here is how the growing went ...

03-12-22

04-02-22

04-09-22

04-13-22

04-18-22

04-25-22

05-07-22

06-05-22

06-25-22

07-02-22

07-29-22

08-07-22

09-06-22

10-04-22

11-07-22

11-30-22

12-19-22

01-04-23

01-11-23

01-26-23

 Finally in late January I'd had enough (and probably those seeing me had had enough, too). I have no plans to ever do it again but I'm happy to say I once had long hair.

 And I saved money. I normally get a haircut every 13 weeks so I missed five cuts in that period. I usually pay $14 (+$2 tip = $16) so I saved $80. Was it worth it? Hard to say. But it was a safe experiment  I was able to perform on my own  body and no one was harmed.

 I think I last used that argument in 1963 with my parents  and it didn't work then.

Update: January 2025

 I've been at it again and this time managed 118 weeks (2-1/4 years). I haven't had a haircut in 2024 or 2025. I've measured my hair at 9". I keep it pulled back into a short ponytail with a rubber band so it doesn't look that long. I'm not sure it'll ever got this long again so I took a picture for posterity:

New Miamisburg Kroger

  The Miamisburg Kroger we've shopped at for many years closed on Thursday (01/26) and their new Kroger Marketplace opened just north of the current location on Friday (01/27). Needless to say, Tom and I had to visit.

 At 123,722-square feet, the store is massive and nearly double the space of the previous store (68,860-square feet). I remember when Miamisburg's first Kroger was located at the west end of the Plaza Shopping Center (now occupied by Big Lots). The space has increased substantially from that.

 When you walk in, this is the first thing you see: the Produce section.

 We couldn't believe the breadth and depth of the selection.

 The Bakery is massive ...

 That's Tom taking in the sights ...

 This place is going to take lots of business away from other area stores. It's nice having everything under one roof.

 There's a massive wine department.

 This isn't a traditional grocery so much as a food warehouse. It's going to take a long while the get used to the wide open spaces and where everything is located.

 The dairy isle goes on and on. And there's lots more besides this.

 The Pharmacy is on the east end of the store and my brother, who uses their service, said there are two drive through lanes.

 The check-out area is equally large. I know there are lots of complaints about stores offering self check out but I love it. I can take my time and be sure every price is correct. There were plenty of cashiers there, too, while we toured the facility.

 The "Marketplace" label means they carry more than groceries. Tom enjoyed the toy isle (Star Wars!) and there's electrical appliances clothing, dinnerware and more.

 I understand the previous store will be demolished and the space will serve to construct a Kroger gas station. Presumably there will also be additional parking spaces.

 The store represents a $27 million dollar investment, the Dayton Daily News reported. Their story can be found here.

Sequator

  I've always been interested in astrophotography but have been hampered by where I live (light pollution) and my finances. A much better camera than my Canon SX20 IS would offer more options. But it is what it is so I'm  working with what I've got.

 The Canon isn't a bad camera. It has an F/2.8 lens which is entirely useable for the night sky. But its highest ISO is just 1600 and that's magnitudes slow for what I need. It also have no "bulb" (B) setting so I'm limited to  the longest exposure the camera is programmed to deliver (15 seconds).

 It didn't prove particularly capable during the recent total eclipse of the sun, either. And with  the next coming in April 2024,  I hope to have something better by then.

 For now, at least, I may be hampered but I'm not quite down yet. I've experimented with "stacking" software in the past which allows for better resolution of dim stars and handily filters camera "noise". In the past week I've been reading about Sequator, a free Windows  10 program for stacking photos.

 Last evening we had generally clear skies (though not as clear as I'd have hoped) and I went out with both my Canon, and later with my Pixel 4A and though I'd experiment. The Pixel includes internal stacking software and does a good job for such a small lens and a hand-held package.

 Over about a four minute period it integrates night sky photos into a single image. Click here for how it works.

  Last night as I walked across a frosty back yard, Orion was rising in the east. Here's how the Pixel saw it:

Standard Night Shot

 That's a standard night shot. Astrophotography was not selected.

Astrophotography Shot

 Astrophotography mode lightens the picture and shows more stars after a 4  minute time exposure.

 While an astro-shoot is underway, the Pixel generates an MP4 movie of how the stars have moved during the time exposure. For "stacking", every star has to be slightly adjusted so that it's positioned below the previous shot. The final picture is thereby layered and gains more and more detail with each new shot.

Movie of the previous shots

Orion Close-up

 The three center stars of Orion's Belt (top to bottom: Mintaka, Alnilam and Alnitak) and Orion's Sword are highlighted in  this image. The Orion Nebula is roughly centered in the Belt. It's hard to get any detail with a cell phone but you can see the nebula in the shot below.

 Considering this is a phone, I'm amazed it can be seen at all.

Now, compare that to my Canon camera. For this sequence I was aimed northwest. I took 20 fifteen second exposures of the same scene. I used the widest position of the lens (5mm) and the lowest F-stop  (2.8). This is a single basic frame.

 As you can see, there was plenty of haze and even a bank of clouds close to the horizon.

 To best used image stacking, "noise" images are also taken under the same conditions. In this case I merely took 20 shots with the lens cap on. "Dead" pixels and electronic noise can then be removed from the finished picture.

 Sequator is much easier to use than any other similar program I've used. It's also fast. I stacked the photos several times and changed various options but none took much more than two minutes on my PC. Here's the final image.

Click on this image for full-resolution

 Here are the settings I used for the picture above ...

 With image stacking a lesser quality camera is still able to be of some astrophotography use. It's nothing like a high-end DSLR with very high ISO capability, but it allows for much better results than the camera alone.

Storm of a Generation

  Beginning on the evening of Thursday, 12/22/22, we experienced a cold front like few before ... maybe none. We had a pleasant high of 44° that day but by mid-evening  (7:30 PM) the front began to plow through the Miami  Valley with high winds and plummeting temperatures.

 I recorded a peak gust from the north during that night (now Friday 12/23) of 41.6 mph from the north at 3 AM. We were trying to sleep but it wasn't easy. The house rocked, the windows rattled and there was nowhere to escape the noisy onslaught.

 Here's a couple of graphs:

 Wide view of our barometric pressure

Detailed view of our barometric pressure

 Here's how the temperature fell  ...

Wide view of the temperature

Detailed view of our temperature

By Friday morning we were -10°. That was a 53° drop in 13 hours (43° at 7:30 PM on 12/22, -10° at 8:30 AM on 12/23).

 I remember walking home from JCPenney at the Dayton Mall in January 1978. We were trying to do inventory but finally got the word to vacate because of a blizzard. I walked home with another fellow  who lived in an apartment on Heinke Road. I remember walking down the middle of  725. How we managed that I have no idea. Did I have boots? Did the temperature drop this quickly? At that time I lived on 11th Street in Miamisburg  and was sure glad to get back home.

 Here's how our driveway apron looked the morning of 12/23. There was a drift formed to the east of Tom's Prius. In fact, I set the camera to record a frame every 30 seconds for 12 hours beginning at 7 PM on 12/22. Here is how the storm progressed that night.

 It's interesting to watch the drift form and even move back and forth a bit.

 By morning we had the hot water for the first floor bathroom freeze. I added a small space heater  and the line thawed without too much trouble.  Later that day it froze again. This time it took a while to apply enough heat to get it flowing.

 When Tom got home Friday evening (from feeding his cats), he wasn't able to get his car back onto the apron and settled for leaving the car parked in the driveway. The drifts (they extended from the garage apron to the west and surrounded my precipitation gauge to a depth of about three feet).

 By Saturday morning we heard a tractor nearby and I looked out the kitchen window and saw DR Coffman in his John Deere plowing us out.

The green lines are because  the camera detected motion.

Late afternoon on Saturday (12/24) Tom went upstairs to take a shower and found  the hot water frozen. Not a drip! I went out to the enclosed porch  and removed more panels and set up the kerosene heater there to really warm the porch. It took about  three hours of work to get the pipe open.

 On Sunday  (Christmas Day, 12/25/22) the sun rose in a clear sky. The sunlight was certainly welcome. By 11:15 AM (currently) the temperature has risen to +8°. We're expecting a  high near 15°.

 

Christmas 2022 - North view

Christmas 2022 - South view

 It's been a very stressful three days. On the bright side we never lost power longer than a brief interruption on Thursday (a second or two). Yesterday the power company sent an email asking that we try to conserve power, that the grid was taxed to its limit. I kept lights to a minimum but I needed  my space heaters and furnace to keep the pipes from freezing. I wasn't able to make any substantial change.

 Speaking of the HVAC, when I woke up on Thursday morning amid the screaming winds the first floor was at 60°. The thermostat was set to 66. I've never seen it so unable to keep up with the winter weather.

 Dave (our furnace guy) asked me to measure the temperature of the outlet. I found it to be 101° after 15 minutes without the Emergency setting being manually selected; it was 103° after another15 minutes with Emergency selected. I believe the unit selects resistive backup heat  (i.e. "Emergency") without any selection needing to be made. A snowflake icon on the thermostat blinks when resistive heat is being added. I remember our installer telling me it was completely automatic and I wouldn't have to do anything.

 The second  floor HVAC also produced air at 103° and it was always able to keep the room temperature at 66°. It cycled normally and was off for long periods. That indicates something isn't working so well with the first floor heat pump.  I called Dave and he will come as needed next week.

We're just beginning to come out of this Polar Vortex but it will be another day before I'll feel comfortable turning off supplemental heat (three electric space heaters). Tomorrow the high is forecast to be 26° and by Thu/Fri/Sat are forecast to have highs of 55/57/60. So a respite is near.

The Earth Turns ...

  Consider this picture ...

And now go back a year (12/23/21) when I was walking along this same path and at a similar time. Click here for that view.

Though the date of the picture  above  (12/01/22) was taken over three weeks earlier, the time was almost certainly different. And my location in the lane certainly  varied. On the 23rd, I can guarantee  the picture will be the same as the one I took a year ago.

 In a year the Earth travels 584 million miles in its orbit around the sun. And every year it arrives  at about the same spot on the same day at the same time. And yet that is not quite right because the actual orbit takes a little more than a year. The time required is 365 days 5 hours 59 minutes 16 seconds.

 Thus the leap year is born to bring the calendar in line every four years.

 But it always amazes me that things are relatively close and that I can count on what will happen in a year  or what  happened ten years ago. We are living in a very orderly universe. We can count on celestial matters.