Contributor Posts

There are very few pleasures, which come with age,
so losing something of enjoyment now
is taxing the old man's tired mind,
who enjoys his friends and a glass of wine.
Please excuse me now, for I'll move on,
trying not to complain but Dear Lord,
please lose the freezing and take us back to rain.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Celestial sights of the southern sky shine above a cloudy planet Earth in this gorgeous night sky view. The scene was captured from an airliner's flight deck at 38,000 feet on a steady westbound ride to Lima, Peru. To produce the sharp airborne astrophotograph, the best of a series of short exposures were selected and digitally stacked. The broad band of the southern Milky Way begins at top left with the dark Coalsack Nebula and Southern Cross. Its expanse of diffuse starlight encompasses the the Carina Nebula and large Gum Nebula toward the right. Canopus, alpha star of Carina and second brightest star in Earth's night is easy to spot below the Milky Way, as is the dwarf galaxy known as the Large Magellanic Cloud. The Small Magellanic cloud just peeks above the cloudy horizon. Of course, the South Celestial Pole also lies within the starry southern frame.

Photo by Ralf Rohner

Change the words upon the plate,
for many may be hard to abrogate,
mean they naught, to you and I,
as they gallop across the sky.
What to do? Where do you go,
confused by hate? I don't know.

When your Soul falls from grace,
slow down and change your pace.
Change the rhythm, change the beat.
Try hard to win and avoid defeat.

This Avocado Tuna Salad uses creamy avocado instead of mayo for a fresh and easy twist on the classic. Complement it with Red onion and celery. Lemon juice gives it some zing. Click the Image below to read Elise Bauer's recipe at Simply Recipes

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

On January 21, light from the Moon near first quarter illuminated the foreground in this snowy mountain and night scene. Known as The Lions, the striking pair of mountain peaks are north of Vancouver, British Colombia, Canada, North America, planet Earth. Poised above the twin summits, left of Deneb alpha star of the constellation Cygnus, are emission regions NGC 7000 and IC 5070. Part of a large star forming complex about 1,500 light-years from Vancouver, they shine with the characteristic red glow of atomic hydrogen gas. Outlines of the bright emission regions suggest their popular names, The North America Nebula and The Pelican Nebula. The well-planned, deep nightscape is a composite of consecutive exposures made with a modified digital camera and telephoto lens. Foreground exposures were made with camera fixed to a tripod, background exposures were made tracking the sky. The result preserves sharp natural detail and reveals a range of brightness and color that your eye can't quite see on its own.

Photo by Liron Gertsman

I miss you so,
though you're here with me.
Where's your mind now,
in this your life's fantasy?

What do you do,
when you are in bed
and discover something sleeping
near your head?
Two small Panda toys,
are bears my wife enjoys.
What am I to say or do,
for I know they bring joy to you?

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Big, beautiful spiral galaxy Messier 66 lies a mere 35 million light-years away. The gorgeous island universe is about 100 thousand light-years across, similar in size to the Milky Way. This reprocessed Hubble Space Telescope close-up view spans a region about 30,000 light-years wide around the galactic core. It shows the galaxy's disk dramatically inclined to our line-of-sight. Surrounding its bright core, the likely home of a supermassive black hole, obscuring dust lanes and young, blue star clusters sweep along spiral arms dotted with the tell-tale glow of pinksh star forming regions. Messier 66, also known as NGC 3627, is the brightest of the three galaxies in the gravitationaly interacting Leo Triplet.

Across all the lakes and waters,
fog arises, to begin it's quest,
to cover the plants and tree limbs
with a wetness and to rest
upon the limbs, bare in Winter.

Latent beauty, is always found,
when in the area of Puget Sound.
Look for it near and far.
See the Mountain, in glorious white,
what a picture it is to me.
When the skies clear of rain
and we enjoy our Mountain view, again.