I Walk the Line Between Now and Then

It’s deep-sea diving with no oxygen.

Things have been busy for me recently! For the record, I never meant for this blog to be simply a ‘today I did…’ type thing, but right now I’m kind of at a loss for any insights. That’s what happens when I get busy. It’s okay though, because too much introspection can be a bad thing too. You know, over-thinking things? I’m prone to that.

Anyways, the RASC Star Party was so cool! I went with Alex and André. When we first got to the campground (Starland, love it), we didn’t know what the procedures were for registering or anything, so we asked someone. He said that we should just set up our tent anywhere and then sign up where we entered the campground. Well, we’re n00bs so we picked this place next to some other tents. What we didn’t realize was that the other tents were not attending the Star Party but were planning on leaving within a few hours. So basically, it ended up that there were all the Star Party tents and trailers, and then about seven minutes of walking distance, and then our tent. Dang. Oh well, at least we know for next time. We had some time to kill before there was a paleontology lecture on site. (We may not have gone to it except that afterwards they were handing out the door prizes. Sneaky, sneaky.)

We went to Drumheller and walked around for a few hours, going into shops (like rock stores!) and we went into a pet store and played with some puppies! After the lecture, all three of us won a door prize. I won this hi-tech mosquito repellant and André one a telescope lens (that fits my telescope, score!) and Alex won one of cool hand-warmer things. It’s a liquid in a pouch and you agitate it to set off a chemical reaction that gives off heat. I love them! So yes, good haul! Finally it was dark enough to see some stars… unfortunately there was still quite a bit of cloud cover. We walked over to where people had their telescopes set up only to discover that h-core telescope users don’t even bother pointing their scopes at anything until well after 11pm.

There was a bit of an issue with what to do, since my telescope was in the van all the way at our tent and we didn’t want to walk all that way carrying it. We couldn’t drive it all the way there because there was a rule against car headlights (it destroys people’s night vision for a while, so astronomers don’t like it) so we drove most of the way and carried the telescope a short distance to set it up. One of the higher-ups at RASC came to meet us and that was cool. But then it started to rain so we had to book it back to the van with my telescope because… we’re n00bs and didn’t bring a cover for it! Next time, next time. We decided we should just hang out in the tent for a bit until the clouds went away and it got dark enough to see things clearly in the telescopes. Around midnight when we left the tent, it was amazing! The sky was clear and the stars were so bright! It was exactly what I was hoping for. So beautiful! We walked back to the telescopes and a guy named Viktor showed us some things with his 18″ (diameter, not length) scope. Mine’s a 6″, so this thing was huge. Awesome! Viktor was from Romania and his accent was great. Afterwards we went back and looked at things with my telescope.

The next day there was a pancake breakfast, and after that we did a quick visit to the Royal Tyrell Museum. All in all it was a great trip!

So… no use in hiding it: I’m a big nerd and I’m not ashamed. So I’ve been playing Magic the gathering since the beginning of May and now I’m starting to get pretty okay at it. This weekend there was a new set released so I went to a tournament on Saturday. They give you some sealed packs of cards and you’ve got to make a sweet deck in a limited time and then smash face with it. Well, I think the deck I made was pretty great because my first match-up was against Jeff and I won it. Yes you read correctly, I beat him. It was a changing moment in my life!! I went on to do pretty badly in the tournament but still, it was fun! I have to say, it’s great being the only girl sometimes. I don’t usually like being singled out but it’s fun from time to time. (“Alright gentlemen… and Colette… begin!”)