Winter Is the Best Time
by David Budbill

Winter is the best time
to find out who you are.

Quiet, contemplation time,
away from the rushing world,

cold time, dark time, holed-up
pulled-in time and space

to see that inner landscape,
that place hidden and within.

Truck Fuel-Up: Fuel-up on January 26, 2012: Miles: 0.0n Gallons: 16.493n Price: $2.89 http://t.co/5cVslyr9

It's the birthday of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, born in Salzburg, Austria (1756). He only lived for 35 years but he started his career early — a child prodigy from a family of musicians. He toured all over Europe, and wrote his first opera at age 11.

Seven enormous mirrors are now being made for the Giant Magellan Telescope which will be installed on a peak in the Andes when completed.

"But the shape of this mirror is more challenging by about a factor of 10 than the previous ones that we've made,"

That's because the shape is aspherical. Instead of being a shallow symmetrical bowl, one side of the mirror is higher than the other. It's a shape dictated by where the mirror will focus starlight once it's set in the telescope.

Not only is it devilishly hard to grind and then polish an aspherical mirror, it's hard to know when you've done it right. The mirror is 27 feet across, but the differences in height across the surface are smaller than a millionth of an inch.

The statistics on sanity are that one out of every four Americans is suffering from some form of mental illness. Think of your three best friends. If they're okay, then it's you.
~ Rita Mae Brown, US author and social activist

This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as when the baby gets hold of a hammer.
- ~Will Rogers

"Your tax money at work" ~ via tywkiwdbi

It's the 75th anniversary of the publication of Dr. Seuss's first book "And To Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street"