I just snapped this picture as the moon is sneaking behind a barren tree.  Tonight will be the last total lunar eclipse visible in our part of the world until 2013.  Here in Wisconsin it will peak around 9 pm.  Here’s a cool little simulator.  Elsewhere in the cosmos, the Shuttle landed ok, but poor weather stopped the US Navy from demonstrating, ah, I mean shooting down a wayward satellite. Oh well, maybe tomorrow.  For the moment I’m off to watch Planet of the Vampires. . .

The snow never ends.  I have this overwhelming urge to curl up in a ball listening to Sergi Prokofiev while reading a copy of Pravda.  Some days are like just like that.   I sit in a chair imagining myself as some 70 year old moth eaten lost soul with a pipe hanging from blistered lips,  lost in an tangled grey beard.  I sit unmoving, alone in a cold dark room. Occasionally I’ll glance up from my old paper to rant at a raven that dares to break the low light of the winter sun diffused by dirty glass and failing vision.  My yellowed eyes following its blurred liquid silhouette as it passes a frozen artic blue window.  Complex fractals go unseen in every corner. A wasted Mandebrot set spun before dead eyes. In this old mad fantasy clouds rise in the cold air with every deep cough.  A cold fire fed by broken chairs writhes in its final pink death throws imprisoned in a dusty marble frame.  My chair creaks as I reach to a dark walnut table to tap the last ashes from my cold pipe into a dirty glass ashtray.

The reality of course is that it’s just another long winter.  Gryphon has pink eye, and I’ve got work to do. At some point in the day I have to sneak out to vote. Still,  the late February shadows are growing shorter. The sun is slowly climbing higher in the sky with each passing day.  Spring is not too far off, soon to be followed by another gaudy summer.  I try very hard to appreciate that, and to forget that the summer to come only visits for a short time before once again being covered by frost.

 How many tragic stories start out with something like, “It was a beautiful, warm, sunny morning. . .”?

As coaches we teach students all the gear they need, and all the rescues they should know.  Just in case.  I wonder sometimes if by doing this we don’t spend enough time on the “just in case”.   The truth we know is that all the gear in the world won’t save you from you.  Flairs are worthless if they can’t be seen. VHF radios are paperweights if there is no one to hear.  There is a stark reality to nature.  Knowing this truth somewhere down in the pit of your stomach is essential to good judgment.  I think sometimes we have to be careful when we teach safety, not to gloss over what we are being safe from. 

 I can just see Wenley breaking out a sweat over this one.  It’s the sQuba, a concept car from those amazing Swiss.  Well, with a top speed of about 70mph on land it’s not a Lotus by a long shot.  On the other hand it will let you impress any svelt post-cold war spys you may happen to meet. As long as they are not the kind to get too uptight about their hair.

 Often when people come into my home they head to the chair in the corner to sit.  For a spit second you can see them wondering about that little pile of wood in the corner.  Traditional paddles and a balance board may be recognizable to other paddlers.  To everyone else, their next step is to look around for the fireplace. . .