Wow!

These images have been released by NASA, taken with the Terra satellite. For more information, you can read about it here. To think that my itty 5 Watts has spanned these distances is truly mind boggling! Also, without getting preachy, these pictures serve as good reminder as to how precious our home is; and that we should be good stewards in taking care of it. You don't have to go overboard in order to be a good and faithful caretaker.

As I thought it would be, so far it has been a really difficult week at work. Back breaking and exhausting, preparing 488 - 60 pound servers for install this weekend. I've been coming home late and tired. Tonight however, is a small respite - the 80 Meter Foxhunt is on tap. And as March begins, we are racing to a close of the 2009-2010 Winter Foxhunt season. I have not been fantastically successful; but it has been a lot of fun. And ideally, that's all you can realistically hope for. Maybe the Summer season 20 Meter hunts will be more fun than the past couple of years, now that Cycle 24 is slowly starting to come to be.

As a break from the usual, I actually picked up the microphone on the VHF/UHF radio in the car and had a couple of nice conversations with fellow Hams, instead of just listening for a change. It felt odd to repeat my callsign for someone and to use phonetics. You never have to use phonetics with CW! It was a nice change of pace; and I will have to do it more often. I actually found myself handing out some advice to a couple of newbie Hams, also; so there was some value in addition to the company and entertainment I received.

Lastly, here's an interesting article I read on Yahoo today. The Chilean earthquake actually shifted the Earth's axis - and shortened the length of a day by 1.26 milliseconds. Now, please don't tell me that you noticed it - I'm not buying it!

72 de Larry W2LJ