How to Host a 50th Birthday Party

I turned fifty a couple of weeks ago and my wife Deb organized a dinner party for fourteen. I must say she did a fine job on the party and we all had a great time! My Mom came down from Tennessee, where she's now living near my sister. Some friends from out of town stayed over the weekend and the rest were close friends who live here in Huntsville. The mix of people worked out very well - ages ranged from 22 to over 70. Dinner lasted about four hours and spanned eight courses plus sorbets. All of the food was homemade, with deserts brought by two other party attendees. We consumed three bottles of champagne, four bottles of white wine, and six bottles of red. Cigars and brandy were served on the front deck. The atmosphere was relaxed, fun, and special.

Here is the menu:

Jeff’s Birthday Dinner
August 11, 2007
Prepared by Debbie Delmas and Lauren Obermann
Served by Debbie, Lauren, and Adam Dauro



Cheese Filled Phyllo Triangles
Moet & Chandon White Star Champagne


Shrimp and Artichoke Salad with Lemon, Mint, and Parsley
Pavilion 2005 Napa Valley Sauvignon Blanc


Savory Buttermilk Panna Cotta with Asparagus, Bacon, and Infused Oils


Chilled Cucumber Soup with Pickled Red Onions and Cucumbers


Pineapple Ginger Sorbet


Tostada of Frijoles, Smoked Barbeque Pork, and Caramelized Onions
with Chipotle Cream
J. Lohr 2004 Paso Robles Cabernet Sauvignon


Mango Sorbet


Lasagne Verde
Spinach noodles layered with vegetables, pork, beef, and white cream sauce


Cheese Tray
White Cheddar (Canada), Morbier (France)
Humboldt Fog (USA), Blue (USA), Tallagio (Italy)
Dried Fruits, Nuts, Fresh Grapes


Carrot Cake
prepared by Lauren Obermann


Chocolate Pate΄ with Crème Anglais and Raspberry Coulis
prepared by Karen Bachmeyer

Lunar Eclipse

My internal clock went off this morning about 3:15am. Then again at 4:10, then 4:27. I finally decided to get out of bed at 4:42. I walked out onto the front deck to look for the Moon and quickly found it. It was close to complete totality - maybe 7/8ths covered at that time. I went back inside and told Deb to get up, that we were within five minutes of totality. It was completely quiet outside except for the distant sound of sparse traffic on Highway 72 over Chapman mountain. As soon as totality was reached, I went inside to check the time on the "Atomic Clock". The moment I looked, it was 4:51am. I stared at it a few seconds and it changed to 4:52am. That was the time predicted for our area. Damn, those astronomers know their stuff! At about that time, Deb and I heard some dogs or coyotes howling in the distance. Did the eclipse freak them out?

We stayed up for about twenty minutes more and watched as the Moon seemed to get darker and darker as it dropped closer to the horizon into the haze filled with the skyglow of Huntsville to the west of us.

Oh by the way, the photo is not one of this eclipse, but it is a photo I took through my 130mm telescope on November 27, 2004 at 8:49pm. I didn't take any photos of this one because of the inconvenient time and position of the eclipsed Moon.

Chainsaws and Skycaps

After the thrill of the downed power line sizzling the drive at VBAS on Saturday, I was pumped with enough testosterone to get out my chainsaw and go back up there to cut down another tree that threatened to fall on the power line in the future. In my opinion, there’s not much that's more fun than ripping through trees with an 18" Husqvarna!

Once the fun started, I hated to quit. So Sunday morning I called my neighbor, Larry, to see if he wanted to clear out the two or three small trees that've grown to block the streetlight in front of both our yards. He was ready and I met him after breakfast to tackle the trees.

About a month ago, I found out about a program that our local utility company has to shield streetlights that produce intrusive light. The shield is in the form of a Hubbell Skycap (see : http://store.starrynightlights.com/hub-skycap.html). As an avid amateur astronomer, I’m very interested in preserving and restoring our dark skies. The program to shield nuisance light has the side effect of reducing light pollution. In my case, I wanted both. I do most of my home observing from my front deck, which is on a hill and thus elevated above the level of the top of the streetlight. I always hated the blaring light shining upwards into my face while trying to observe the Crab Nebula or some such faint fuzzy. The Skycap assures that light only shines downward, not upward. I was glad to plop down the fifty bucks to have it installed. Once it was installed, however, I found out that the tree in the adjacent vacant lot had grown so close that it was reflecting most of the light up to my deck. That’s why I wanted to get out the chainsaw. My neighbor wanted to cut down a few other small trees to provide space for a nice yellow maple to thrive.

I wielded my chainsaw two days in a row and it felt good. We finished the job around 11:30am; in time for me to put up the tools, take a shower, and take my woman to a movie matinee.

Energized

This is my first blog posting and I'm energized! Right now, my intent with this blog is to chronical events and post random thoughts.

Like today, for instance. I went up to the local observatory, where I volunteer (http://www.vbas.org/), about 10am this morning to work on fastening the right-ascension optical encoder mount to our 21" diameter telescope. I worked on it a little while and then had to go downstairs to drill a couple of holes using the drill press. So I was downstairs talking with our newsletter editor, Steve, and preparing to drill the holes, when all of a sudden... CRASH---POP... and the power goes out. There were four of us up there: I, Steve, John, and Jared. Everyone walked outside to make sure everyone else was OK. Thankfully, all were fine. We then walked down the drive to find a dead tree that had fallen across the road and snapped the power and phone lines. It was about 11:30am when the power went out.

The energized line was lying across a tree and down onto the pavement. Because of a storm the previous night, the street was wet, which allowed the line to arc to ground. The line sizzled like bacon on a hot griddle. Worse, the branch that the line laid across started smoking and sparking. The current going through the branch and down the tree to ground was slowly turning the branch into charcoal. The observatory is in the midst of the Monte Sano State Park (www.alapark.gov/montesano), so John contacted Kent, the park ranger, immediately. Kent reported no further power outage and then called the power company.

Meanwhile the live wire had burned its way through the first branch and was now lying across a lower branch, which also started smoking and even flamed up for a bit. Lucky us, after three weeks of drought, we just had nearly two inches of rain the night before and everything was still quite wet - so there was little danger of starting a serious forest fire. The ranger drove down to take a look at the situation. He stuck around only briefly after seeing that there was no immediate danger and returned to his post to await the power company. About a half hour later the line burned its way through another branch and we could tell it would soon fall to the gound. After a bit more smoking and sparking, the line finally burned its way completely through the branches and as it fell it touched the other broken line, the return line, and we heard another loud POP. This time it shorted out the system further back up the road and, this time, about half of the park campground lost power. It didn't take long for Kent to drive back down to see what had happened. The power company was contacted once again to let them know the situation had worsened. By now, Kent was headed back to the office to deal with the upset campers with no power. But hey, they're camping right? They should know how to deal with no power.

Once the second short occurred and knocked out a wider swath, our downed lines were now de-energized and posed nearly no threat (I still wouldn't trust the things not to suddenly get re-energized). Steve and Jared left about 2pm. Since the lines were already down, John and I decided to take the opportunity to cut down another dead tree that might one day fall and cause a similar calamity. We finished that about 4pm and the power company had still not arrived. We were tired and decided to drive out and leave contact information with Kent.

It's now after 9:00pm and I just got an email from John saying that he spoke with Kent and the power is back on - Praise Be Unto TVA!