The fastest way to go from east coast to west coast of USA in the 19th century was to take a boat to Panama, ride 40 odd miles on a train, then take another boat from there to west coast. #TIL

It is really heartbreaking and depressing to watch the haphazard destruction of science and knowledge going on in this country every single day.

Remembering the spectacular Aurora Borealis that we witnessed exactly one year ago.

Celebrated the completion of another tour around the Sun with this 55 mile bike ride.

One of the few native orchids ‘Pink lady’s slippers’ in the northeast is starting to bloom. Finding these flowers is one of my favorite activities in the month of May every year. It is very difficult to domesticate these plants as they require a specific symbiotic fungus in the soil to grow.

Sunspots on today’s Sun. 20250507

Watched “Conclave” last night to learn about the process of the upcoming conclave. Sincerely hope the result of this conclave is something similar to the movie. That would be fantastic.

What is up and what is down?

May the fourth be with you!!!

This picture doesn’t really show it well but every other tree on the right side of this road is white dogwood in bloom. It is so pretty!

This green color of young leaves takes my breath away and same with all that damned pollen.

Have been thinking about buying a new bike. The last one was bought more than a decade ago. The possible price increase from tariffs pushed that thinking into action. Just received a call from the bike shop that it is ready. Have to decide if I go this evening or tomorrow morning for pickup.

Current Lock Screen on my phone features a photo of M101 aka Pinwheel galaxy taken this week.

M101 (aka Pinwheel galaxy) is a face-on spiral galaxy at 21 million light years away in the constellation of Ursa Major. This galaxy is larger than our Milky Way and contains about 1 trillion stars.

🔭 William Optics Megrez 90 📷 ZWO ASI2600MC Duo 150x1min exposures processed in SIRIL and Photoshop

After that ridiculously easy monthly challenge (3 days of 5+ minute walk) in April, Apple Fitness is back with something real for May - 14 days of 840 active calories.

This Eastern Redbud is my most favorite tree in our yard. I planted this as a small stick that came from Arbor Day Foundation about 15 years ago and now it is almost 20 feet tall. This explosion of pink flowers every spring is just spectacular!!!

Mars approaching M44 aka the Beehive cluster. It will be coming even closer in coming days but I will not see that as the forecast for those days in this area is cloudy skies.

A cluster of stars known as Beehive cluster on a dark background with red colored Mars at the bottom of the image

After this morning’s exercise on the rowing machine, I completed my 2024/2025 season with 355,855 meters of rowing. This is the second best total for me so far. Hoping to do better in the next season starting tomorrow.

I was planning to bike into work this morning but, when I saw the amount of pollen covering every surface, decided against it. Don’t want to suck in all that pollen and start my workday with sneezing fits.

Thanks to the Merlin app, I now know that the damned bird that keeps screaming outside of my window at 5:30 am is a ‘tufted titmouse’.