What would happen if, without any notice, I stopped publishing this blog? About once a month I have a feeling to do just that.

Do you think you would send a comment to inquire about the sudden cessation? Those of you who know who I am, do you think you would reach out?

With few exceptions, for blogs I have followed that are no longer active the author did write a farewell post. However, exceptions do exist. In one such case I did contact the blog author to ask why the posts had stopped. Without mentioning the damn virus by name, he said that his life simply left him no time to write and implied the virus had a role in his decision.

The average blog is active for only 100 days. This blog is now almost 1,900 days old. I doubt it will be active for another 1,900.

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Two nights ago I had yet another dream that was a manifestation of anxiety. I dreamt I was staying in a hotel and the only way I could get to my room was through a hole in the ceiling near the hotel front desk. All I can write is WTF?!

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An experiment. Link

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I have to admit that I don’t click on automotive blogs I “follow” with anywhere near the frequency I did even a year ago. Yes, the ill-advised, blind move to universal EV adoption is a factor, but many of the blogs I follow are also authored by ICE advocates.

I have basically stopped watching Motor Trend even though I now have a subscription to their “Plus” service. Bitchin’ Rides no longer interests me and I have never had ANY interest in shows like Texas Metal or Roadkill.

Some people lock in on something and never let it go. I have never been built that way. In addition, my automotive interests must not line up with Motor Trend’s dominant audience because many of the shows I have liked (the first season of Speed Is The New Black, for example) are not on the air very long.

I am hesitant to write that the only constant in the world is change, but that axiom is most appropriate in almost every context.

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On this day in 1930 the object above was “discovered” by Clyde Tombaugh while working at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona. The object is Pluto, once classified as a planet in our solar system, but “demoted” to dwarf planet status in 2006.

Despite the decision of the International Astronomical Union (IAU) to change Pluto’s status, some astronomers consider it and other dwarf planets to be planets as they revolve around the sun, even if not on the same orbital plane as the eight bodies currently “recognized” as planets. I am not emotionally vested in Pluto’s classification and I do not have the knowledge to challenge any astronomer on the topic.

Tombaugh had been searching for a solar system object past Neptune (named Planet X) since April of 1929. Such an object had been predicted by Percival Lowell based on calculations performed by his student mathematician Elizabeth Williams and William Pickering.

Following its discovery, it was recognized that Pluto wasn’t massive enough to be the expected ninth planet and some astronomers began to consider it the first of a new class of object. Tombaugh searched for additional trans-Neptunian objects for years, though due to the lack of any further discoveries he concluded that Pluto was indeed a planet. The idea that Pluto was not a true planet remained a minority position until the discovery of other Kuiper belt objects in the late 1990s, which showed that it did not orbit alone but was at best the largest of a number of icy bodies in its region of space. After it was shown that at least one such body, dubbed Eris, was more massive than Pluto, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) reclassified Pluto on August 24, 2006, as a dwarf planet, leaving eight planets in the Solar System.

When I was in elementary school I had an enormous interest in astronomy. I even convinced my father to give me money so I could buy a telescope. That device met with a most unfortunate end, but I saved the main reflecting mirror for years.

Of course, I could now buy a telescope with built-in GPS that could identify objects in the night sky for me. Every now and then I get the urge to buy one, but as of yet have not done so.

I know some of you have genuine interest in astronomy. I would like to read if you have a telescope and, if so, how often you use it. Many thanks.

 

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