Log, Feb 28, 2003
2 people. TANJ! and TANJ! again. In case you don't know what that means it says THERE AIN"T NO JUSTICE! Now I've been patient and persevering. Really I have! Truly I have! However I really do have a beef tonight.Ernie Evans gave me a call in the later afternoon asking if we'd be open this evening. Both of us were looking at the Clear Sky Clock which predicted clearing just after dark. Ernie lives a few miles west of me and we both saw a line of clearing a few miles west of Ernie on the weather map. I told Ernie I'd let him know if I would open with an e-mail at 6 PM. I looked out at 5:45 and saw clearing approaching from the west. Great - we open.I got to the Dome to see that Old Man Winter had coated the walk with ice a full inch and half thick. Not icy snow but melted water frozen hard as a rock. I banged and chipped away for 45 minutes and finally cleared a path. About 7:15 a car drove up with two ladies in it. "Is this the Nature Center?" they asked. I pointed across the street and said "There it is." They asked "Where is the Owl Walk?" After much mutual confusion and cross purposes I began to realize they were in the wrong park. Burlingame Park probably also has a Nature Center somewhere (I think, perhaps, I guess, maybe so .... etc.). They had been driving around Ninigret park for quite some time. So off they went. I waited until near 8 PM and finally decided it was hopeless. I was turning off hardware when Ernie arrived with the cheery news that it had begun to clear as he left.We waited and waited but not a single star appeared. Nothing, nada, zilch and zippo. Finally we decided that there wasn't a chance. I finished wrapping up to the sounds of cayotes in the Wildlife Refuge. We gave the sky a final look and decided that the great gray black blob in the southern sky was darker and more ominous than anything we had seen. We left.Even so, I didn't growl, curse my fate nor even grumble, at least very much. I drove home and what to my wondering eyes should appear but a beautifully clear sky just inside the Westerly town line. Ten crumby miles! I got home to hear the phone ringing. "Hey Les, did you look outside?" asked the voice. "Yes, Ernie I did, and no I am not driving back because that blankety blank cloud is still over Charlestown." We each commiserated and decide to use our (lighted) backyards with our private scopes.By the way, in my backyard a got a beautiful view of Jupiter and Praesepe in a single view. I tried to count the stars in Praesepe and gave up after I reached sixty. A clear night just like the Clear Sky Clock said only it was ten miles west of the Dome. When I checked the weather radar, a single blob on a long finger reached up from the heavy snows to the south to hide Charlestown. So T-A-N-J! TANJ! Tanj! tanj! and I hope the weatherman gets a hangnail and a hickey.-Les Coleman
