BINOCULARS:
Why You Need a Pair

Of all of the accessories carried by the modern amateur astronomer, by far the most useful has to be binoculars. There are a number of reasons why they're the go-to item in every amateur astronomer's toolbox.

One of the first reasons is that binoculars offer stereo vision. Unlike when squinting through a telescope, both of your eyes are engaged. For most people, it's easier to see that way.

Second up, and right behind, is the fact that binoculars are a 'point and shoot' type of product. You want to see what's over there? Then point the binos at it. It's that simple.

Third, binoculars offer a wide field of view and generally good light-gathering characteristics. Surprisingly enough, many astronomical objects cannot be seen by the naked eye because they are too faint, not too small. Binoculars make a vast collection of objects accessible.

With binoculars, you can rapidly sweep a portion of the sky for interesting sights. You'll spot a lot of clumps of stars; you might see a couple of planets; and there are plenty of faint fuzzies within the reach of binoculars.

Binoculars are a great way to familiarize yourself with the night sky. They bring so much into visual range; for example, nearly all of the "faint fuzzies" mentioned last week look fantastic in binos.

In terms of what to look for, you'll want a pair of 7x50s or 10x50s. (The first number refers to the image-multiplying power; the second refers to diameter of each objective lens, in millimetres.)

If your hands shake a bit, go for the lower power. It's not worth trying to get a consistent view through 10x50s.

If you get yourself binoculars, also get a good star chart of some description. Most show all of the brightest stars, and a fair number of faint fuzzies to get you started.

For a flashlight, might I suggest you go with red. Red light interferes less with the night vision you pick up in dark surroundings. That becomes more important when you're dark-adapted, believe me.

When I go out to observe, even with a telescope, I keep my binos within easy reach.

You don't have to spend much; even a cheap pair is better than nothing. Avoid plastic lenses; they suck. Most decent binoculars have glass lenses.

Once you get a pair of binoculars, use them to familiarize yourself with the night sky. There's plenty to see, especially in a dark sky. Try to minimize sources of glare--streetlights, domestic and industrial lighting, etc.

A word to the wise: in densely-populated areas, standing outside with a pair of binoculars is sure to arouse suspicion. People just imagine the worst, and they just know you're spying on them. You may need to seek a location from which you can observe undisturbed.

When you get a pair of binoculars, first make sure you're using them the right way round. The big lenses go in the front, and you look through the little ones--and it's amazing how often Hollywood gets that simple fact wrong!

There are two extremely-valuable adjustments to be made to a pair of binoculars. First off, the spacing between the lenses can be varied, to match the spacing between your eyes. Looking through them, you should see two overlapping circles, and any objects should be converged, if not actually in focus.

Second, most binos have an independent focuser for the right eyepiece (because most people's eyes are just a bit different). The idea is to use the tilt bar on top to achieve sharp focus in the left eye; then use the adjustment to get matching results in the right eye. Generally, you need only rotate the eyepiece to use this feature.

The nicest thing about binoculars is that they are compact and can go anywhere. They last forever (I've got a pair that's twenty years old; they'll be good for another thirty to fifty years; probably they'll outlast me.)

Binoculars: an essential piece of kit.

Faint Fuzzies

In the night sky, the vast majority of the objects you can see with the naked eye are stars, many of them larger and brighter than our own sun.

But, scattered here and there, you can find a few objects that are neither stars nor planets. These are faint objects, best seen in a dark country sky. Hey, that's just the way it is. We've polluted our urban skies to the point where only the brightest stars can be seen.

Here, then, is a brief tour of some of the most-prominent of these "faint fuzzies."

For all of these, it will help to have star charts, or a planetarium program on your phone/tablet. I'm not doing up charts for a blog post.

Mizar and Alcor
Okay, technically, it's not a star, per se—it's two stars. Mizar and Alcor, situated at the bend in the handle of the Big Dipper asterism, can be seen by most people with normal vision as a double star. The bright one is Mizar; the dimmer one is Alcor. Native Americans used to refer to this pair as the "horse and rider."

The Andromeda Galaxy
This is one of the most-distant objects the naked eye can pick out of the sky, at approximately 2.4-million light-years. It is located in the constellation Andromeda (nothing to do with the High Guard, or Captain Hercules), which itself is off the left 'shoulder' of the great Square of Pegasus.

In a dark sky, and using averted vision (looking slightly away from the object, to engage the more light-sensitive rods in our eyes), a fuzzy area up to a degree in diameter (about twice the width of the Full Moon) can be perceived. In binoculars, this object gently glows like a desk lamp. If nothing else, learning to point out Andromeda can make you a hero to your friends (or a total nerd; you have been warned).

The Double Cluster
Hanging in the polar sky, partway between with cosmic 'W' of Cassiopeia and the hydra-like form of Perseus, is the double cluster--two clusters of stars. With the naked eye, one perceives a fuzzy patch, about half the width of the Full Moon. In binoculars, some of the stars in each cluster begin to resolve, giving you a view of two piles of diamond chips, set upon crushed velvet.

The Centaurus Cluster
This is a great globular cluster of stars. Globulars orbit the galaxy; most of them are much further away. The Centaurus cluster shows as a fuzzy patch. In binoculars, it shows up as a larger, brighter fuzzy patch. The reason? It is composed of over a million stars, at a considerable distance.

The Pleiades
This open cluster sits just to the left (east) of the horns of Taurus (itself another open cluster, only closer to us, and less dense). Normally-sighted people can generally perceive six to eight stars in a compact grouping. Some will comment on its dipper-like appearance.

The Great Orion Nebula
This is a huge cloud of gas and dust, including many star-forming regions, in the constellation Orion. Orion itself is prominent in the winter and spring skies as a large X with three stars in the middle. Tracing down slightly from that point, one finds three more stars (the Dagger). One of those stars is fuzzy. It looks magnificent in binoculars or a telescope.

The Northern Coalsack
Thus far, each of the objects described can be detected from the light it emits. This one, on the other hand, can be detected for the light it blocks. The Northern Coalsack, in the Contellation Cygnus, is a large darkening in the middle of the gently-glowing band of the Milky Way.

The Milky Way
It's sad that only a fraction of the population today has seen the Milky Way. It's a grand spectacle in a dark sky; a band of luminescence that shines from pole to pole. It's our own galaxy, and the light you are seeing is from billions of stars, at distances to great for them to be resolved.

This pretty much concludes our tour of faint fuzzies. Next time you find yourself in a dark sky, try looking for a few of them.

-Bill

Perihelion - What's it All About?

At this time of year, Earth is rapidly approaching perihelion--its point of closest approach to the sun. This is a consequence of Earth's orbit being elliptical, not circular.

Take a look at this diagram:

In the above diagram, the Earth is a blue ball; the Sun is a yellow ball.  Earth is travelling in the counter-clockwise direction. As you can see, we're rapidly approaching the point of closest approach (A). The opposite point, aphelion, is at point (B). The Vernal Equinox, which marks the first day of spring, is at (C); and the autumnal equinox, marking the first day of fall, is at (D).

Now, interestingly enough, the speed at which our planet moves is inversely proportional to its distance from the sun (I know that's not quite true; but it will suffice for now). Right now, our planet is moving faster than usual. This has consequences.

The first consequence is that the planet spends less time between the autumnal and vernal equinoxes (the left-hand side of the image), and more time between the vernal and autumnal equinoxes. You can confirm this by counting the days between the two equinoxes. Now, Earth's orbital eccentricity is small, and so is the effect; but it's there.

This also has the effect of advancing the equation of time (basically put, the difference between the actual time, and the time a sundial would tell you). Right now, Earth is moving faster than usual; this has the effect of pushing both sunrise and sunset 'backward.' And so the equation of time is increasing in the negative direction (you'd have to subtract from the sundial time). Around the vernal equinox, this situation will reverse itself.

A related consequence is that, while the longest and shortest days of the year remain on the solstices, the dates of earliest and latest sunrise and sunset are offset. We've already passed our earliest sunset of the year, for example; but sunrise will continue to get later into late December/early January.

One other consequence to be noted, here: because perihelion falls shortly after the southern solstice (winter in the Northern Hemisphere), Southern-Hemispheric summers are slightly warmer, and the winters slightly colder.

That's enough for now.

-Bill

The Sky for December 2018

This is the start of a new feature of my blog, whereby I share my astronomical knowledge, accumulated through 45 years, plus about 20 of observational astronomy.

In the sky this month, there are a few things to catch your attention. Let's focus on those.

Earth's Shadow

This is often noticed in December, when sunrise and sunset often coincide with our morning or evening commute. It happens shortly before sunrise, and shortly after sunset, on clear days.

What you notice is, near the anti-sunrise/set point (opposite from where the sun is about to rise or has just set), a darker slice of atmosphere hugging the horizon. As sunrise approaches, it seems to concentrate right above the horizon. As more time passes after sunset, the band rises higher and dilutes.

What you're seeing is the Earth's shadow, cutting up through our atmosphere. Very near to sunrise or sunset, this is a very slight angle, so you're looking 'straight down' the shadow; and thus it seems quite dark. Further away from either time, The angle is less shallow (the shadow is angled more), and the effect fades.

Venus

In December mornings, before sunrise, a bright, star-like object can be seen rising into the sky in the Southeast. It's brighter than virtually anything else in the sky, save for the Sun and the Moon, and shines with a steady, untwinkling light.

What you're looking at is Venus, Often referred to as Earth's sister planet. This is because both its diameter is just a few-hundred kilometres smaller than Earth's, and also because of its proximity to our own orbit around the sun (Venus, average distance about 108-million km; Earth, average distance about 149-million km).

On closer examination, though, the claim of sisterhood falls apart, A thick, carbon-dioxide atmosphere cloaks the planet, smothering the surface under its crushing weight. Surface temperatures are hot enough to melt lead. What's more, Venus actually rotates retrograde (against its orbit, so to speak), and its day (243 earth days) is actually longer than its year (277 days).

The Soviets soft-landed a spacecraft on Venus, in the mid-1970s; surface photos were recovered.

Incidentally, Venus, like most of the planets, doesn't twinkle. That's because, while tiny, the disks they display tend to be larger than the turbulence cells in the upper atmosphere that cause twinkling; thus, the cells mostly cancel each other out, and no twinkling.

Sirius

Rising in the Southeast late in the evening is Sirius, once known as the Dog Star. Sirius gets its nickname by virtue of being the brightest star in the constellation Canis Major (the Great Dog). It's a bit larger and brighter than the sun, and it has a companion--Sirius B, a white dwarf (a star that has used up all of its nuclear fuel and, because of its relatively small mass, died a quiet death).

I mention Sirius B because the Dogon Tribe, in Africa, holds a festival once every so often to commemorate Sirius B's orbit. The catch: Sirius B is much too faint, and too close to Sirius A, to be seen by the naked eye.

Canis Major, Sirius' home constellation, is one of several companions to great Orion, the Hunter. (Two others are Canis Minor (the Lesser Dog), with its bright star Procyon; and Taurus (the Bull), and its bright red-giant star, Antares.

Sirius twinkles madly, most nights, and seems to display most of the colours of the rainbow. That's because it is, through atmospheric refraction. Other stars do it, too—they're just not bright enough for you to notice.

Orion

In my childhood, I was often stopped in my tracks by the sight of a large X in the Spring sky. After not too many years, I learned that it was Orion, the Hunter. You've probably seen it; a large X, with four bright stars prominently marking the corners, and three fainter stars in the middle. Well, that's Orion. The three stars in the middle are called the Belt. Three further stars 'hang down' from the belt; this is the Dagger.

Now, a curious thing is the Dagger. In a clear, country sky, you can notice with the naked eye that one of the stars in the Dagger is fuzzy. And, indeed, binocular or telescopic aid will reveal that you are looking at a huge, interstellar gas cloud.

What you are looking at is the Great Orion Nebula, the subject of so many telescopic portraits over the years. You've doubtless seen Hubble images of the many gas/dust 'coccoons' inside which new stars and planets are forming.

Those are the major sights for which to keep an eye out over the next month. Some other events (in brief): earliest sunset (mid-latitude) Dec. 11; Winter, or Southern, Solstice Dec. 20.

That's it for this month. If you don't have a good pair of binoculars, do invest.

-Bill

Let the Bells Chime

I was born in 1964, just under twenty years after the end of the Second World War, and just over forty-five past the end of the First.

I joined Cubs, and spent many of my remembrance days at the Cenotaph, dripping in the West Coast rain, feeling as miserable as I'd imagined the soldiers in the trenches did. In that sort of atmosphere, it really drove home the futility of war; the human cost. Shivering with the cold and the wet, I could easily imagine what it would have been like to die in combat.

Time has passed; and now we're about to hit a hundred years since the 'Great War' ended. It had many names, including 'the War to End All Wars.' As we know now, through the long eye of history, it didn't. Not by a long shot. In fact, led directly to the Second World War. But that's another story.

The First World War figures prominently in Canadian history: Canada is fancied to have been 'forged in fire'; and, indeed, Canadians fighting in Europe earned the admiration and respect of the world. And, it's true, the modern shape of Canada began to emerge during and immediately after the War; the era of Big Government began during this time. Our economy was reshaped as Canadians proved they could manufacture with the best of them; thus, the birth of conspicuous consumption. As we won decisively in such battles as Vimy Ridge, we gained confidence that our still-fledgling nation could stand up for itself on the world stage--something that came in very handy just twenty years later, when war broke out again, and Canada played a key role.

I think a hundred years is enough perspective to stand back and examine events critically. The causes of the First World War were many; but, like dominoes ready to be knocked over, war was inevitable however things ultimately played out.

It was a wholesale slaughter of human beings. You live long enough, you hear things--like the adage about the British gunnery officer, manning a cannon, who saw a group of soldiers. After some debate about which side they belonged to, he uttered something like "No matter--can't pass up a target like that!" and fired the cannon.

Apocryphal or not, it did echo the attitudes prevalent at that time--and the power structure that made that possible.

This Sunday, November 11, bells will be ringing across Canada. Go outside. Listen to them. And while you're doing that, spare a thought for the dozens of millions of people killed during the War, from both sides.

And in just a little over twenty-five years, we'll do it all again.

I just hope we've learned something in the last hundred years.

CCOC's Tale of Woe

"Warning: Do not choose CCOC as your landlord!"

Your stars of the show:

CCOC - Centretown Citizens (Ottawa) Corporation.

A construction company to be named.

CCOC is my landlord. Has been for going on to 30 years.

A couple years ago, it was announced that the balconies on all the buildings were to be rebuilt. They issued a schedule. Last year, it was the block across the way from us. I laughed as the small construction crew fell far behind, shut down for the winter, and finished up this past spring.

Now, the balcony is a popular thing in our household. In normal years, we're out there every spare moment, Our sphynx cat, hairless and unable to be an outdoor cat, also gets out there every spare moment. We barbecue; I do astronomy. My weather sensors are (usually) out there. Occasionally, I'll sit out in the summer with my laptop or a tablet, and work. In other words, we value our balcony as much as any room in this house.

This year, it was our turn. No problem says CCOC; we have a new contractor, and we're going to be keeping a closer eye on things, to make sure the schedule doesn't slip.

The project was given a ten-week schedule.

Construction started May 22. It only took a few days to tear the balconies down, and the new one was being rebuilt just as fast. In mid-July, they were better than half done.

Then it all went to hell. The workers suddenly stopped all work on the balconies, moving on to siding and some work on the roof. The schedule began slipping.

Fast forward to today. In the interim, the workers have installed siding on the building, and replaced doors and windows. The balcony is just as it was in mid-July, save for one end divider they worked on in September.

For the past few days, the contractors have been absent. It is very clear that they've abandoned the site for the winter, now that the snow is flying.

In the beginning, we were receiving weekly updates on progress. Those have slowly petered out and are now arriving at the rate of about one every three weeks.  In early October, they predicted that the balconies would be done Oct. 22. 

Now, Oct. 22 is a curious date. It marks exactly five months of construction, or twice the anticipated length of time. There are still weeks of work to go. They still have to build dividers between all the units, install eavestroughing, and then paint the thing--definitely not a cold-wet-weather task. That's not going to happen until spring.

On Oct. 19, we received another update again predicted the balconies would be complete by Oct. 22. It was at that point, with the workers inexplicably moving on and tearing down the balconies on another block, that I realized that CCOC had no idea what was going on down at the site.

Now, everybody with two brain cells knows that you don't leave construction workers to their own devices; it's like leaving pirates to guard gold. You've got to have constant communication with them, both to receive updates, and to provide guidance about what to do next. It's very clear that CCOC has been absentee on this project; they're simply taking the workers' reports, verbatim.

We're talking, all in all, about a ten-week project that's going to end up taking ten or eleven months to complete. You can build an entire new building in that amount of time!

I emailed CCOC about this on October 22. I received on brush-off reply and a promise of something more substantial in the future. Well, it's the future, and I'm still waiting.

In the middle of this, CCOC needed access to our apartment for something. I came home that day to find my door unlocked. Another ball dropped. Lord knows, we get enough Notices of Entry; about 15 per year. They actually come on the appointed date about 60 percent of the time; for the other 40 percent, either they don't show and are eventually rescheduled, or they arrive unaccompanied, later, taking their chances that people will be home. If you contact them about a problem, it's about a fifty-fifty chance that they will actually show up. If they show up, it's a song-and-dance about how challenging the repair will be; and if it requires consultation with the head office, well, you're screwed. We have a bathroom sink, original equipment, that's well beyond the end of its serviceable lifetime. I called about it two years ago, and a gent came to look at it and said, yes, we could get a new bathroom sink; it was only a question of whether it was maintenance or remodelling. He left and promptly forgot all about it. Twenty years ago, I called them about a leak in our eavestroughing. they responded, and, gosh, they've have to get the ladders up, and really, we were just talking about a few drops. Twenty years later, they've had to rebuild the balconies due to water damage. Smart decision, CCOC!!

To top it all off, this week we received a Notice of Rent Increase. I think we'll be talking to them instead about a rent decrease, as compensation for all the moths we'be been denied a balcony. I was willing to forget about ten weeks; I'm not willing to forgive ten months.

Warning: Do not choose CCOC as your landlord!

Folks, I hate to say it, but do not choose CCOC as your landlord. They're having problems right now. They can't quarterback a simple renovations project, and their maintenance department is getting sloppy. I've seen this happen before; and, inevitably, things continue to deteriorate until there are tenants' uprisings, charges from the City, and ultimately the landlord goes belly-up.

It's sad to see this happening. It's sad to see the depths to which CCOC has sunk. It's sad to realize that this is happening to us. We've got to get out of here before the whole place goes under!

I didn't want to have to say all of this, but time's a-wastin'. I've already waited over a week for a reply to a simple question: when will this project end; and why did the workers suddenly divert their efforts to tearing down the balconies on the adjoining block, knowing that it would delay everything. They can't even answer that question, which shows you how hopelessly out of touch they are.

Enough said.

-Bill

Introducing StationBase--A Tool for DX'ers

It's funny. I've been a DX'er for about 42 years--not that I'm old now (I'm about to turn 54). I started DX'ing when I was twelve, and over the years I keep coming back to it.

What's DX'ing? Fair question. DX'ing is listening to the radio in an attempt to hear stations over long distances. This can involve many different bands and methods of reception; from ham and VHF/UHF bands, to the AM and FM broadcast bands. It can be active, such as involving radio amateurs trying to conduct conversations over long distances. It can be passive, such as sitting up late with an AM receiver, trying to identify that faint signal on 1640 KHz.

In my case, and many others', I've settled on the AM broadcast band, which runs from 530 KHz to 1700 KHz in North America. Over 30 years of on-again, off-again listening, I've managed to bag nearly 600 stations. This is a very radio-dirty location; the band is always humming with radio noise, so DX is a bit difficult to come by. to date, I think my farthest catch was Vatican Radio (Rome), broadcasting a newsmagazine-type show on 1611 Khz, early one morning in the late nineties. To date, my only translatlantic reception.

Naturally, keeping records straight on 600 stations isn't an easy task. So, I decided years ago to keep my records electronically. I've progressed through dBASE, WordPerfect, MS Word, and Excel. Each solution was subtoptimal, and I found myself spending as much time trying to keep my records straight as actually listening to the radio.

I searched for software. There wasn't much, and most of it seemed to be aimed at hams.

"I know," said I; "I'll put my web-application development talents to use and program something!"

And so began the birth of StationBase. It's been in active development now for about ten months, and it's almost ready for a beta test. 

StationBase was developed from the outset to encourage sharing of records. A default operator is assigned, so that visitors will see that operator's records before they login. (Users can designate their records as private, visible only to them; but where's the fun in that?)

For each operator, StationBase keeps track of lists of Locations, Equipment Sets (collections of equipment often used together), Equipment, and a common pool of Network definitions.  These are attached to Station records, through Reception Reports. If geographic coordinates are supplied for both a Location and a Station, the distance will then automatically be calculated when a reception report is filed. StationBase also has a logging feature, and can automatically generate reception reports when it finds you logging an identified station, or even creating a station record if it doesn't already exist. It can also do the same when you enter Reception Reports directly, converting them into log entries.

In the main screen, you can filter your stations by whether they are still active; by Location, and by Equipment Set. You can combine these filters so that, for example, you can view only those active stations bagged in Rockland, using the Original set of equipment.

For the Online Edition, there are some extra niceties:

• An online news feature; you can post news items, which can be viewed by other users, with custom expiry dates;
• An online bug-reporting/tracking feature, which should be very handy during the beta-test period;
• An email function (planned for the next major release);
• The ability to view anybody's records who has not marked them private.

There are also a Stats section, which shows you statistical data about your catches, and a Data section, divided into three parts: Export, Import, and Deletion. Data export of any part of your records can occur in any of three different file formats (text, CSV, and XML). Anything that the program can export, it can also import, guaranteeing protection for your valuable records.

For the past week, I've also been developing a Desktop Edition of StationBase. This version will compile and run on just about any platform and is completely self-contained. It doesn't require a database server, a web server, or anything else. It will also feature full data interchangeability with the Online Edition. A typical scenario I've envisioned points out the usefulness of this ability. You could use the Desktop Edition of StationBase to maintain your records; but when you're DX'ing, you probably don't want your primary computer running (a major source of radio noise). So, you operate with a tablet, and access the online version of the program while DX'ing, probably from a mobile device like a smartphone or a tablet. When you're done, you export your data from the Online Edition, feed it into the Desktop Edition--and you're up-to-date.

Here's a peek at the landing screen (logged out), so you can get some sense of what I'm talking about.

Both the Online and Desktop Editions will be available later this autumn. My thought was that groups of like-minded DX'ers could run a version of the Online Edition (it does require a Java application server); and anyone can run the Desktop Edition.

Both projects have been leveraged as educational opportunities. For the Online Edition, I've programmed a custom data-grids package in JavaScript, and developed it in the Eclipse IDE, using Java Spring MVC, and for the Desktop Edition (programmed in Free Pascal and the Lazarus IDE), I've programmed custom database routines and a simple indexing package that brought me up-to-date on directly handling raw data.

Anyway, here's that screenshot:

In Defence of Atheists

There's an article in the National Post this morning, about atheism, that's really raised my ire.

I'm not going to comment on it, quote from it, or argue with it. It would be seen as intolerant--and religions in Canada are protected from intolerance.

When, may I ask, will atheists be afforded the same protection? If you were to attack Christianity in the papers, all Hell would break loose.

But atheists? Fair game, as usual.

Discuss amongst yourselves.

CHUMP
2018-05-22

It never fails. Something happens, and I'm left feeling like a chump.

Months ago, our landlord announced that our balconies would be rebuilt this year. Weeks ago, they fixed a date: May 22. We were warned through multiple printed notices to clear off our balconies, clear out our backyards, etc. They also warned that people would be in on May 22 to change our back door and balcony door locks.

Of course, I, like a good little conformist, cleared off most of our balcony weeks ago. This morning, I cleared the last few items; it took five minutes. A gentleman came around this morning and changed our balcony lock (to ensure we wouldn't open the door and plunge a whole storey to our deaths).

Now, as I look at the other balconies and backyards in our development, I find that we were the only ones to be ready. Backyards are still cluttered with possessions; satellite dishes remain mounted on the balconies, along with chairs, tables, etc.

I don't know what these people are going to do now--presumably crawl out their windows to fetch in their stuff; but I can bet what's going to happen.

Nothing will be done until the stuff has been removed. And residents will continue to ignore warnings and notices to remove their stuff. Finally (about a month from now), the landlord will get fed up and try to remove the items. And a great cry will go up--you didn't warn us; you didn't say anything about satellite dishes; it's our God-given right to watch TV; we're going to sue; and so on. And so the landlord will gently remove the sat dishes are re-install them on the side of the building. They'll demo the balconies--very slowly, carefully, so as not to interfere with people's God-given rights--rebuild them, and carefully mount the sat dishes again, so that they can replace the siding on the building. They say the whole thing will take ten weeks, but going by last year's construction jobs on neighbouring blocks of units (they still haven't finished with the eaves), we'll finally get to enjoy our new balconies in September--just in time for autumn.

It frankly pisses me off to do the right thing and then see that others, who just don't give two shakes about anything beyond the tips of their noses, don't--and without consequences. I know, I know; mind your own business; say nothing; be tolerant and understanding. But, fuck, it's difficult to do so in this day and age, when everybody feels untouchable and free to do as they please. According to the landlord's own rules, satellite dishes aren't even permitted in this development--but I can stick my head out the window and count four, just in our block.

What I'd love to see: the contractors coming in tomorrow and demoing the whole kit-and-kaboodle. Toss the sat dishes and fittings and tables and barbecues into the dumpster along with all the other trash. Get on with the rebuild. But we all know that won't happen. People have rights, after all.

So, I done right, and I'm a chump.

Fuck, I hate people, in the collective sense.