I took our 1989 VW Fox in to be smogged. Bad news -- it failed. Good news, it didn't seem too bad a failure, but who knows. Better news -- apparently the wonderful State of California will pay us $1000 to take our car off the road. It's a program to get rid of polluting cars. I couldn't believe it, since the bluebook on the Fox is, let me guess, just a shade under zero. I filled out the paperwork and we'll see if we're approved. We meet all the listed criteria. Sounds too good to be true. We were going to keep the Fox as a second car, but this seems too good to pass up. The cold statement "Then you take your car to a California approved dismantler where it will be crushed." is a bit harsh for a car we've grown to love, but hey we all have to go sometime.
Shopping went well but took a long time because I had an eye appointment at Costco. MB shopped while I was examined, but then it took forever to sign up for new frames and lenses. Same price as Lenscrafters (with my coverage) but I have to wait 1.5 to 2 weeks. Exam was slightly cheaper than Kaiser. Oh well, at least they were nice. We finally got home at 3pm. Carolina and I wanted to eat early because we wanted to go to a concert we thought started at 5:30 (more below). This is why I had no time for a nap.
So that night we to the concert. It was the Funk Brothers and was a part of Lancaster's Aerospace walk celebration. Lancaster boulevard was blocked off from Sierra Hwy to Fern. The concert was at Fern -- the Fern street sign hung over the back right of the stage. I was tired and it wasn't all my favorite music (but it was still very good) and I got squeezed next to a big guy. Even so I still had a lot of fun. We came across friends including Mike who played trombone for the concert because they like to hire their horn players locally. The weather was great. The concert actually didn't start at 7:30 and we got there a little before 6:00 so it worked out pretty well. We sat and talked and saw the sunset. Then we got to hear the concert.
While waiting and during the concert I noticed the stars (whoa, big surprise!). It was very light and I only see the very brightest objects. I saw Jupiter above Antares and later found Vega. Arcturus was right above the stage, since it was facing east and we were facing west. Recently my mom sent me a cool email showing the relative sizes of things. The content was a lot like this site. This picture shows the planets -- earth is on the left of the bottom row.
Here are the planets with the sun.
And here is the sun compare to other stars.
It's pretty cool and it was still on my mind a bit.
I had a reflective moment. There I was, little me, at a small concert -- I doubt there were more than 500 people present, maybe a 1000, I'm bad at estimating crowd sizes. I was small compare to the concert. The concert was small compared to bigger events. We were all small compared to the earth. The earth is small compared to Jupiter and especially the Sun. The sun is a relatively small star. It is very small compared to Arcturus which is a red giant. (Arcturus is not as big as Betelgeuse, but it's still pretty big for a star.) I felt like I was seeing through several orders of size magnitude. I felt small, but also happy to be in my God-given world. It made me feel good and well-cared for.
Saturday night I went to bed very tired and slept in Sunday morning. Finally I had a chance to rest.
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