There’s a moon out tonight.

What I need to figure out is how to take a photo of the moon through a telescope so that I can capture clearer, crisper, and fuller images of it when it looks so big in the sky.

We went out on the water to go watch for shooting stars in the weeks long meteor shower. We were fortunate enough to all see one very large, and bright streak as a group. A few others caught a few smaller ones off in the distance where I wasn’t looking. Big sky you see, can’t look every which way at once. If I see one I continue to look that direction, but that doesn’t always work like I think it should.

It can also be a long wait in between visible streaks so I did not manage to capture any on film. No video of them skipping over the atmosphere either. If I could do a lengthy time lapse over the lake you might see something cool. As it currently stands I do not know how to do that with my phone. I should learn though, could come in handy.

Here we are on a Tuesday in mid August. The summer break is drawing to a close with each passing day. My wife will be back to work in about two weeks time. The girls back to school in three. And like that, snap! Our jam packed schedules will reappear and it’ll be a race to get to all of our kids programming each afternoon, and evening during the week.

On the plus side I will be back to climbing twice a week once more! I have continued to train my grip strength. Started by struggling with 50lbs, and I’m not edging out of 125lbs towards the 150lbs. My goal is to reach 250lbs, so that if I can lose weight by being more active, my grip can hold at least 55lbs more than I weigh. Which should enable me to use smaller finger holds, or stay on more challenging routes for longer. That’s the plan. Weak shoulders, and poor hip mobility need to be worked on too, but I have the grip trainers, so I’m leading with that first. I haven’t been totally lacking on my hips or shoulders. I have taken up push ups once more, and in the pool/lake I do hip stretching exercises, and leg raises to try and maintain what little ability I built up over the last ten months of climbing.

I did pivot to golf briefly during the summer. We plan to get out next week for 18 holes with a couple friends. I bought inexpensive golf shoes with spikes. And replaced my loud mouth pants with a new grey pair that fits my newly fat self. No chance I can get into a 33 W pair of pants without considerable weight loss. I don’t have the time to lose 30lbs and three inches off my waistline by next week. I don’t fancy an exercise heavy week fueled by laxatives, and water intake reduction to achieve it either. I’m not wrestling collegiately anymore. I don’t run laps in garbage bags after not eating for three days just to make an arbitrary weight. Those days are o-ver! Gone. Bye-bye.