Fire Ant Flickers (#7)

Howdy, y’all. I so excited to bring you some exciting news that is sure to excite you!

OK, I’m kidding. I just wanted to use this photo. As far as you know, it’s actually me, blogging.

Do you think the guy in that photo resemble Dick Van Dyke? I can’t find anything about the photo. I stole borrowed it from an online poster advertising Love To Write Day — occurring on November 15th — but I’ll be darned if I cannot find it again. I even did a reverse image search via TinEye, and it didn’t find a match among the 72.7 billion images it purports to catalog.

So, once again, just assume it’s me, being absolutely excited to bring you this post about random trivialities. How exciting!

Did you participate in the viewing of the lunar occultation of Mars on Monday (1/13/25)? As we all know, occultation is when one object blocks the view of another, such as when you sit behind me in church while I’m wearing my black Seratelli cowboy hat*.

In this case, many of us Earthlings were able to see the Wolf Moon pass in front of the Red Planet (aka Barsoom). I had the astonishingly wise foresight to put my camera equipped with my most powerful zoom lens on a tripod, attach a remote shutter release to it, and change the camera settings to capture the full moon (it’s always brighter than you or your camera thinks), then set it on the back porch pointed to the northeastern sky where the moon normally rises this time of year.

My plan was flawless. I would start snapping photos several minutes while Mars made its approach toward the moon (OK…more about this seemingly contradictory statement in a moment), and continue about every three or four minutes until Mars disappeared from sight. I would then wait for about an hour until Mars reappeared on the other side of the moon, and take a few photos. The plan, as I can’t overstress, was, you know, flawless.

The execution was a different matter.

What I failed to realize is that the moon is much brighter than Mars, and appears much larger (of course, it’s not; Mars is twice as big), so that the camera settings I used didn’t do justice to Mars. So here’s a sample of what came out of my camera (well, except for the text and the arrows and stuff):

You may be forgiven for thinking that dot is a mote of dust on the camera lens. Trust me; it wasn’t. (You can see better photos taken by smarter people than me here.)

So, the visuals were disappointing (and my 200mm zoom lens wasn’t really up to the task anyway). But the interesting thing to me was that while the moon was rising in the sky, Mars was approaching it from below and appeared to move behind the moon instead of the moon moving in front of it. There’s a simple explanation for this phenomenon but I’m not your astronomy professor so look it up yourself. Or, be like me and chalk it up to magic.

I think this speaks for itself:

I was today years old** when I learned that you can unzip a zip tie without damaging it. Depending on the size of the zip tie, you can use either a tiny screwdriver or the end of a knife blade, although I don’t recommend the latter unless you have a very steady hand, or perhaps a hand made of steel.

However, if you can find one of these…

…then you’re golden, as your fingernail will suffice to release the cable from its prison of tiny teeth.

By the way, at the end of the preceding link you’ll find visual instructions on how to extricate yourself from zip-tied handcuffs. If you have an ongoing need to do this, you probably need to rethink some of your life choices.

There are only 342 days left until Christmas and that should be plenty of time to apply and be approved for a loan to purchase the World’s first Transparent Smart 4K TV. Or sell a kidney. Your choice.

Closing Shot

Final Closing Shot

Absolutely Final Closing Shot (really!)

*Not really; I never wear a hat in church. Viking horns, maybe…but never a cowboy hat. [Return]

**Sorry. That was almost as cringe as my describing it as cringe. [Return]