Listening to KCRW a few days ago, I discovered this week the Nuart Theatre in West LA would be presenting the return of the 1964 classic, Becket. While I still remember my mother raving about it decades ago, I'd never seen it myself. So I was keen to experience it on the big screen, if at all possible. A little online research uncovered an LA Times review by Kenneth Turan, in which he spoke glowingly of the classic performances of Peter O'Toole as Henry II and Richard Burton as Thomas Becket. My son, beginning an acting career of his own, would do well to witness two of cinema's greatest actors at their best, I thought.

So my good friend Tom Chatt has "tagged" me to reveal five little-known facts about myself. Since this sounds like a fun challenge (and since I'm woefully overdue for a post here), I'll give it a try. Here goes:

1. I have only two joints in my index fingers. Where the tip joint would normally be, I've just got solid bone. Now, before you get too grossed-out, let me add it's really no big deal - useful as fodder for exercises such as this one, but otherwise completely unimportant. It's a quirk of genetics that I inherited from my mother, who had a number of subtle oddities in the morphology of her hands. Evidently, my grandmother was furious with my grandfather when, upon the birth of their daughter, she realized that the deformities in his hands were not (as he had told her) the result of some accident, but rather a genetic trait which had obviously been passed to my mother. Luckily, this hiccup in my maternal gene pool is slight, causing no noticeable impediment in the use of either my or my mother's hands. Except for her wedding ring, she never wore hand jewelry, so as to avoid drawing attention to them. It seems this trait may be recessive, as in the past two generations, it's manifested itself in gradually less-evident ways. In fact, much like my sister, my son has perfectly normal hands. Now, if I could only get rid of that hump on my left shoulder...

Happy Solstice Day! Once again, it's December 21st and this year at 4:22 PM PST, the North Pole will be tipped further away from the sun than at any other moment this year (approximately 23.5 degrees). Today, the northern hemisphere will experience its shortest period of daylight and it's longest period of night - it's the middle of winter. Simultaneously, it's the middle of summer in the southern hemisphere and people there are enjoying the longest day and shortest night of the year today.

Year Of The DogThis week, I celebrated the completion of my 48th year on Planet Earth. I was born in 1958, which - according to the Chinese Zodiac - was The Year Of The Dog. Unlike our occidental zodiac of 12 months, the Chinese devised a 12-year cycle, each year denoted by a different animal. Individuals acquire the strengths and weaknesses attributed to the animal associated with their birth year - or so the theory goes. Therefore 1970, 1982, 1994 and 2006 are also Dog years. At 48, I'm celebrating my fourth full cycle and, on this occasion, I've been reflecting on the events of my life at each of the previous three cycles. So many changes - from boy to man, from one love to another, from school to professional career, from child to father - and yet so much good fortune along the way.

Last week, I spent some class time with the 6th Graders at Rolling Hills Country Day School (RHCDS). This time, I was asking the question, "Why does the moon change shape from night to night?" And from there, we launched into an exploration for an answer - into the motion of the Moon around the Earth, the effect of sunlight on both and an understanding that how the moons looks to us is really just about point of view. Judging by the questions and comments I received, I felt the lessons had been a success, that the students left the room with an understanding somewhat deeper than when they had arrived. In short, I was satisfied, but didn't think much more about it.

Today, however, I received an unexpected package when I came home from work - a manila envelope labelled Mr. Newton!!! - that could mean only one thing. I had to smile, for I knew instantly it contained notes from a host of 6th graders. I knew this because I've been blessed with similar packages in the past. The entire grade had written me thank-you notes for my lunar lesson. Some were simple words, some included elaborate drawings. Some made me laugh out loud, all thanked me for my time and effort, all warmed my heart.

Resources

• Celestia - A Cosmic Simulation!
• Scale Model of Common Stars [Powerpoint slides (PPT) - 1.0MB]
• When's a Planet Not A Planet? [Powerpoint slides (PPT) - 1.6MB]
• Recent Photos From Saturn [Powerpoint slides (PPT) - 10.8MB]
• Saturn Through Cassini's Eyes [low resolution video (MPEG1) - 60MB]
• Saturn Through Cassini's Eyes [high resolution video (MPEG2) - 130MB]
  

Today, I competed for the first time in the Los Angeles Triathlon. The event is unique in a couple of respects. First, the course covers a lot of ground, with widely displaced transition areas across The City of Angels. You start at Venice Beach and end at The Staples Center downtown. Second, the event simultaneously provides both "sprint" and "olympic" distance gauntlets. I opted for the "sprint" distance, since I felt I wouldn't really be trained enough for the longer "olympic" distance.

Under an overcast sky, we launched into the waves about 20 minutes late. The "sprint" divisions were scheduled after the "olympic" ones and some troubles with earlier starts kept us out of the water until almost 9:00am. I'd spent a lot of time in the ocean during the summer and swam the 2-mile Pier-To-Pier course in August, but the occasional series of 5-6 foot breakers I saw earlier groups contend with had me a bit apprehensive. Luckily, my group managed to avoid a big set and I was around the course and out of the water right on schedule. It's a good 100 yards or so from the water to the bikes, but I covered the ground smartly and was headed for the T1 exit soon enough.

There's a delightful little theater company once again bringing the magic of Shakespeare to Greater Los Angeles this summer - and doing it, once again, free of charge. Shakespeare By The Sea is the company and this summer's productions are Hamlet and The Comedy of Errors. Their mission is daring and difficult, striving (and succeeding) to bring top-quality productions to anyone and everyone. The group is small and mobile, performing each play of the season in over a dozen outdoor locations from El Segundo to Laguna Niguel. The cast is also the crew, setting up and tearing down their stage for each performance and then moving on.

Perhaps you heard about the asteroid that passed close by the Earth recently? On the morning of July 3rd, the asteroid designated 2004 XP14 zoomed by at a distance only slightly further away than the Moon's orbit - approximately 270,000 miles. In astronomical terms, that's very close, indeed. As chance would have it, North America was about the best place to be to view the fly-by, so many amateur astronomers had an excellent chance at a first-hand look. Since the asteroid is only 800 meters (1/2 mile) across, even at it's closest approach it was expected to brighten to only 11th magnitude - quite faint for amateur observers. I certainly couldn't see such a faint object from the city. But luckily I was to be in Mammoth Lakes, high in the Sierra Nevada mountains on that evening. Could I find it myself? I took it as my next observing challenge!

On June 21st, I hosted the first-ever summer-time Astronomy Night at Rolling Hills Country Day School (RHCDS). At the previous gathering in May, a number of parents had suggested the summer hiatus was no reason not to get interested school families together to enjoy the night sky. I certainly wasn't going to argue. Since Jupiter is the dominant night-sky object right now, I decided to focus attention there. The monthly almanac in Sky & Telescope magazine indicated that the Jovian moon Io would transit Jupiter on the evening of 6/21, its shadow beginning a match across the giant planet at approximately 9:45PM PDT. This is a fascinating sight, even for regular Jupiter observers, so I decided to time our activities around it.