We’re currently backing up the website files and database. When that is concluded, we’re going to be off line for a while while our Internet Services Provider (ISP) moves us to a bigger and faster server. Hang in there if things aren’t working since there will be an IP address change that will result in the Domain Name Servers having to re-associate the IP with the URL. We might be gone for several hours while that is happening.
We have gone to Catalina Island many times over the last ten or eleven years and just last year, we looked up and saw a bald eagle in flight high over Avalon. That was in September of 2008. Prior to that, the eagles were few and far between on the island, but these days they are making a comeback.
I was just thrilled today when I found a link on the Daily Breeze that took me to a live web camera of a nest of Bald Eagles. I watched for a very long time and could see one of the parents in the nest and could see the wobbly eaglets bobbing around – they were so CUTE!
Go here and watch them in the nest – disclaimer – daylight hours in California are currently from about 6:30 AM to 7:30 PM PDT (13:30 to 02:30 GMT).
The actual location of the Four Corners Monument is off a bit, but not by the 2.5 miles reported by the Associated Press and a Salt Lake City newspaper.
However, legally (and symbolically), the Four Corners Monument is, indeed, on the spot where the borders intersect, since the Supreme Court of the United States decreed it to be so in 1925. Political boundaries are, after all, at the behest of politicians and judges.
However, the actual intersection of the defined longitude and latitude may be as far away from the monument as six hundred meters.
I found the Four Corners monument using both Google Earth and Google Maps. Even between the two Google sources, they disagree. They both show a segment of border that runs slightly west from the monument. I could find no reference to the anomalous segment.
I checked several other on-line map sources and no two agree. Some show the anomalous border segment and some do not.
The Arizona Geology Blog has a brief post about the confusion.
Wikipedia has already picked up on the cause of the erroneous report:
The Four Corners Area is generally defined as a circle around the Four Corners Monument located at 36° 59″ 56.31532′ N by 109° 02″ 42.62019′ W. A series of news stories from April of 2009 indicated that more recent surveys had determined that the intersection of the corners was not where it was intended to be.
However, the news stories used whole degree co-ordinates, not accounting for the fractional degree offset between the Washington Meridian, standard used at the time, and the current standard, the Prime Meridian. In addition, general U.S. land principles, law, and the Supreme Court have determined that the location of the monument is the legal corner of the four States.
Click on either image to enlarge.
This picture shows Damsel standing on the Four Corners Monument the last time we were there.
Otherwise known as “Orchid Cactus,” this epiphyllum flower is of the “Frühlingsgold” (Spring gold) variety. Light yellow inner petals and darker yellow outer petals that started out red. There will be several more on this plant before spring ends. We hope to have some red and white epiphyllum flowers later this spring.
Click on the image to enlarge.
I don’t think I’ve ever had both of our Remington 870 shotguns apart at the same time. Something made me field strip all of the guns after Sunday’s trip the the range.
Damsel’s 20 gauge ‘youth model’ is on the left and my full-sized magnum express 12 gauge is on the right. The barrels are more or less centered between the two.
Scattered along the table, you can see the stock, receiver and magazine assemblies, magazine springs, spring caps, spring stops, magazine caps, trigger assemblies and retention pins for the trigger assembly. The only further field breakdown is to remove the choke tubes from the barrels – which Damsel did when she cleaned the barrels.
If you saw yesterday’s post about the range report and watched the video, then you saw how much we enjoy using the shotguns at the range. Maintenance, cleaning and inspection are all part of the fun of shotguns.
Another Good Day at the Range
We were a little late getting to the range today, what with staying up a little late Saturday night to watch some DVDs. Sleeping in felt pretty good, and the breakfast omelet that Damsel fixed (fake eggs – OK?) was pretty good too.
For the last few weeks, we have been down selecting from the usual menagerie of firearms, mostly due to the increased cost and shortage of some of our ammunition. Today, all we took was the Glock 26 and the S&W 908S 9mm pistols and our two Remington 870 shotguns; one 12 gauge and one 20.
We did the usual pistol and bullseye target practice with about 100 rounds of 9mm spent, and then moved on to the shotguns and silhouette targets. We like to play a game with the shotguns by trying to shoot across the target to cut it in half. Today, the game went well – I started out with five rounds of 12 gauge target loads and cut the right half of the target away from the top. Damsel finished the job with five rounds of 20 gauge, sending the bottom half of the silhouette to the range floor.
I think she likes the game – especially when she wins. Click on the > to play the little video above.
We visited the Botanic Garden yesterday. I took nearly 200 pictures while we were there, so it is hard to pick out one from the many. I settled on this one of these tiny yellow echevaria blossoms I found in the cactus and succulents section of the garden. Click in the image to enlarge.
