Etsy Treasury: lampwork spacers and a necklace of mine are in Lucky Irish Green

'Lucky Irish Green ' by mmg10

Prayers On A Wire Team Members will not get pinched for not wearing green as they showcase their beautiful rosaries, jewelry, and beads for Saint Patricks Day

Emerald green Irish... secondarycreat... $36.00	All green Irish the... secondarycreat... $30.00	Earthy Spacers ... ... GlassBeadArt $7.90
SALE, Handmade La... adornedintreas... $11.99	Mixed Greens - lamp... hilobeads $50.00	Emerald green trans... hilobeads $7.00
CROWNING GLORY silv... ssimon933 $12.00	PERIDOT ROSARY WRIS... ssimon933 $18.00	Spring Green Mini L... rosebud101 $15.00
Coin Pearl Rosary ManifestRosari... $138.00	FREE SHIPPING Saint... righteousrosar... $30.00	Green and White Sto... katiesjewels $10.00
Rosary Beads Jungle... PrayersinPurpl... $18.00	I know i am COOL :... up2skies $16.00	Teardrop Earrings, ... Gilliauna $16.00

Treasury tool is sponsored by Lazzia.com A/B image testing.

In memory of Walter Steiger - rest in peace

This one took me a day to even think about posting. Walter was so much more than most people realize. I know that without him a lot of us, me included (astronomers and support staff on Mauna Kea) wouldn't even be here.

Walter was my boss at some point, when I was working at the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory, and he sure was a good one. That was after he retired for the second time. Walter(who was almost a year older than my Dad is) was a very honest and humble person. He would never have given himself the credit I do. He wrote a History of Astronomy in Hawaii which you can find here.

My husband Norman knew Walter way longer than I did, he was a graduate student at UH Manoa when Walter was the chairman of the department and one of his stories still makes me chuckle. It describes both of them very well. They were basically making sure of the integrity of the other (actually, Walter was making sure of Norman's (after all, Walter was the boss) but the way that worked out it assured both of the integrity of the other).

Walter retired from UH Manoa, then headed the Bishop Museum Planetarium (and then some, as I read in the Trib), retired from there to become the site manager of the CSO (where he was one of my bosses, and a good one), retired from there to lecture at UHH, became interim director of the Imiloa and when he retired from there returned to the CSO (Caltech Submm Observatory) to do at least some of their PR/outreach work until he got killed in this traffic accident last Sunday.

Walter's eyesight wasn't very good anymore so he went around on a motor scooter. He went to the CSO office on it several days a week, he did the grocery shopping that way (I know his wife Betty gave up driving years earlier, he told me, and I saw him in the stores on occasion).

Now here are some of my own assumptions: The accident happened on Superbowl Sunday.
The Trib says Walter had picked up medications for his wife's (Betty's) arthritis. The only pharmacy open on Sundays in downtown Hilo is Longs. If he crossed Komohana Street he must have come up Kukuau Street. Just before that intersection Kukuau is rather steep. While Walter's moped may have gone on the order of 45 mph going down the Mohouli Extension (I saw him there on my way to work on occasion) it most certainly couldn't have gone up Kukuau at that speed (except for the last about 60 or so feet, but if would have had to speed up considerably), more likely about 15 mph.

Last night after work I was on my way to the downtown KTA and drove through that intersection (made me cry again) and saw the police markings. If Walter was in the middle of the intersection going about 15 mph, the SUV that hit him (I very much doubt he hit the SUV) either sped over the blind hill or could have avoided him if they had been paying attention.

What the Hawaii Tribune Herald (earlier attributed as Trib) published can be found here and here.

I will miss Walter. A lot.

And I hope they will name the new UHH science building after him.

There is a blog with contributions from many people here:
http://wsteiger.wordpress.com/2011/02/08/walter-steiger/

I had some kinda fun today - at work.

We had a fault at the telescope that at first glance was at least odd. Something java (language) would connect to some tasks but not others. The C (language) tasks would interconnect but the java was intermittent at best. Today my favorite sysadmin and I got a chance at trouble shooting. It took forever, but in the end it looks like the solution is that some things are less multithreaded than you'd expect. Making a (that) virtual machine having one (virtual) CPU instead of 2 appears to have solved the problem. I'm glad we did this trouble shooting in the UKIRT remote OPs office. We would never have had the peace and quiet to do this otherwise. (to (the spirit of) David Beattie: no, I didn't have any trouble shooting experience then. I sure do now.)

On a completely different subject: can we have some sunspots please?

I have been following this solar minimum since it started. After all, by education I'm an astronomer. We are or were going for a period of maximum insolation on this our home planet. It made sense to me that temperatures were getting higher. And then the Sun did something nobody had anticipated to the extent it's happening. The solar activity minimum was anticipated. It goes up and down every 23 years (or so) (or so??!!!). There are not enough data of sunspots to analyze far enough back. I looked at them and decided that there aren't. There is more than one period in there, that much I could tell. I happen to be married to this guy who integrated the atmospheric spectrum in the infrared and found that water in the atmosphere is much more important than CO2. I kinda knew that but then, I've been in infrared astronomy for a few years. Tracking some data, the temperature dropped after 9/11/2001 when all planes were grounded. That wasn't burned fuel, it was contrails.

Now here I am after the lowest rainfall year on record for Hilo:
(those are my data points for low rainfall, under 100", in hundredths of inches)
2010 6329
1983 6809
1962 7145
1995 8592
1932 8968 (data point from newspaper)
1981 8991
1977 9038
2003 9132
1972 9885
1975 9993

We have some El Ninos to account for too (definitely the mid90s and 2003)

so were getting to

2010 6329
1983 6809
1981 8991
1962 7145
1932 8968 (data point from newspaper)

omitting a few. It doesn't quite match, but I am writing this off the top of my head and not taking any submarine volcano eruptions into account (the latter is by private communication from my former coworker Firmin Oliveira - regarding submarine volcano eruptions possibly causing El Ninos).

I originally wrote this almost a month ago - and thought I had published it but apparently I didn't. By now we're looking back at another very dry January. Not quite as dry as last year, but the rainfall at the airport was still only 38% of normal and even less, 21% at the Piihonua rain gauge (still, that's better than the about 10% we had last year).

- But, we also have a few more sunspots even if January was low in those again too.

(and even if it says the post was published on Jan. 11, I didn't really finish it until Feb. 9)

New PrayersOnAWire team treasury

Which contains seed beads of mine:

'Clear, White, and Blue' by mmg10

WInter has been on us for a month now and to celebrate winter. Members of the Prayers On A Wire team are having a contest with a winter theme. Here are so items that would work for this Challenge..

White and Blue Porc... secondarycreat... $28.00	Ornela seed beads, ... hilobeads $9.50	Artic 5 Decade Rosa... mmg10 $30.00
Winter Snow and Ice... FreemanCraftsF... $30.00	SALE Handmade Fo... adornedintreas... $8.99	Rosary Nature Colle... PrayersinPurpl... $18.00
necklace up2skies $47.00	Light Sapphire Blue... katiesjewels $28.00	Sodalite Gemstone C... SpiritualArt $45.00
Immaculate Heart Ro... gailgirondesig... $59.00	Sesame jasper Seren... rachelsigmak $12.50	Personalized Rosary... hellodesigns $37.50
35ct - Moonstone Ro... Beads4YourNeed... $2.99	Frosty The Snowman ... MSMCreations $5.00	SWEET WINTER'S ... ssimon933 $18.00

Generated using Treasury HTML code generator by Whale Shark Websites.

This isn't the complete treasury. To see all of it, please go here: http://www.etsy.com/treasury/4d2a5347ed6b6d91fd6d4be0/clear-white-and-blue

One of my Bracelets is in an Artfire Collection

LOVE THAT BLUE HUE

Curated By: glassyelegance

ArtFire.com

Indie Design

Etsy Team Treasury: Icy Winter

Some seed beads and gemstone chip strands of mine are in it:

'Icy Winter' by mmg10

Time to pull out those long coats, scarfs, hats, and gloves. The Icy Winter is on its way so let these handpick items from Prayers on a wire members get in you in the mood for winter.

Blue Topaz Catholic... secondarycreat... $20.00	December Birthstone... secondarycreat... $45.00	Ornela seed beads, ... hilobeads $3.50
Gemstone chips- bla... hilobeads $9.00	Sparkling Bubbles .... GlassBeadArt $4.00	Glacier Swirls ... ... GlassBeadArt $6.00
Blue Lace Agate Ros... ManifestRosari... $110.00	Ocean Blue Sodalite... RosariesForMar... $27.00	The Original Blue A... MSMCreations $25.00
Snowflake Obsidian ... rachelsigmak $10.00	Personalized Rosary... $37.50	Sammy the Snowman E... PrairieStarJew... $6.00
FREE SHIPPING St. B... righteousrosar... $21.00	Marian Catholic Leg... MementoMoose $	Personalized Decemb... trendytraditio... $39.00

Generated using Treasury HTML code generator by Whale Shark Websites.