THREE BLUE OBJECTS MOVING FAST THROUGH THE NIGHT SKY

It was 10:25 when I slipped out the door last night, hopped into Subie, put the front windows down, slid the moonroof back, turned up my ambient music, and headed out into the countryside to do a little stargazing.  It's the same spot I always go and I wasn't there five minutes standing beside the car with my 7x50 binoculars when I saw something moving swiftly through the dark night sky.  I had spotted the flashing lights of an airplane overhead heading west and while looking at it (without binoculars) I saw a faint movement in the stars.  Figured it was a satellite so hoisted up my binoculars and locked onto it.  Remember me saying about a month ago of seeing a 'blue object' in the night sky??  Well, this one was blue as well and moving fast.  It doesn't appear blue to the naked eye but as soon as you get binoculars on it the color blue becomes very apparent compared to the white stars in the background.  It came into view from the northwest and was heading into the southeast.  I watched it for about 10 seconds and then realized it was on the same flight path and in the same area of the sky as the one I saw a month ago.  Then, about a minute later I saw a second 'blue' object traveling in the same direction as the first one and in the same area of the sky.  Upon seeing this second one I now had a clue as to what they might be.  About 30 seconds later I saw another one.  Same trajectory, same fast speed, and same blue color.  My guess is that they were 'Starlink' satellites.  There are over 6,000 of them orbiting the Earth now.  Anyway, it was really neat to see them and so nice to be out under a starry night sky again.  I would like to live in a house with a big glass dome for a roof and tip back in my recliner every night, stare at the heavens, and let my mind take me on wondrous travels through the stars to faraway stars, planets, and glowing Galaxies. 

Al's Music Box:)) Blackbird is a song by the English rock band the Beatles from their 1968 double album 'The Beatles' also known as the White Album. It was written by Paul McCartney and credited to Lennon-McCartney and performed as a solo piece by McCartney. When discussing the song, McCartney said that the lyrics were inspired by hearing the call of a blackbird.  McCartney explained on 'Chaos and Creation' at Abbey Road that the guitar accompaniment for "Blackbird" was inspired by Johann Sebastian Bach's Bouree in E minor, a well-known lute piece, often played on the classical guitar. As teenagers, he and George Harrison tried to learn Bourrée as a "show off" piece. The Bourrée is distinguished by melody and bass notes played simultaneously on the upper and lower strings. McCartney said that he adapted a segment of the Bourrée (reharmonised into the original's relative major key of G) as the opening of "Blackbird", and carried the musical idea throughout the song. The first three notes of the song, which then transitioned into the opening guitar riff, were inspired by Bach.  The first night his future wife Linda Eastman stayed at his home, McCartney played "Blackbird" for the fans camped outside his house.  Since composing "Blackbird" in 1968, McCartney has given various statements regarding both his inspiration for the song and its meaning. He has said that he was inspired by hearing the call of a blackbird one morning when the Beatles were studying Transcendental Meditation in Rishikesh, India, and also writing it in Scotland as a response to the Little Rock Nine incident and the overall Civil Rights movement, wanting to write a song dedicated to people who had been affected by discrimination.  In May 2002, following a show in Dallas Texas, McCartney discussed the song with KCRW DJ Chris Douridas, saying:  I had been doing some [poetry readings] in the last year or so because I've got a poetry book out called Blackbird Singing, and when I would read "Blackbird", I would always try and think of some explanation to tell the people … So, I was doing explanations, and I actually just remembered why I'd written "Blackbird", you know, that I'd been, I was in Scotland playing on my guitar, and I remembered this whole idea of "you were only waiting for this moment to arise" was about, you know, the black people's struggle in the southern states, and I was using the symbolism of a blackbird. It's not really about a blackbird whose wings are broken, you know, it's a bit more symbolic.  In 2018, McCartney further elaborated on the song's meaning, explaining that "blackbird" should be interpreted as "black girl", in the context of the civil rights troubles in the southern 1960s US.  His stepmother, Angie McCartney, has claimed that McCartney wrote it for her elderly mother, Edith Stopforth, who was staying at Jim McCartney's house while recovering from a long illness. Angie recalled that McCartney visited the house and sat at Edith's bedside, where Edith told him that she would listen to a bird singing at night.  Although McCartney has been consistent in the meaning, there are still varied interpretations – as a nature song, a message in support of the Black Power movement, or a love song. Writing in the 1990s, Ian MacDonald noted the theory that "Blackbird" was intended as "a metaphor for the black civil rights struggle", but pointed to the composition's romantic qualities, arguing that the early-morning bird song "translates … into a succinct metaphor for awakening on a deeper level". However, during an informal rehearsal at EMI Studios on 22 November 1968, before he and Donovan took part in a Mary Hopkin recording session, McCartney played "Blackbird", telling Donovan that he wrote it after having "read something in the paper about the riots" and that he meant the black "bird" to symbolize a black woman.  The song was recorded on 11 June 1968 at EMI's Abbey Road Studios in London, with George Martin as the producer and Geoff Emerich as the audio engineer. It is a solo performance with McCartney playing a Martin D-28 acoustic guitar. The track includes recordings of a male common blackbird singing in the background.  Apart from the blackbird, only three sounds were recorded: McCartney's voice, his guitar, and a tapping that keeps time on the left channel. This tapping "has been incorrectly identified as a metronome in the past", according to engineer Geoff Emerick, who says it is actually the sound of Paul tapping his foot. McCartney also said the same in The Beatles' Anthology documentary. Emerick recalls [Paul's foot taps, presumably] as being mic'd up separately. Footage included in the bonus content on disc two of the 2009 remaster of the album shows McCartney tapping both his feet alternately while performing the song.  

GROANER'S CORNER:(( An amateur golfer goes into the pro shop and looks around frowning.  Finally, the pro asks him what he wants. "I can't find any green golf balls," the golfer complains.  The pro looks all over the shop, and through all the catalogs, and finally calls the manufacturers and determines that sure enough, there are no green golf balls.  As the golfer walks out the door in disgust, the pro asks him, "Before you go, could you tell me why you want green golf balls?"  "Well obviously, because they would be so much easier to find in the sand traps!"

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Never, under any circumstances, take a sleeping pill and a laxative on the same night.

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A pastor was opening his mail one morning and one envelope had only a single sheet of paper with a single word printed on it: “FOOL!” The following Sunday the priest announced, “I have known many people who have written letters and forgotten to sign their name. But this week I received a letter from someone who signed his name and had forgotten to write a letter.”

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