A rather overdue posting.

Back on April 2nd this year, I posted a piece called I am your dog!  The item was motivated by coming across a personal reflection of the relationship that I had, and still have, with Pharaoh, my German Shepherd dog, back in 2007 when I was still living in England; I met Jean in Mexico Christmas 2007!

Among the many comments was one from Perfect Stranger who writes the fabulous blog Dogs of Doubt.  He said in his comment,

Hi Paul, I do believe this comment belongs on this post … two videos, part of a true story about an Aussie dog, a modern day “Dog on the Tucker Box”, a true blue friend to an entire town who eventually ended up building him a statue … yeah, not “it” but “HIM”.

First video shows you how tough Aussies animals are ,, watch the fight, it’s awesome, I laugh every time I watch it. they say it really happened.

Second video is the trailer for “Red Dog” – The Pilbara Wanderer!  , hope you get to see the movie

I promised to make that comment a post all on it’s own right – then promptly forgot!  So apologies and here are those two movies.

Big thanks to John H. for forwarding this to me.

Sit back and relax.

Nothing more except to wish everyone, wherever you are, a peaceful week-end, above or below the surface of the ocean!

With big thanks to Rich S. for forwarding these to me – enjoy!

And a little closer to home ….

A picture of Pharaoh as a young puppy in the arms of Sandra Tucker, the owner of Jutone, German Shepherd breeders in Devon, SW England.

Pharaoh, aged 9 weeks, picture taken on the 12th August, 2003.

Compared to a picture of Cleo as a young puppy in the arms of Jean here in Payson.

Cleo, aged 8 weeks, picture taken 4th April, 2012

And closing with a picture of Cleo taken yesterday.

Cleo, coming up to 14 weeks.

Biggest full moon of 2012 occurs today!*

There are a number of news stories about this extra-special full moon but I’ve chosen to republish some of what appeared on the Mother Nature Network website.

In terms of the timing of this full moon, rather than give you times for various places around the world, as this website does, I will simply offer the UTC/GMT time:

Sunday 6th May 2012 at 03:35:06 am

If you want to covert that to your local time wherever you are on this beautiful planet The World Time Server is as good a website as any.

BIGGER THAN YOUR AVERAGE MOON: Skywatcher Tim McCord of Entiat, Washington caught this amazing view of the March 19, 2011 supermoon. (Photo: Tim McCord)

Skywatchers take note: The biggest full moon of the year is due to arrive this weekend.  And because this month’s full moon coincides with the moon’s perigee — its closest approach to Earth — it will also be the year’s biggest.

The moon will swing in 221,802 miles (356,955 kilometers) from our planet, offering skywatchers a spectacular view of an extra-big, extra-bright moon, nicknamed a supermoon.

And not only does the moon’s perigee coincide with full moon this month, but this perigee will be the nearest to Earth of any this year, as the distance of the moon’s close approach varies by about 3 percent, according to meteorologist Joe Rao, SPACE.com’s skywatching columnist. This happens because the moon’s orbit is not perfectly circular.

The full Moon will be up to 14% larger and 30% brighter than others during the year. The reason for this phenomenon is that the Moon becomes full on its closest approach to Earth on May 5, 2012, also known as the perigee full Moon.

So enjoy this most beautiful sight if you are somewhere on this planet where the moon will be visible at night.  And double-check the time and the day so you don’t miss it!  Finally, let me close by ‘spoiling’ my many readers in Arizona, and to serve as a good reminder for yours truly by saying that anyone on US Mountain Standard Time will see this moon at:

Saturday, 5th May 2012 at 20:35:06

“Aim for the moon. If you miss, you may hit a star.” W. Clement Stone.

Revisiting the wonderful NASA time-lapse film.

Last November, I published a Post on Learning from Dogs under the title of This is rocket science!  It included the film Walking on Air shot from the International Space Station.

Anyway, a few days ago, Ginger I. here in Payson, sent me an email with the YouTube version of the film and I decided to include it as the only item in today’s post.

Enjoy.

Time lapse sequences of photographs taken with a 4K-camera by Ron Garan fragileoasis.org/bloggernauts/Astro_Ron and the crew of expedition 28 & 29 onboard the International Space Station from August to October, 2011. All credit goes to them, who to my knowledge shot these pictures at an altitude of around 350 km.  I intend to upload a FullHD-version presently.

HD, refurbished, smoothed, retimed, denoised, deflickered, cut, etc.  All in all I tried to keep the looks of the material as original as possible, avoided adjusting the colors and the like, since in my opinion the original footage itself already has an almost surreal and aestethical visual nature.

Music: Jan Jelinek | Do Dekor, faitiche back2001 w+p by Jan Jelinek, published by Betke Edition janjelinek.com | faitiche.de

Image Courtesy of the Image Science & Analysis Laboratory, NASA Johnson Space Center, The Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth eol.jsc.nasa.gov

Editing: Michael König | koenigm.com

Shooting locations in order of appearance:

1. Aurora Borealis Pass over the United States at Night
2. Aurora Borealis and eastern United States at Night
3. Aurora Australis from Madagascar to southwest of Australia
4. Aurora Australis south of Australia
5. Northwest coast of United States to Central South America at Night
6. Aurora Australis from the Southern to the Northern Pacific Ocean
7. Halfway around the World
8. Night Pass over Central Africa and the Middle East
9. Evening Pass over the Sahara Desert and the Middle East
10. Pass over Canada and Central United States at Night
11. Pass over Southern California to Hudson Bay
12. Islands in the Philippine Sea at Night
13. Pass over Eastern Asia to Philippine Sea and Guam
14. Views of the Mideast at Night
15. Night Pass over Mediterranean Sea
16. Aurora Borealis and the United States at Night
17. Aurora Australis over Indian Ocean
18. Eastern Europe to Southeastern Asia at Night

It’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good!

Amazing to find that the saying was recorded as  far back as 1546 when it is first recorded in John Heywood’s A dialogue conteinyng the nomber in effect of all the prouerbes in the Englishe tongue: “An yll wynde that blowth no man to good, men say.”

The reason this comes to mind is that good friend, John H. from here in Payson, recently sent me a piece under the title of Spider’s Web.  This is how it started,

An unexpected side-effect of the flooding in parts of Pakistan has been
that millions of spiders climbed up into the trees to escape the rising flood
waters.

A quick web search came across the item in National Geographic online, from which I republish this:

Cocooned Trees, Pakistan

DECEMBER 14, 2011

Cocooned Trees, Pakistan
Photograph by Russell Watkins

This Month in Photo of the Day: 2011 National Geographic Photo Contest Images

An unexpected side effect of the 2010 flooding in parts of Sindh, Pakistan, was that millions of spiders climbed up into the trees to escape the rising flood waters; because of the scale of the flooding and the fact that the water took so long to recede, many trees became cocooned in spiderwebs. People in the area had never seen this phenomenon before, but they also reported that there were fewer mosquitoes than they would have expected, given the amount of standing water that was left. Not being bitten by mosquitoes was one small blessing for people that had lost everything in the floods.

(This photo and caption were submitted to the 2011 National Geographic Photo Contest.)

John’s email also included more images, that are reproduced below.

So it looks as though we have much to learn from spiders as well as from dogs!

Or maybe, it’s just another example of the beauty, magic and mystery of nature!

Now 19 days since our young German Shepherd puppy joined us.

On the 9th April, I wrote a Post about the arrival of young Cleo who became part of our family on the 8th.  Here’s a couple of photographs from that Post.

Little bit of bonding going on!

Welcome, young lady. I'm the boss around here!

So here are a couple more taken yesterday afternoon, the 25th. Cleo was weighed last Monday and was 28 lbs, some 6 lbs gain since the 8th.

Two very loving ladies!

Pharaoh and Cleo already inseparable.

Must say that Cleo has settled in very well with her other four pack mates. Indeed, Cleo, like Sweeny, mixes easily with all the other dogs, not just Pharaoh’s group.

The only one we have, Earth Day or not!

Earthrise.

It was called “the most influential environmental photograph ever taken.” Rightly so!

Those words were spoken by the late Galen Rowell, the famous Californian wilderness photographer, commenting about the Earthrise photograph taken from Apollo 8 on December 24th, 1968 during the first manned mission to the Moon.

No one who saw that picture of the planet we all live on could fail to be moved. Indeed, none more so than onboard NASA astronaut Frank Borman who uttered the words as the Earth rose above the horizon of the moon, “Oh my God! Look at that picture over there! Here’s the Earth coming up. Wow, is that pretty.” It was fellow Apollo 8 crew-member, Bill Anders, who then took the ‘unscheduled’ photograph.

Who hasn’t gazed into a night sky and been lost in the beauty above our heads. Or felt the wind, flowing across our ancient lands, kiss our face. We stand so mite-like, so insignificant in all this immensity of creation. Our planet is ‘pretty’. Indeed, Planet Earth is good, beautiful, and so precious to life. Life that arose in just a fraction of time after our Solar System formed 3.7 billion years ago; the oldest traces of life have been found in fossils dating back 3.4 billion years. Our miracle of life.

But the one thing we cannot do is to take that miracle of life for granted. Here’s a perspective on that. Just a couple of months after that famous Earthrise photograph, in February 1969, America’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) recorded the level of CO2 in the Earth’s atmosphere as 324.42 parts per million (PPM).

From 43 years ago we fast forward to February of 2012. NOAA now recorded that CO2 level as 393.65 PPM, some 21% higher than the 1969 level, but even more importantly over 12% higher than the figure of 350 PPM which is regarded by climate scientists as the maximum safe level for our Planet. And the trend upwards is steepening. Not just for CO2 but also for Methane and Nitrous Oxide which have the potential to be incredibly more damaging to our beautiful planet than CO2.

Across the face of the world people are waking up to the fact that something has to be done. While some Governments and many industries are providing great leadership, the complexities of these modern institutions means that progress is slow; far too slow. People are now taking action for themselves and for their communities.

The most notable group is the worldwide Transition Movement. It started in the UK in September 2006, indeed started in the town of Totnes, Devon, just three miles from where I used to live.

Less than 6 years later across the world there are 975 initiatives!  Including nearly 500 Transition Communities in Europe and 392 in the UK.

In the USA, there are a staggering 285 initiatives with 26 in California and three here in Arizona: Tucson, Pima and and East Valley in Phoenix ‘mulling’ it over. The ideas behind the Transition concept are powerfully simple and can be easily summarised thus:

• That it is inevitable that our lives will soon have to adapt to a dramatically lower energy consumption, especially carbon-based energy, and that it’s better to plan for it than to be taken by surprise.
• That the over-whelming majority of communities, currently lacks resilience.
• That we have to act now to rebuild our community resilience and prepare for life without fossil fuels.
• That by tapping into the collective potential of the community, it is possible to develop new ways of living that are nourishing, fulfilling and ecologically sustainable.

Reduce our energy use, increase our resilience, switch away from carbon-based fuels and go back to the strength of communities.  No mystery about what to do!

We do not have another 43 years.  Indeed, some say we are very close to the tipping point of runaway climate consequences.

My message for this Earth Day and, indeed, for every day of the rest of our lives.

Taking a rest from the serious stuff!

The first picture comes from Merci O. from here in Payson.

Lost for words!

The next two are from the camera of ‘yours truly’.

Tough work being a puppy!

Cleo has settled in so beautifully and we can’t believe that these two weeks have gone so quickly.

Finally, talking of settling in, our five young chicks have reached the stage where they could be housed outside in their new chicken house, the move taking place just five days ago.

Welcome to your new home, young chick!

A very famous, albeit sad, anniversary of a great ship.

Such a short life!

From launch to maiden voyage, 100 years ago today.

April 10th, 1911.

And just four, short days after RMS Titanic left Southampton for her maiden voyage; on April 14th, at 11.40 pm ….

Not even a year after the launch.

“The Sinking of the Titanic, 1912,” EyeWitness to History www.eyewitnesstohistory.com (2000).

On April 10, 1912, the Titanic, largest ship afloat, left Southampton, England on her maiden voyage to New York City. The White Star Line had spared no expense in assuring her luxury. A legend even before she sailed, her passengers were a mixture of the world’s wealthiest basking in the elegance of first class accommodations and immigrants packed into steerage.

She was touted as the safest ship ever built, so safe that she carried only 20 lifeboats – enough to provide accommodation for only half her 2,200 passengers and crew. This discrepancy rested on the belief that since the ship’s construction made her “unsinkable,” her lifeboats were necessary only to rescue survivors of other sinking ships. Additionally, lifeboats took up valuable deck space.

Four days into her journey, at 11:40 P.M. on the night of April 14, she struck an iceberg. Her fireman compared the sound of the impact to “the tearing of calico, nothing more.” However, the collision was fatal and the icy water soon poured through the ship.

It became obvious that many would not find safety in a lifeboat. Each passenger was issued a life jacket but life expectancy would be short when exposed to water four degrees below freezing. As the forward portion of the ship sank deeper, passengers scrambled to the stern. John Thayer witnessed the sinking from a lifeboat. “We could see groups of the almost fifteen hundred people still aboard, clinging in clusters or bunches, like swarming bees; only to fall in masses, pairs or singly, as the great after part of the ship, two hundred and fifty feet of it, rose into the sky, till it reached a sixty-five or seventy degree angle.” The great ship slowly slid beneath the waters two hours and forty minutes after the collision

The next morning, the liner Carpathia rescued 705 survivors. One thousand five hundred twenty-two passengers and crew were lost. Subsequent inquiries attributed the high loss of life to an insufficient number of lifeboats and inadequate training in their use.

Read more of this fascinating account, especially the story of Elizabeth Shutes who, aged 40, was governess to nineteen-year-old Margaret Graham who was traveling with her parents. As Shutes and her charge sit in their First Class cabin they feel a shudder travel through the ship. At first comforted by her belief in the safety of the ship, Elizabeth’s composure is soon shattered by the realization of the imminent tragedy.

Also grateful to my cousin, Rose F., who sent me a link to a story in the British newspaper The Telegraph that came out in September, 2010.  I don’t have permission to reproduce that story but hope that it being 18 months since it was published by the Telegraph makes my act forgiveable!

Titanic sunk by steering blunder, new book claims

It was always thought the Titanic sank because its crew were sailing too fast and failed to see the iceberg before it was too late.

By Richard Alleyne

10:55PM BST 21 Sep 2010

But now it has been revealed they spotted it well in advance but still steamed straight into it because of a basic steering blunder.

According to a new book, the ship had plenty of time to miss the iceberg but the helmsman panicked and turned the wrong way.

By the time the catastrophic error was corrected it was too late and the side of the ship was fatally holed by the iceberg.
Even then the passengers and crew could have been saved if it had stayed put instead of steaming off again and causing water to pour into the broken hull.

The revelation, which comes out almost 100 years after the disaster, was kept secret until now by the family of the most senior officer to survive the disaster.

Second Officer Charles Lightoller covered up the error in two inquiries on both sides of the Atlantic because he was worried it would bankrupt the liner’s owners and put his colleagues out of job.

Since his death – by then a war hero from the Dunkirk evacuation – it has remained hidden for fear it would ruin his reputation.

But now his granddaughter the writer Lady (Louise) Patten has revealed it in her new novel.  ”It just makes it seem all the more tragic,” she said. ”They could easily have avoided the iceberg if it wasn’t for the blunder.“

The error on the ship’s maiden voyage between Southampton and New York in 1912 happened because at the time seagoing was undergoing enormous upheaval because of the conversion from sail to steam ships.

The change meant there were two different steering systems and different commands attached to them.

Some of the crew on the Titanic were used to the archaic Tiller Orders associated with sailing ships and some to the more modern Rudder Orders.

Crucially, the two steering systems were the complete opposite of one another.

So a command to turn “hard a starboard” meant turn the wheel right under the Tiller system and left under the Rudder.
When First Officer William Murdoch spotted the iceberg two miles away, his “hard a-starboard” order was misinterpreted by the Quartermaster Robert Hitchins.

He turned the ship right instead of left and, even though he was almost immediately told to correct it, it was too late and the side of the starboard bow was ripped out by the iceberg.

“The steersman panicked and the real reason why Titanic hit the iceberg, which has never come to light before, is because he turned the wheel the wrong way,” said Lady Patten who is the wife of former Tory Education minister, Lord (John) Patten.

Whilst her grandfather Lightoller was not on watch at the time of the collision, her book Good as Gold reveals that a dramatic final meeting of the four senior officers took place in the First Officer’s cabin shortly before Titanic went down.

There, Lightoller heard not only about the fatal mistake, but also what happened next, up on the bridge.

While Hitchins had made a straightforward error, what followed was a deliberate decision.

Bruce Ismay, chairman of Titanic’s owner, the White Star Line, persuaded the Captain to continue sailing.  For ten minutes, Titanic went “Slow Ahead” through the sea.

This added enormously to the pressure of water flooding through the damaged hull, forcing it up and over the watertight bulkheads, sinking Titanic many hours earlier than she otherwise would have done.

“Ismay insisted on keeping going, no doubt fearful of losing his investment and damaging his company’s reputation,” said Lady Patten.  ”The nearest ship was four hours away. Had she remained at ‘Stop’, it’s probable that Titanic would have floated until help arrived.“

The truth of what happened on that historic night was deliberately buried.

Lightoller, the only survivor who knew precisely what had happened, and who would later go on to be a twice-decorated war hero, decided to hide what he knew from the world, including two official inquiries into the sinking.

By his code of honour, he felt it was his duty to protect his employer – White Star Line – and its employees.

Lady Patten said: “The inquiry had to be a whitewash. The only person he told the full story to was his beloved wife Sylvia, my grandmother.  As a teenager, I was enthralled by the Titanic. Granny revealed to me exactly what had happened on that night and we would discuss it endlessly.

She died when I was sixteen and, though she never told me to keep the knowledge to myself, I didn’t tell anyone. My mother insisted that everything remained strictly inside the family: a hero’s reputation was at stake.

Nearly forty years later, with Granny and my mother long dead, I was plotting my second novel and it struck me that I was the last person alive to know what really happened on the night Titanic sank.

My grandfather’s extraordinary experiences felt like perfect material for Good As Gold.

© Copyright of Telegraph Media Group Limited 2010

Anyone who reads this and is as fascinated as I was should read the comments as there is much discussion about the nature of the steering error.

Rest in peace.