We have a winner!

Okay folks (all two of you who read this), Nick Forfinski has correctly answered the mystery question of the significance of the number 206265 (I personally like 206264.8, i think the extra sig dig makes it look better). So the rest of you can put down your slide rules and flux capacitors, Nick beat you to it.

The distance from the earth to the sun is often called an 'astronomical unit' or AU by astronomers. The distance to the closest star is called a parsec and is roughly 3.26 light years away. One parsec is, by definition, 206265 AU's. Astronomers have all sorts of ingenious calculations they do to figure out things like the angle subtended by two stars, or the distance to a star, or between two stars. And this number helps them do it. I'm sure they all know it by heart. (I bet Yoshi knows it) If you're still burning with curiousity after this introduction, just go onto google and type in astronomical unit, or parsec. (I'm talking to you Jakob!)

So there you have it. Oh yes, it's also quite effective at converting arcseconds to radians.

And, as Nick pointed out, one parsec is equal to 30,8000,000,000,000 km. I think.

I miss Key West - Updated picture

John finished his latest painting yesterday, it's a scene from Key West. I'm in the picture, can you spot me? It makes me want to go skateboard around Key West at sunset. Or learn to paint - actually I'll just leave the painting to John :)

*Note: this photo was taken with a real camera this time, not the phone.

R/V Gulf Challenger, yeah!

Another fun day on the Gulf Challenger. It was actually very nice today, it was warm and the seas were very calm - (I suppose it's easier to have calm seas when you're on a river). I took a picture of a little sign hung up 'downstairs' in the cabin area. I thought it was funny.

I'm going to be doing my thesis project on acoustic positioning, specifically on a harbour tracking system in the Portsmouth harbour. And the Americans all want me to spell harbour wrong (harbor!!) Can you believe it? The very cover on my thesis is going to have a word spelled wrong. How can I go back to Canada? They'll never ever take me seriously! (if they ever did)

The new blog...

You may be wondering why I started a new blog. The main reason is because my mother put in a request to be able to comment on my entries. Well, here it is mom - for better or for worse :) you can now make all the comments you like. And so can anyone else for that matter. Val and John think it's great that my mom can send out her messages for all to read - I'm not so sure...

Okay, now for those of you who didn't know about my last attempt at a website/blog, you can check out what I had at this address:

The old site

But from now on I will be updating this blog. happy reading - hope I don't bore you to death!

PS: sorry to all y'all who had to witness the transitional blog stage. so soory! I just couldn't stand the name schoolhouse-yarn. this url works better for me, it's a special number. first person who can guess what that number is wins a dollar. Love you guys! btw, i just put that picture of muffins in because my camera is misbehaving and i don't have anything better right now.