And so we bid farewell to summer...
Huh? It ain't even Labor Day as this is written...some schools haven't started yet. What's this 'farewell to summer' jazz?
As far as I'm concerned, it's official. Summer is over.
Not because the night temps are down into the 60's, or because The Local Major Midwestern Metropolitan College Of Higher Knowledge is back in session...it's because he's back...
I spend some extra time at work once I'm off the clock at midnight. I put on my lil' mp3 player/radio and walk the building top to bottom twice to get some exercise...we're talking fifteen flights of stairs up and fifteen flights down, with thirty lengths of the building shuffled in, for some good ol' fashioned cardio exercise (my record is 24'03"). Afterwards, I spend a little time on some internet chat with fellow skeptics/stargazers, and then head home.
Last week, it was just before 5 as I walked up the front steps, and glanced up to see that it was a perfectly clear night. I looked east, over the hill at the end of the street, and there he was, looking at me, sprawled out on his side in all his glory...the Seven Sisters were watching him closely, and The Bull cast one baleful red eye his way...
Summer's over, folks...Orion's back in town...

This post has been printed in a modified form as part of an article in the September 2006 edition of the Miami Valley Astronomical Society newsletter "The Amateur Astronomer"

__________________
"If a tree is cut down in the rainforest, and is used to make paper to print a book, and the book is really bad, and there's nobody that will read it, do you still hear a sucking sound?"
Charlie in Dayton, A.AsC.

Must be nice! Our lows are in the low 80s - high 70s if we're lucky!

__________________
Any day you wake up on "the right side of the dirt" is a good day.

T. Anderson

The Delta breeze is one of Sacramento's better points. It can get to 100 in the day and drop into the 60s at night. It was very strange this summer when it was humid and not dropping below the 80s at night.

__________________
I say there is an invisible elf in my backyard. How do you prove that I am wrong?

Disclaimer: Avatar is not an official NASA image and does not imply any specific interplanetary or interstellar capability.

The Leif Ericson Cruiser