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Vog day afternoon

I love the smell of sulfur dioxide in the morning. Shoots, cuz. Da kine vog get plenny pilau. Stinky! Actually, it doesn't smell so bad as it tastes. Once you get it in your mouth, it seems to last all day even after the vog lifts. The gift that keeps on giving! The vog was so bad today that the Park Service closed the crater rim drive inside the park due to volumes of sulfur four times the amount deemed "safe" to breath.
Today, I became a brochure photographer. By mid afternoon, the vog lifted and the sunshine was beautiful. So I shot some photos of wine bottles provocatively posed (OK they were really just propped up) on a giant piece of drift wood on the winery grounds. They were complimented by flowers at their bases. The images came out pretty good (or is that pretty well?) if I don't say so myself. I still wouldn't go so far as to characterize myself as a real photographer. I'm just someone who sometimes gets lucky with a shot.
And speaking of good shots, I was amazed this morning that we shot a satellite out of orbit today with pinpoint accuracy. We did this from a boat in the middle of the ocean. The satellite was traveling at four times the speed of sound. The boat was no doubt bobbing with the waves. The earth was spinning. With all that, we calculated the perfect trajectory and nailed that sucka dead center. I say "we" as though I had something to do with it. It's much the same as the fan in the football stands who high fives his buddy and shouts, "We're number one" when a player for the team he supports scores a touchdown. The fan, of course, had no more to do with the touchdown than I had to do with the satellite bullseye. Clearly, it's the collective "we" to whom I and the fan refer. In my case,"we" are Americans, gunfunnit. Not bad for the country rated 29th in the world recently in math skills among high school students. I guess we've still got it, despite what we hear about ourselves on the news every day.

Gotta go watch Lost. A hui hou. Aloha!

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