Hang in there, it gets better...

At around 60 page views a day, I must have reached a 100,000 page views for the site about 10 days ago - December 27th, 2012.

It has been a crazy few months, but the blog has been churning out page view on autopilot. I was not even paying attention as this milestone crept up on me and the site.

Hang in there, it gets better - is the constant encouragement I've heard over the last few months. And it does, in some ways. And one of those signs of getting better is me thinking about this blog again.

But this time, I am planning for this to be a little less social - not private, just not broadcasting. And towards that end, emails subscriptions are shut off and the Twitter updates have been put on hold as well.

Over the last few months, I have definitely missed checking in on the site. But more importantly, I am missing keeping a log of some of the things I have been able to sneak in on the side. Hoping I get enough time to get back to this again.

And a Happy New Year to all!

Ooh Saturn!

Stuck in the daily grind, it is not always easy to lift our heads out to the heavens and realize how beautiful life in deep space really is. We either have to be an astronomer or have one of those trite motivational posters at work. If neither is your style, this is great alternative - The Astronomy Picture Of the Day (APOD). As the title so gently suggests, the site posts one picture a day, along with commentary by someone that is qualified to do more than just gawk.

What got me interested was this recent post. This isn't as much a picture as it is a series of pictures of the spacecraft Cassini, that rendezvoused with the Saturn system after leaving earth in 1997. A number of photographs from Cassini were collated, cropped and strung together in a stop-motion video. Fortunately a stop motion video in space is an oxymoron. And this is one video where each frame says well over a thousand words.

Apparently they are making is IMAX movie called Outside In. They couldn't have chosen a better trailer.

5.6k Saturn Cassini Photographic Animation from stephen v2 on Vimeo.