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Our Post Game festivities are at Buffalo Wild Wings every Friday Night.

Rich Storm strikes again!

Ken's 1 day old Granddaughter Carmela

Try this Quail Hunting School, but don't have any beers or you will shoot a lawyer.

"A Drinking Team with a Hockey Problem"      Visit the Beak's Web Page:  http://www.lopatka.net

Bolingbrook, IL Friday, 11/03/06 Attendance 24

The Anvil Shuts down the Whites again!

Klinger came back from hunting and talked Knarf into helping the Whites snap their losing streak.  Stump, Frank and Tommy Z kept their perfect attendance record alive after 9 weeks!  Frank was listed as doubtful at the Wednesday lunch, after his knee was hyper extended when Art fell on him last week.  Saturday e-mail:  Here is what I know, The Whites were all over Eddie in the Third period but The Anvil was spectacular. I saw the Flea block a Steve Granato blast with his shield. I heard The Brain was very busy early in the game but Thor said that the Reds got tired of shooting once they got a lead. Harvey hit several posts, but there were no meaningful goals for the 3rd straight week! Score was 6-2

Rich Storm zeroed in on our latest grandpa Duffer.

or 7-3? Reds. (Don't make me come off of the Injured Reserve list) I may referee next week if I can get my skates on.* (Brinks won't be there to tie my skates) That means we will need some beer. I bought 15 Strohs lights last week, so I'll bring them. Don't all raise your hands at once. Maybe Fred can dip into his pop stock pile for the non beer drinkers.  *(I have a 8:15 Rocket show at the Batavia Library, so I won't referee.) Hi Beak,  Count me in for the beer on Friday. I will even bring a Coke for Uncle Fred. As for Friday's game. Tommy had at least 2, possibly 3; Rich Storm had one. Nick had at least 3; Johnny Z had one (maybe two). By the Way Bill had one, but should have had more. Mini-Wheeze got one as well, That's all I can remember. See you on Friday. .  Take care,  Perry Mini Wheezer's Peoria Report

So I'm at Peoria Saturday and before the game starts the time keeper says to me "do you see where they are working on the upper deck?" I said "yeah" Apparently after 20 some years they discovered a hidden room behind some wall.  They are turning it in to a Luxury Box!.....I thought that was pretty funny.

Klinger returned safely from his hunting trip.

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Mark your calendar: On Wednesday, Nov 8th, the planet Mercury will pass directly in front the Sun. The transit begins at 1:12 pm CST and lasts for almost five hours. Good views can be had from the Americas, Hawaii, Australia and all along the Pacific Rim: visibility map. 

What will it look like? A picture is worth a thousand words:

Image credit: Larry Koehn. Click to view the Sun's full disk.

During the transit, Mercury's tiny disk—jet black and perfectly round—will glide slowly across the face of the Sun. Only a speck of the Sun's surface is actually covered, so the Sun remains as dangerous as ever to look at. But with a proper filter and a little imagination, the Transit of Mercury can be a marvelous experience.

There are many ways to safely observe the Sun, e.g., through eclipse glasses or by means of a pinhole projector. In this case, nothing beats a telescope equipped with a sun-safe H-alpha filter. H-alpha filters are narrowly tuned to the red glow of solar hydrogen. They reveal the Sun as a boiling inferno, cross-crossed by dark magnetic filaments and peppered with sunspots. Warning: The sight of Mercury navigating this starscape could be mind blowing.

Teachers, call your local astronomy club and ask if they have such a solar telescope. Amateur astronomers love to show off the heavens, and someone will probably volunteer to bring their 'scope to your classroom for the transit. (You can also view the transit online at the SOHO web site--no telescope required.)

Right: Mercury, photographed by Mariner 10. [More]

Here's something to think about while watching the transit: Mercury is fantastically mysterious. More than half of the planet is unknown to us. When Mariner 10 flew by in the mid-70s, it managed to photograph only 45% of Mercury's cratered surface. What lies on the other side? More craters? Or something totally unexpected? You're free to speculate, because the next spacecraft to visit Mercury, NASA's MESSENGER probe, won't enter orbit until 2011.

One of Mercury's greatest secrets is the mystery-material at its poles. Radars on Earth have pinged Mercury and received a strong echo from polar craters. A favorite explanation is ice. While Mercury's daylit surface heats up to 400^o C, the temperature in deep, dark polar craters dips below -200^o C. If an icy comet landed in one of those craters (or made one of those craters), the comet's ices, vaporized by impact, might re-freeze and stick around. As skeptics like to say, however, "it's just a theory," one of many that MESSENGER will check.

Another puzzle is Mercury's wrinkles. Geologists call them "lobate scarps." Like wrinkles on a raisin, the scarps are thought to be a sign of shrinkage. Mercury may actually be collapsing in on itself as its massive iron core cools and contracts. To check this idea, MESSENGER will map Mercury's magnetic field, which springs from the core. If the core is collapsing, the collapse may leave telltale signs in the planet's magnetism. MESSENGER will also look for lobate scarps on the uncharted side of Mercury to see if this is truly a global phenomenon.

The answers are years away. Meanwhile, we watch and wonder, and Nov. 8th is a good day for that.