Dan Birchall

  Wangari Maathai, founder of the tree-planting and women's-empowerment Green Belt Movement , and the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize (2004), died this Sunday night. I took this photo at a May 2005 tree-planting ceremony on the north lawn of UN headquarters in New York, along with lots of other pictures .  It was the only time I really had a chance to talk to Dr. Maathai, although I would see her again in Nairobi a year and a half later at the launch of UNEP's "Plant for the Planet: Billion Tree Campaign."

On the night of September 18-19, the fairly new Keck 1 laser had another engineering run as part of its commissioning.  There were cirrus clouds blowing over throughout much of the night, and winds of close to 25mph made for some camera-shake, but I was still able to get about three hours of exposures for time-lapse in the latter half of the night, ending during morning twilight.

Since my wife's doctor ordered her to stay off her feet for a while, I've been learning to cook things she  eats.  This week I've been practicing a veggie stew with chunks of potato, diced carrots, bell peppers and jalapeños, strips of onion, and tomatoes.  She still puts in the salt and ghee so it'll taste exactly the way she wants, but I get to do everything else. Some photos, just in case anyone who knows what I  eat isn't sufficiently shocked by now.     Potatoes, carrots and onions   Plus bell peppers and jalapenos   Plus tomatoes - ready for water, salt, ghee and cooking. 

Props to Nerick Ojas of 808 Shine Auto Detail for picking up our dirty Ford and bringing back a shiny one. :)