OTBR: A Personal Observatory in Australia

Latitude: S 37° 37.050
Longitude: E 144° 20.580

A child on a road trip with his family asks, "Where are we?" and the father answers, "Let's check the map. We're off the blue roads [the Interstate Highways marked in blue on the road atlas]. We're off the red roads [the US and state highways]. We're off the black roads [the county highways]. I think we're off the map altogether." It was always my dream to be off the map altogether.

After the jump, a few of the random places (and I mean random literally) that I visited vicariously last month that are "off the blue roads".

Repeat Tweets: Best Musical Ever

Repeat tweets from February, 2014:

• Feb 2 2014: Hairspray at BHS: '60s music and student activism, what more could you ask? Hilarious & inspiring. All voices owned the house! Best ever!
  
• Feb 3 2014: New 2014-2016 UIL District 10: Richardson, Berkner, Lake Highlands, Pearce, Highland Park, Mesquite, Mesquite Horn, North Mesquite. Wow!
  
• Feb 4 2014: MT @SenTedCruz: "If a President can choose which laws to follow, ..." Get local police to strictly enforce jaywalking while you're at it.
  
• Feb 4 2014: Our Lake Wobegon climate. Headline: "2013 Marked the Thirty-seventh Consecutive Year of Above-Average Temperature." grist.org
  

After the jump, more repeat tweets.

Early Spring in the Steger Garden (2014)

From Flowers

Daffodil? Jonquil? Narcissus?
Daffodil! Also, narcissus. All clear?

Basketball Playoffs: Atascocita 71, Berkner 49

From 2014 02 28 Regional Semifinals

The Berkner Rams men's basketball team's magical season came to an end in Waco Friday night when they lost to the Humble Atascocita Eagles 71-49 in the Regional Semifinals (round four) of the Texas UIL state tournament.

The Rams have a lot to look back on with pride -- an overall record of 24-8, District 9-5A tri-champions with a district record of 11-3, and winners of the first three rounds of the state tournament. There are about 250 Class 5A schools in Texas. The best 128 teams started the tournament. Berkner made it to the final sixteen. Sweet! It's a great time to be a Ram!

More photos after the jump.

S2L77: London - I

From 1977 05 10 England

White Cliffs of Dover

In these days before the Chunnel, we crossed the English Channel on a hovercraft, meaning our first view of England was the traditional one, the white cliffs of Dover. We drove into London, the destination of our trip of over 9,000 miles as the crow flies from Singapore to London. Subtracting a flight to leapfrog Burma (whose land borders were closed), that's more than 7,500 miles on the ground across southern Asia and Europe. Whew! Time for rest and relaxation after so much ... rest and relaxation. I spent two weeks in London, longer than any other stop on the trip. Time for lots of photos. Here's the first batch from London.

More photos after the jump.