Venus transiting the sun.

Thanks. I missed it. I will catch it next time.

From where?

Some place warm year around. I am starting to subscribe to this re-incarnation stuff. If ya gotta believe in an afterlife, that one sounds really cool. Well, unless I come back as a ____

Fill in the blank.

Great that you got to see it. Cloudy here unfortunately. Here's a great shot taken by a Japanese satellite. That thin rim of light around Venus is its atmosphere!
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hinode/venus_transit_hinode.html

That's a remarkable photograph.

Why do I keep remembering that seventh grade science teacher's mnemonic she used to teach us the planets going out from the Sun?

Make Vera eat more jumbo suckers under Nancy's porch.

Dang thing must have worked. Of course back then Pluto hadn't been busted down a grade.

My very easy method just speeds up naming planets

But I still remember that and can't remember the teacher's name.

Yeah, I had an Astronomy Prof at UNM who I really enjoyed. Can't remember his name. I gotta believe, though, that it would be OK with him, seeing as how I do still remember a bunch of what he taught me.

Pluto is no longer considered a planet, though my son disagrees, even with Neil DeGrasse Tyson who he thinks is the greatest.

Can you imagine. Been a planet for eons and get busted down. Pluto may have to move out of the neighborhood in disgrace. I think the whole thing is Walt Disney's fault.

Doggone silly if you ask me. One thing for certain, it's going to be around a whole lot longer than any of those scientists.

The problem really stemmed from our advances in Astronomy. We began discovering lots of previously undetected objects in the outer solar system very much like Pluto. One, Eris, is something like 1/4 times again as massive as Pluto. So the choices were either 1.) Redesignate Pluto as a Dwarf Planet, or 2.) Come up with a bunch more names and designate all the "Proto-Plutos" as planets. I can't imagine the new mnemonics we'd need. Rick

Oh what the heck. 98% of what I learned in school has been disproved in the last 50 years anyway. At least arithmetic has hung in there but it was just made up in the first place. The only profitable thing that has withstood the decades is the casino I ran in the paint booth in wood shop. I should have spent most of my time on recess and quit in ninth grade and gone to work for Steve Wynn.