Tag Archives: moon

Moon Painting

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Several days ago we ran a post titled Cloud Cutting http://www.bigshotsnow.com/cloud-cutting/ where we showed off our new weather modification process we have developed here at *The Institute. Using full disclosure you should know that we have “Applied for a Patent, Trademarked it , Branded it, and are protecting it by (American) gun-toting thugs”, who help us convince patent stealers to cease and desist. We have some of the best thugs in the world right here in our own country and they are all certified pure-bred American thugs with no ties to any other country. Period, End of Story. So rest easy only our real American thugs will call on you if you try to steal our patents. The Institute prides itself on buying American and keeping our hard-earned American money working here at home.

What happened was we forgot to tell you about one important aspect of our new technology. It is also as new and revolutionary as our Cloud Cutting program. We have named this new process Moon Painting. We know it’s not a very original name and doesn’t have that new pizzazz that some of our other high-profile programs do, but we wanted this new process to be identifiable by everyone, even if you have trouble analyzing new ideas or English is your seventh and final language. ( Hey we’re not knocking non-native English speakers. We applaud you on your efforts and thank you for trying). Half of our interns do not speak English all that well. In fact many of them do not have a discernible language of any sort, we communicate with them by American sign language and flash cards and loud yelling. It is a fact that if  you yell loudly at them in a language they do not understand they will many times nod as if understanding your meaning and go away and do stuff. Sometimes it is even what you want them to do. Sort of.

But back to the important topic at hand, Moon Painting. Here’s how it works. The moon comes up many times after dark during the month and always it is the same old boring white. Boring being the operative word here and white being the accepted moon color for ages. Our surveys show us that frankly, the majority of you are sick of it and would welcome a new color. This was electrifying news to us as we had been secretively working on the now released Cloud Cutting program, which was only financially viable during the day. We needed another revenue stream that would fill in the rest of day, the dark part, with money generating ability. It was then when someone at one of our interminable staff meetings, we forget who, yelled out “Hey, what about the freaking moon, eh? It works at night. We should like, work on that.” He said ‘eh’ again, which is so redundant the 100th time you hear it that we have chosen to omit it from now on, we don’t care how many times he says it.

But how to paint the moon? What we needed was a “long Throw” projector. Hitachi, NEC, Christie, all make a long throw projector but we needed a very Looooong Throw projector. Like 238,900 miles long. We tried daisy-chaining a bunch of them together to get that extra reach, but that didn’t work. We tried using big fat mirrors the way the huge telescope at Arecibo works but that didn’t work either. Then one of our senior staff members who spends way too much time on Craig’s list found an old used Hubble telescope that had returned not to bunged up to Earth that we could buy really cheap. Like $260 bucks cheap although we had to pay for shipping which added like a humongous charge to it. Those folks at the Post Office even made us come and pick it up. They refused to deliver it and were snotty about it besides, which is something we intend to bring up to the Post Master General the next time we’re hobnobbing at the White house.

So, we built our own. That’s right, our very own long throw projector. After all we had our old unused ShopSmith woodworking tool, an intern with most of his fingers intact, and the hearts and minds with the collective will to do the impossible to make it happen. Yes we used the Hubble as our core and also three of those Hitachi Cp-WU8461 at ten grand a pop, our second largest expense, and using our own proprietary procedures that we’re not at liberty to disclose, built an adequate but serviceable projector. We say adequate because it does have a few wrinkles to work out yet. We use Thomas Edison’s largest light bulb ever made which is 14 feet tall, weighs eight tons, and shines like the dickens to provide our light force. We could point it at you out there in the heartland or even farther but we don’t want to put your eye out. This thing is bright. You can actually see the last one (we bought the last dozen of these bulbs they had in storage) at the Edison Museum and Memorial Tower in Edison, New  Jersey. However big as the bulb is it only lasts for about 26 minutes at full power and about two and a half hours at half-strength which produces a washed out color that isn’t all that appealing. At full strength though Virgil, it’ll flat paint that moon any primary color you want. See actual image of moon being painted above. This was taken just two nights ago and we were able to keep that moon painted nearly 8 minutes before that old Edison bulb blew, taking out the mounting ring at the back of the projector, bending the mounting tube on the Hubble’s rear flange and the wall behind it. Scared the bejezuz out the operator and most of the county below the proving grounds down there on the flat lands. The lights below the moon are from the interns’ village where the substitute interns live and wait for their rotation up here at The Institute.

Our plan is to have the kinks worked out of our projector by the end of October, hopefully in time for Halloween. There are plans for many novelty projections on the moon such as a Smiley Face, Peace Symbol, Ying-Yang symbol, caricatures of your favorite or most disliked politicians, the list is endless. Plus some corporate advertising, we got to make this thing pay for itself someway. For more information or pricing please send Self-adressed stamped envelope and six dollars American money, preferably gold or silver certificates, to Tell Me More, The Institute, Northern Colorado. Please allow six to eight weeks or an even longer undetermined amount of time for delivery.

* Note: For those of you unfamiliar with The Institute and what it does, please see the page labeled The Institute on the Menu Bar above. That should explain everything. You shouldn’t have one single question remaining regarding The Institute after reading it. None. For those of you favored few who already know about the Institute, Nevermind.

Blood Moon Eclipse

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On September 27 the Institute’s observatory began to record a serious anomaly with the moon. We had noticed that the moon had started getting bigger and rounder than it usually did but that wasn’t all that unnerving as we had seen it do that once before. It was several years ago and one of our observatory personnel came screeching into the Director’s office saying the moon was going to explode because it was getting bigger and we should all run for our lives. He dove under the settee and it took all manner of prodding and poking with the cattle prod the Director keeps near his desk kept just for situations like this.

It turned out that it was nothing at all to be alarmed about. Apparently one of our observatory interns read somewhere that the moon would occasionally do this. Get all big and swollen-like and all we had to do was wait a few days and all that swelling and bloating would go down. The moon apparently embarrassed by its behavior began to shrink until it was just a pale sliver of itself and the potential catastrophe was averted. We were relieved to say the least and made copious notes in our Observatories Moon book. This is what is called “A Natural Phenomenon” by scientists and other guys and it has added hugely to the sum total of our knowledge of the moon and other celestial bodies.

This was a different kettle of moonbeams this time though. Rumors and mutinous comments about this being a “Blood” moon began to spread quickly through the interns camp and soon you couldn’t find a chicken left alive as they huddled around their smoky campfires and chanted, casting fearful looks towards the sky. When there was no apparent change in the moons behavior, in fact it was getting worse, darkening and a strange shadow began appearing across its blood red face, that they realized that the sacrifices they were making were not big enough. That’s when they really flew into a frenzy and began looking at the Staff hoping to find one alone and unarmed. We had to call all our critical staff back to the main Institute’s center and activate the mine field around the building. A few Bouncing Betty’s and they pulled back. We lost three good oxen and a mule but they didn’t breach the walls of the main hall. It was a long night fraught with terror as the weaker among us wept with fear, but our defenses held and morning came none too soon.

When it was finally concluded that this was a harmless natural event although startling in its intensity, we immediately began an instructional program to educate the interns. A few beatings, some sleep deprivation, waterboarding for the more recalcitrant ones who still had the blood lust in their eyes and we were almost back to normal. One of our Observatoryologists who watches Fox news constantly said that although this event was uncommon it was not rare and we should all just calm the hell down and worry about something important, like our upcoming national elections. Now that is really freaky.

If you look at the image above, it’s scary for sure, being all over red like that, but it’s not disastrous, except for the oxen and the mule and the eight interns that charged the minefield. They found it pretty darn scary. It’s a natural event sent to us by Mother Nature to instruct us. We added a huge store of knowledge both to our Moon book and to our HR manual in how to handle employees during a crisis. The moral I guess, is don’t like totally freak just because it looks like the end of the world. Save that energy for something important.

Monument Valley

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This is Monument valley at 6 in the morning. It is cold here even though it is late April. You need a heavy coat and gloves and if you have a bald head like some of us you need a hat. Preferably one of those Russian kind made out of polar bear-wolf hybrids with ear flaps you can tie around your belt loops so the wind doesn’t blow it off. We didn’t need the tie downs this day as there was no wind. You also need lots of determination to stand out here waiting for the sun to come up.

It seems twice as cold as it is when you’re waiting. Stamping your feet helps some. Shivering is good. But what really saves the day is a hot thermos of strong black tea. No sugar, no milk, black as my last wife’s heart, as they say around the campfire at divorce school. That’s what gets you through the waiting, that and the thought of how gorgeous it’s going to be in a few minutes.

Everyone has seen pictures of Monument valley’s butte’s and spires, the colossal towers and the long views down the valley from John Ford’s point. They are the reasons many people come here, but there are other smaller views that are just as captivating. This one for instance.

Back behind the Totem pole and Yei Bi Chei is a place that is off-limits to visitors unless you have a guide. My guide whose Navajo name loosely translates to “Looks In My Wallet”, no I’m kidding, it actually means “Reaches Into My Wallet”, no, wait, I’m kidding again, it actually means Ed, brought me to a perfect spot to watch the sun come up behind the Totem pole. Behind where we had set up the camera gear was this dune and overhead our timekeeper the moon moving across the sky, clearing it of any obstacles that may hinder the sun’s passage. Ed said he liked this spot not only for the view of the sunrise, but if the wind was blowing which it does with startling frequency here in the valley, it was a protected place. The way he said it, in that low Indian voice made it sound much wiser than it really was. That’s one of the reasons you need a guide, you’d never figure that out on your own.

Ed was an interesting guy in his own right. He has been a stuntman in the movies, riding horses, falling off of them, “you don’t need much training for that ” he said, an extra in many of them, a guide around the valley and a sought after one at that, as he photographs the valley himself and knows all the good spots. He also tends to have a store of helpful tips for the visiting photographer. “When you fall and roll down the dune try not to get sand up your nose” was one of his favorites. “Don’t touch that it’s poisonous” was another. He said this even if what you were touching was actually poisonous or not. All in all he was a good guide and we weren’t lost for very long anyway. “An Adventure” he said, “to  tell your grandchildren.” I don’t think we were lost, I just think he liked to see me carry 40 lbs. of gear through ankle-deep sand.

But the places we went were worth every moment of Ed’s wit. I remember this one the most because it seemed to be more about the desert than all the daytime shots of the monuments and far-reaching vistas put together. As there was no wind the silence was complete, except maybe for Ed’s wheezing, and the far off calling of a raven waking up, and the colors, the colors were something you had to experience. They began to form out of the darkness and became richer and more intense as the sky lightened. The deep nearly mahogany color of the sand against that impossibly blue sky. The yellow highlights on the Rabbit brush just becoming visible and of course the moon, impossibly white against the background of the heavens. This is why one becomes a photographer. For the image of course but also for the memories. And maybe for the chance of a brief visit with Ed. No, it’s the memories.