Stan Olson’s Blog

So I braved the cold weather to stand outside and attempt to shoot the lunar eclipse. I don’t think my camera likes the cold weather as the almost fully charged battery was showing it was almost dead. Anywho, I setup the nice cold metal tripod in the back yard and shot the moon. Even using a tripod and shutter cable trigger, the shots still came out a little blurry. I picked out a couple though to post to the site, kinda cool regardless. I didn’t watch the whole eclipse as it was just too freaking cold to stand out there all night. Here is the link to all of the pictures I took:

http://www.stansweather.net/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=70

Spaceweather.com has a really cool gallery of people from all over the world who have submitted their pictures of the eclipse:

http://www.spaceweather.com/eclipses/gallery_20feb08.htm

February began with a nice little snow storm in Illinois. We got about 7.5″ here in Champaign and totals went up to a foot around Springfield. I managed to go out and take some pictures on Saturday at Lake of the Woods in Mahomet, IL. Nothing spectacular, but it’s something to talk about anyway. :)

http://www.stansweather.net/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=69

The NWS @ Lincoln has a nice list of snow totals with a pretty map:

http://www.crh.noaa.gov/crnews/display_story.php?wfo=ilx&storyid=12634&source=0

Of course the forecast is calling for showers and thunderstorms on Monday and Tuesday, so quite a change of events.

It’s amazing to think how bad the Illini have been the past few years. This is the first season that I’ve actually watched entire games and enjoyed them. The Illini looked pretty good today especially with the running game. Hopefully next week we will be ranked in the top 25, though I’d just rather see us in a BCS bowl game. I know, it’s way too early to talk about that stuff but Illinois is for real this year. Congrats!!!

Full story from FightingIllini.com

Well I’m not sure what is worse: being 30 games under .500 last year or spending 300 million in the off-season and then get swept in the first round of the playoffs. A very frustrating end to a crazy season, that’s all I know. Time to start chanting those famous words yet again… “Maybe Next Year” Ugh… If the Cubs make the playoffs next year, they better cancel all celebrations until they manage to win a playoff series. I doubt the Brewers and Cardinals will suck as bad as they did this year, so the Cubs will need to improve their offensive consistency if they plan on having any chances at the post-season next year. Jeesh, I’m talking about next year already.

Full story from Cubs.com

Down 5-2 in the bottom of the 9th, I figured the game was pretty much over for the NL. Then I realized that Tony LaRussa had left Derrick Lee and Alfonso Soriano in the game. With one man on, Soriano ripped a homerun to right field to cut the deficit to one. The next batter walked and that gave Derrick Lee a chance to win it. With a 3-2 count, Lee was able to check his swing just enough for ball 4. The NL had one guy left on the bench and it was Tony LaRussa’s own Albert Pujols. I figured this would be the spot to bring him in, but he decided not to do it. The guy popped out and that was the game. Major props to Soriano and Lee for representing the Cubs in a positive way and showing all of baseball that they can play. If only Ramirez would have made the team, he could have hit the dramatic game winning walk off home run. :-) What a way to segway into the 2nd half of the season! GO CUBS!!!