Dave
@astronomydave.bsky.social
840 followers 180 following 2.1K posts
I share photos, mostly of nature/night sky. I play guitar, bass & keyboards for fun; I share videos sometimes. Reconstructing a small prairie space. I garden a bit. I vet anyone I follow. I used to have a pretty big YouTube channel.
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astronomydave.bsky.social
I asked my coworker since she lives close to where I moved. They are the company that flagged my query on their Contact Form as spam. 🫠

Hoping there are humans who actually check their email or Contact Form databases.
astronomydave.bsky.social
And to be clear, all but two don't have their email address listed. So when I use their online form and they DO NOT RESPOND, I can only assume they do not check those....which doesn't speak well of why they bothered with an online contact form in the first place, or their business acumen.
astronomydave.bsky.social
Why is it so hard to get HVAC folks to respond to a queries about needing service?

I have sent messages to 7 places now (I think). One called me at a time I said "Don't call before X:00", one has a neat online system but hasn't responded in over a week, and one online form said my message was spam.
astronomydave.bsky.social
Me, driving home last night along the rural roadways (very dark) and seeing two glowing eyes near the side of the road:

"Oh hello Mr. Possum...."

Realizing I have no way of knowing if it was a male or not:

"....or Mrs. Possum...."
astronomydave.bsky.social
Often, yes. And cotton socks are the worst, of course. 😂
astronomydave.bsky.social
For me, that's year round.... 🤪
astronomydave.bsky.social
Thank you - I got lucky capturing them. The sky and camera both cooperated.
astronomydave.bsky.social
A sky like this can be difficult to capture the way I see it. But in this case, this is almost exactly how it looked.
A dusk scene. The horizon is black. There are some wind turbines and trees along the horizon. A deep orange fades slowly into a lighter orange upward, then turns light blue into a deeper blue at the top.
astronomydave.bsky.social
I was driving from the new house to the soon to be old house yesterday when there appeared to be clouds on the horizon. But....not really clouds.

It was smoke, from fires in cornfields. 😕😕😕
An empty field in the foreground. There is a long line of smoke in the horizon below a blue sky.
astronomydave.bsky.social
Probably. But it was by my back door. And was posing so nicely!
astronomydave.bsky.social
I wrote "staring." Not "tearing."
astronomydave.bsky.social
This praying mantis was tearing at me HARD.

Smaller though, so perhaps a male...? Also very green, so I don't think this one is really native, but I may be wrong on that.
The head of a praying mantis, the eyes looking towards the camera. Full body of the same praying mantis.
astronomydave.bsky.social
Me, in my head: "I just put that new furnace filter in a couple weeks ago, right? Because I change it every 3 weeks (3 cats + 3 dogs = lots in the filter). I'll check what date I wrote on it then."

Date I wrote on it: 8/15

Me: "Oops! Better change that...."
astronomydave.bsky.social
I have not knocked myself out yet.

But that idea has merit.... 🤪🤪🤪😂😂
astronomydave.bsky.social
Ugh. Still so frustrating at the moment. Doing literally everything possible on my side to get this done.
astronomydave.bsky.social
That's a win. 🙂👍
astronomydave.bsky.social
Your Friday morning Zen.
An image of a rural area at sunrise. The foreground shows a darkly lit road at left narrowing into the distance. At the horizon in the center is a far off building, likely a barn and another one to its right hidden partly by morning fog. The sky is warm and orange at the horizon and then slowly fades to a pale bluish-grey at the top. The scene is peaceful and serene.
astronomydave.bsky.social
Yay!! Great to read!
astronomydave.bsky.social
Thank you!!

How's your print search going? Any luck with getting that sorted out and finding the right company and prints?(I hope I'm asking that the right way!)
astronomydave.bsky.social
Oh, I've been on them when I felt it was warranted. Today I will be bugging the heck out of them.
astronomydave.bsky.social
I really hope that isn't the case for me. This particular bank has been good for me in the past (and I'm normally no fan of banks). So this has been extraordinarily frustrating. Got my fingers crossed I'm good to go by today....