Monday Mail: Get off Facebook to see fireballs
Once again I cannot focus, because I am online, checking email and Facebook.
What did I mean to do, before I started wasting time on Facebook? Google something?
Yeah, Google something but what?
Wait, I know: The song "Stars Fell on Alabama"! Yeah! That was it!
Now why was I going to Google that?
Oh yeah. Now I remember. I'd better put my laptop away and pick up a pen and pad. Let's start over.
Monday Mail
Moonlight and magnolia, starlight in your eyes, all the world a dream come true: It's Monday Mail.
Starfall
Why did I intend to start with "Stars Fell on Alabama"? That was a good question, after I got on Facebook.
It's because of recent news alerts regarding the Perseid meteor shower, which will be overnight Wednesday and Thursday, with peaks of up to .
Crap. Now I have to get online again to check the NASA website. See you in about an hour, if I check email and Facebook again.
OK: NASA says the meteor storm will have peaks of up to 100 fireballs an hour, and 78 have been reported since July 27.
The Perseids fall when the Earth goes plowing through the debris stream from Comet Swift-Tuttle, which has a "huge nucleus," NASA says, not that size matters.
It just matters when you've got a fat load of meteoroids on your horizon, where the big ones burn up real good.
"As a result, Comet Swift-Tuttle produces a large number of meteoroids, many of which are hefty enough to produce fireballs," NASA quotes Bill Cooke of its Meteoroid Environment Office.
Hmmm Maybe I should have started this column with a quote from Jerry Lee Lewis' "Great Balls of Fire."
Hold on. Let me get online and check the lyrics .
"Too much love drives a man insane" rings true, but it has nothing to do with meteors. Never mind.
One thing you'll need to see the Perseids is a clear sky, of course -- no light pollution, no clouds.
So . Now I have to get back online and check the forecast: Weather.com says it's to be partly cloudy Wednesday night and partly cloudy Thursday, so good luck with that.
The good news is that if you actually can afford to stay up until it's almost dawn, you eventually will feel comfortable outside: The low that night's to be 67 degrees.
So consider getting off your laptop or other iPhone and going out to see these wonders of nature -- instead of wasting your time online, staring at a little screen, forgetting what you meant to do.
The only exception to that might be using a wireless device to play some music suited to the occasion. Like maybe something from the 1970s band "Firefall."
Wait, let me go on YouTube and check on that.
Tim Chitwood, tchitwood@ledger-enquirer.com, 706-571-8508.
This story was originally published August 9, 2015 at 8:55 PM with the headline "Monday Mail: Get off Facebook to see fireballs ."