The orbit of a comet

I don't like to talk about work on bicycle log but this had more to do with my state of mind than work. I spent most of the day typsetting in Spanish. I still have more to do but I had to work on something else that was more urgent. The thing is, I don't speak or understand Spanish. I had these print-outs of what I had to type and I have a paper holder thing and I just looked at it and typed it. All day of doing this put me in a different state of mind. It was kind of like a typing tutor. I just typed the letters I saw. I had the translations in English, and I think I actually learned something... I think it takes more words to say something in Spanish than it does in English, as what I typed in Spanish took up more space. Not that that's a bad thing! :)

After doing this all day, I went out of the office to view the comet at sunset. And there it was, low on the horizon to the west. People came out of the office to view it but then went right back inside as it was so cold out. One of the gals stayed out there with me and said, "It must be hundreds of years old." All I could bring myself to say after a brief hesitation was, "Yes it is." Then she started to ask me questions like, "How come we don't see it every year?". So I explained the orbit of the comet and the orbit of the earth. (I know very little about the orbit of anything,) But I said, illustrating with my fingers, "The orbit of the comet goes way out here like this. And the orbit of the earth goes around and around here like this. And every thirty years the orbit of the comet and the orbit of the earth come together like this". "Oh." she said with a blank look on her face.

"And this has gone on for over two hundred years." (Just kidding! I didn't say that! But it was so tempting! :)

I know even less about astronomy than I do Spanish. Gosh it's been a long day.

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The photo above is what it looked like when we viewed the comet. I tried to get a photo of the comet and I did but you can't see it unless you really zoom in and it isn't that great. This shows what it looked like outside as we stood there in the cold. The light behind the tree on the left is my office.