Rafe looks forward to (St.) Valentine's Day and what it means from the Romans' Lupercalia, to multiple Saints (and a pope) Valentine, to shoeboxes with pink construction paper, to candy hearts, to philia, eros, and agape, to feelings and choices, to others as others, to St. Paul and the Corinthians (not those who made the famed Corinthian leather), to patience, kindness, bearing, believing, hoping, and enduring, to agape leading to eros, and to our ultimate desire to return to God.  

Happy St. Valentine's Day on February 14th!

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As always, you can reach the Buf at [email protected]

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As you know, this is an independent podcast so your hosts also carry all the expenses of running this podcast. As such, some of you have asked how you can help out. Well, here's the answer: support us on Buy Me a Coffee:

https://buymeacoffee.com/bufnagle

On this page, you can do a really nice thing like send us a couple dollars to help cover the cost of recording and hosting and microphones and research and all that. Any little bit really helps! Thank you in advance!!!

America's Favorite Rocket Scientist™ and Big Brain Smart Head™ Bob Luzenski joins Rafe to discuss NASA's official remembrances during this time of year and hopes and aspirations for the upcoming Artemis II launch.  

After some solemn discussions of the fallen astronauts from the Apollo 1 fire of 1967, the Challenger accident of 1986, and the Columbia accident of 2003, discussion turns to the Artemis project to return people to the moon.  Artemis II has half-a-dozen open launch windows over the next several months and NASA is planning some aggressive space flight tests with this next launch to set the stage for a human footprints again on the lunar surface in the next couple of years.  Bob details the plans for the mission while providing needed context to what happened in the late 1960s with the Apollo flights.

Post-production note:  Bob mentions in this episode a previous Buf episode in which we discussed his witnessing the Challenger disaster of 1986.  That episode is Episode 19, "Slipping the Surly Bonds of Earth", originally released January 26, 2021; it can be found in the list of previous episodes of the Buf.

*****

As always, you can reach the Buf at [email protected]

*****

As you know, this is an independent podcast so your hosts also carry all the expenses of running this podcast. As such, some of you have asked how you can help out. Well, here's the answer: support us on Buy Me a Coffee:

https://buymeacoffee.com/bufnagle

On this page, you can do a really nice thing like send us a couple dollars to help cover the cost of recording and hosting and microphones and research and all that. Any little bit really helps! Thank you in advance!!!

Rafe discusses the Feast of Candlemas, the use of animals in the prediction in the timing of Spring, and the underlying themes of the movie Groundhog Day.

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As always, you can reach the Buf at [email protected]

*****

As you know, this is an independent podcast so your hosts also carry all the expenses of running this podcast. As such, some of you have asked how you can help out. Well, here's the answer: support us on Buy Me a Coffee:

https://buymeacoffee.com/bufnagle

On this page, you can do a really nice thing like send us a couple dollars to help cover the cost of recording and hosting and microphones and research and all that. Any little bit really helps! Thank you in advance!!!

The Buf welcomes Big Brain Smart Head™ Derek Hales, founder of naplab.com, to discuss the nature of mattresses, what they are made of, how they are tested, what they should cost, how they impact your sleep, and much much more.  

How much should you pay for your next mattress?  Learn how to get that answer for a man at the forefront of mattress testing!

To find out how your mattress tested out, go to Derek's company's website at https://naplab.com

*****

As always, you can reach the Buf at [email protected]

*****

As you know, this is an independent podcast so your hosts also carry all the expenses of running this podcast. As such, some of you have asked how you can help out. Well, here's the answer: support us on Buy Me a Coffee:

https://buymeacoffee.com/bufnagle

On this page, you can do a really nice thing like send us a couple dollars to help cover the cost of recording and hosting and microphones and research and all that. Any little bit really helps! Thank you in advance!!!

Rafe discusses the impact of (1) the earth's elliptical orbit and (2) the tilt of the axis of the earth's axis of rotation on setting clocks.  It turns out that even though the earth is spinning at the same rate, the length of a day varys considerably over the course of a year and failure to account for that can lead to errors as big as 15 minutes.

Rafe explains why the days are different length due to these two issues and how the Equation of Time allows you to reconcile your shadow-based sundial and the clock on your phone, and encourages you to use permanent marker on your flows when taking astronomical observations, especially if you have carpet.

#ellipticalorbit #meansolartime #equationoftime #analemma

*****

As always, you can reach the Buf at [email protected]

*****

As you know, this is an independent podcast so your hosts also carry all the expenses of running this podcast. As such, some of you have asked how you can help out. Well, here's the answer: support us on Buy Me a Coffee:

https://buymeacoffee.com/bufnagle

On this page, you can do a really nice thing like send us a couple dollars to help cover the cost of recording and hosting and microphones and research and all that. Any little bit really helps! Thank you in advance!!!

Rafe got a great Christmas gift: the book "The Stones of the Abbey", by Fernand Pouillon.  He's reviewing it for you this week on the Buf.

This historical fiction account tells the story of a master building an abbey in Provence in France in the late 1100s.  Through dated journal entries, he tells the story of the beginning of the construction of the Abbey of Le Thoronet in southeastern France.

Lessons about concerning masonry and framing and quarrying and smithing and all sorts of things associated with building in the middle ages but most of all, this book is a philosophy text, examining Man's role as a creator in his manifestation as Imago Dei.

*****

As always, you can reach the Buf at [email protected]

*****

As you know, this is an independent podcast so your hosts also carry all the expenses of running this podcast. As such, some of you have asked how you can help out. Well, here's the answer: support us on Buy Me a Coffee:

https://buymeacoffee.com/bufnagle

On this page, you can do a really nice thing like send us a couple dollars to help cover the cost of recording and hosting and microphones and research and all that. Any little bit really helps! Thank you in advance!!!

Redropping one of our favorite episodes from December 2024, Harry and Rafe start with the idea of a bleak midwinter, dart down some rabbit holes and tell some stories of old shenanigans, and end up on Christmas carols, in particular Sleigh Ride, O Holy Night, Cradle in Bethlehem, Still, Still, Still, and Joseph's Song.  Particular attention is paid to Paul Cardall's splendid instrumental version of Still, Still, Still, which serves as the intro and outro tunes for the episode.

In the end, they come to the conclusion that Christmas should be done very intentionally to be done well, and that means starting with Advent and then fully embracing the thrill of Hope that Christmas gives to a weary world.

*****

As always, you can reach the Buf at [email protected]

*****

As you know, this is an independent podcast so your hosts also carry all the expenses of running this podcast. As such, some of you have asked how you can help out. Well, here's the answer: support us on Buy Me a Coffee:

https://buymeacoffee.com/bufnagle

On this page, you can do a really nice thing like send us a couple dollars to help cover the cost of recording and hosting and microphones and research and all that. Any little bit really helps! Thank you in advance!!!

Rafe recounts a recent tour of the sawmill at Frank Miller Lumber in Union City, IN, one of the world's largest producers of quarter sawn white oak lumber.  

A high-tech sawmill with state-of-the-art, computer-controlled, laser-assisted saws and dozens of people doing the hard work, Frank Miller Lumber pumps out nearly 1.5 million board feet of quarter sawn white oak every month.  Come along as Rafe describes what was seen and what exactly quarter sawing does for a log.

https://frankmiller.com

*****

As always, you can reach the Buf at [email protected]

*****

As you know, this is an independent podcast so your hosts also carry all the expenses of running this podcast. As such, some of you have asked how you can help out. Well, here's the answer: support us on Buy Me a Coffee:

https://buymeacoffee.com/bufnagle

On this page, you can do a really nice thing like send us a couple dollars to help cover the cost of recording and hosting and microphones and research and all that. Any little bit really helps! Thank you in advance!!!

Rafe tells the tale of a the third (and final) part of a recent trip to France, with stops Orléans and Paris.

Along the way, we'll hear about Joan of Arc, Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris, Sainte-Chapelle, and Basilique du Sacré-Cœur de Montmartre and a host of other things.

*****

As always, you can reach the Buf at [email protected]

*****

As you know, this is an independent podcast so your hosts also carry all the expenses of running this podcast. As such, some of you have asked how you can help out. Well, here's the answer: support us on Buy Me a Coffee:

https://buymeacoffee.com/bufnagle

On this page, you can do a really nice thing like send us a couple dollars to help cover the cost of recording and hosting and microphones and research and all that. Any little bit really helps! Thank you in advance!!!

Rafe tells the tale of a the second part of a recent trip to France, with stops at the Shrine of Our Lady of La Salette and the Basilica of Our Lady of Fourvière (and other places!).

The sun shines brighter, the birds sing sweeter, the food tastes better, when one is surrounded by beautiful things.

*****

As always, you can reach the Buf at [email protected]

*****

As you know, this is an independent podcast so your hosts also carry all the expenses of running this podcast. As such, some of you have asked how you can help out. Well, here's the answer: support us on Buy Me a Coffee:

https://buymeacoffee.com/bufnagle

On this page, you can do a really nice thing like send us a couple dollars to help cover the cost of recording and hosting and microphones and research and all that. Any little bit really helps! Thank you in advance!!!