Tweets From The Accidental Space Tourist
I've never flown before and I'm all for security, but this showing up
two days early thing is ridiculous
WORST SECURITY SCREENING EVER. Exhausted. Do they expect me to carry
the plane in case of emergency? Thank God for Zumba at the Y
@danielleNYC I'm headed to Star City
@danielleNYC No, I mean literally - it's a township in Russia
If they want to bring prices down they'll have to fit more than six
people in the plane. At least there won't be any crying babies
@danielleNYC I'm sure the travel agent knew what I was talking about
Tweeple, please disregard my earlier endorsement of Hastings Executive Travel.
@GODDAMNEVERYONE YES I GET IT NOW YOU CAN STOP SENDING ME LINKS
@porterMD Yes I did notice the ticket price was high. I thought it was
a package deal
@porterMD hotel, tours, that sort of thing
@charliejr Well she wouldn't be a "mail-order" bride if I met her in
person, so you can shut up now
Everyone says @richardbranson is a great guy. Apparently he is a
"great guy" that doesn't believe in refunds.
@danielleNYC no, I don't want to be set up on a date with your sister
again after what happened last time
No iPhones allowed on board so no updates for a bit
That was like carrying a sofa on my face while hurtling through a wind
tunnel followed by 5 minutes of "Fascinating Puke Experiments"
@danielleNYC No, that was referring to the date. The flight was amazing!
In yet another example of Santa as Salesperson, Amazon has taken Christmas wish lists to new heights. Why would a kid of any age bother to write a letter to the old man and mail it to the North Pole when, with Internet skills or savvy parents, everything a person needs is posted for all the world to see—and fulfill?
I hate it, and I love it. It’s crass commercialism at its highest level. Amazon has linked with vendors of every type of merchandise imaginable. Shoppers can not only see exactly what the wish-lister wants and the price of the items, with a mouse click they are taken via hyperlink directly to the site to buy. No need to even ask, “What would you like for Christmas?” It’s there in technical detail. Once bought, that item is then marked fulfilled, so there is no duplication on gifts. So impersonal, so brilliant.
I use it, even though I have a personal vendetta against Amazon for its attempts to take over the publishing world. Our kids and grandkids are all on the mainland, and as often as we communicate, I have no idea what their needs are. Island living adds freight charges to bring merchandise into local stores, which is then compounded by mailing costs to send items back across the ocean. Amazon delivers, and on some items this year, without additional shipping charges. Truthfully, there isn’t much in Hawaii that our kids need. Tropical prints, aloha shirts, chocolate mac nuts have limited appeal, even to island-raised kids.
So gone are the days of browsing the shopping malls with suggestions for each person on my list. Gone are the wrapping paper, ribbons, gift tags and—to borrow from a familiar song—brown paper packages tied up with strings. My favorite things bows to the convenience and wisdom of Amazon.commercial.
Amusing and informative video from UNCG!
Oh Balloon Boy is a song about, well, you know. My favorite review of it is: "I didn't think I could possibly like anything about the balloon boy. I was wrong." There was a songwriting challenge for something topical, so I wrote the words based on an old tune, and someone else put the words to a different tune and the result is a fun pop/rock ballad.
Over on Flickr, I uploaded and organized most of the pictures I took from the early days of moblogging (dating back to 2002) with various experimental cameraphones (including the one that took tiny 120 x 90 pics). Lots of lo-fi, light-leaking fun.
Also on Flickr, I finally scanned and uploaded pictures from a cross-country trip we took back in 1997. Taken on real film and everything.
And of course the big summer project was Angry Octopus Comics, a webcomic I worked on with Zoe. When we were done for the summer, we made a video about it:
That's all for now, but hopefully more random stuff to come!
Human flights outside of Earth orbit taking a big step today.. hopefully..
** Update 10/28/09 11:45 EST: Congratulation, NASA. You've put us back on track for real space exploration and a future which includes space migration to other worlds. Thank you.
_________________________________________________________________
As I sit watching the live web broadcast from Florida's Kennedy Space Center, I think back to my pilgrimage to that holy place two years ago. While there, I got to do such nerdy things as being able to lay my hands on the Saturn 5's mighty F-1 engines, with its thrust capability of over 1.5 million pounds each (the rocket had five of them!). I also got to see one of the few remaining Saturn 5 rockets, laying down on display as if it were sleeping. It was a moving experience, being a child of the 60's and watching moon-rocket launches as a kid and always wondering why we stopped going there.
As the Ares I-X launch vehicle sits on pad 39-B, in the shadows of its predessors from that bold Apollo era of (relatively) low-technology, I feel moved and inspired that once again humans are beginning to reach beyond the low Earth orbit of the International Space Station and to finally begin true space exploration. As I write this, the launch is already in delay by several hours due to weather. Not a storm by any means, only that the wind is slightly over the 20 knot limit that the launch protocol permits.
Frustrating stuff, that wind. But on the bright side, the Ares program has come together surprisingly quickly (for a government agency) and doesn't use the finicky liquid fuel that the Saturn 5, Saturn 1B and even the later Shuttle used for its main engines all used. Instead, the Ares uses a nice and easy to deal with solid fuel - no refrigerants!
Unless the wind changes in the next few minutes, the launch is a scrub for today. But there's always tomorrow.. the moon will still be there. Its just beautiful to see another moon-capable rocket on 39-B, carrying on in the footsteps left behind on the moon, 37 long years ago.
A beautiful morning in Limerick
