February 8, 2018 · 23:01

Someplace Special – February 08th

Staples Center, Los Angeles (about row ten or eleven – February 2010)

(About row ten or eleven, almost ten years ago. February 2010. Great concert, not sure that he’s capable of doing a bad one. I remember being freezing cold all night, even though we were indoors – the ice surface that my beloved Kings play on was right under us with just a layer of padding and some sort of hard flooring surface to protect it from us.

Go see a concert. Country, classical, rock, punk, whatever. Stadium seating, a big indoor arena, a place that only holds 100 with no chairs, whatever. Live music is good for the soul. Our souls can use some good these days.)

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Filed under Entertainment, Los Angeles, Music, Photography

February 7, 2018 · 23:31

No Context For You – February 07th

 

The anger sneaks up on you. You think you’re over it, living back in your head instead of your gut. Then in a flash, you’re back in the fire, wanting to set all the bridges ablaze and laugh while you watch them go up.

You don’t, of course. (“This time,” the little voice whispers.) You know how horrible the consequences would be.

But the anger’s like acid, wearing away at the walls of your self-restraint and decades of congealed adultiness.

Which will happen first? Will you find a solution and temper the flames? Or will the anger find a chink that leads to a crack which widens to a fissure which leads to your “responsible as-if” personality cracking like an eggshell with an M-80 inside?

So you breathe. You listen to the Brandenburg Concertos. You calm down. You watch videos of the Falcon Heavy launch. You adult.

And you wait.

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Filed under Deep Thoughts, Paul, Photography

February 6, 2018 · 23:24

They Went! Congratulations!

It’s been said about rocket launches that when you get to 0:00:00 on the clock there are a million things that can happen and only one of them is good.

Especially on a first test flight, we knew SpaceX was going to be cautious, and the weather is one of the things they can’t control. But they had a two-hour long window today and they waited out some high-level wind shear issues.

DAMN was it worth it!

This is the full stream of the launch (which occurs at the 22:00 mark), fairing separation (exposing Elon Musk’s Tesla roadster to space at 25:56), and the landing of the two side boosters (at the 30:00 mark).

If you think the video is spectacular…

That one in the lower right might be THE iconic picture of the year.

And this view from the beach:

The video of “Starman” (the mannequin in the space suit in the Tesla Roadster) kept going for over four and a half hours with the Earth getting a bit smaller with every view:

Congratulations, SpaceX!

Now, when do I get to go?

 

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Filed under Space

February 5, 2018 · 23:30

Go SpaceX! Go Falcon Heavy!

Tomorrow SpaceX will attempt to launch the first Falcon Heavy, which will be the biggest currently flying launch vehicle. The Saturn V was bigger, as was the Space Shuttle – but they’re not flying any more. (Don’t get me started…)

You can watch it online – I might have to have some “executive time” about then to go sit in the car and scream a lot. (It freaks out the office mates.)

What’s SpaceX been up to recently, besides this?

Last week they launched a satellite. Normally these days the recover the first stage booster, but this time they weren’t going to try because the barge they use to land on out in the mid-Atlantic Ocean needed to be used to land one of the three boosters on the Falcon Heavy launch.

Oh, did I forget to mention that they’re going to try to land ALL THREE BOOSTERS from the Falcon Heavy launch tomorrow?

Anyway, because of that they decided to not land the booster last week from the satellite launch. But not ones to waste an opportunity, they experimented with the “landing” anyway. Normally the landing is done by re-lighting one of the nine engines. But what happens if that engine doesn’t re-light correctly? You’re falling like an arrow at a couple thousand miles an hour and you have only seconds before you make a smoking hole.

Maybe you could make up for the delay and the extra speed and the fewer extra seconds by, say, lighting three of the other engines and really freakin’ stomping on the brakes? It’s a high-G maneuver and timing is critical, but on paper it works.

So why not try it when there’s nothing to lose? This booster’s going to be tossed away one way or the other, right? Let’s get the data and fly that profile and have it “land” on the ocean’s surface (no barge) and if we can make it non-violent enough to work if you’re forced to use that method as a backup when there IS a landing spot under you, be it a chunk of Florida coastline or a robot barge.

It landed so gently that it simply tipped over and floated on the surface of the ocean. (Makes sense. If it didn’t crack open it’s 99% empty fuel tanks that that point.)

Even when these folks are deliberately trying to “fail” to get the test data, they still do shit that the rest of us can’t even dream of trying.

Good luck tomorrow, SpaceX! I’ve got an alarm set to try to sneak out of the office.

Give ’em hell.

I’ll be the guy screaming in his car down on the bottom level of the garage.

Again.

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Filed under Space

February 4, 2018 · 23:46

Do We Know How To Party Or What?

Well, not “us” exactly, not in the “us = this household” sense. In that definition, no, we don’t know how to party. We’re dull as two-day old dishwater. But if you mean our neighbors here in the West San Fernando Valley, well then, party on!

At least, one of “us.”

Because of some major sporting event today, the grocery store was as crowded as I’ve seen it outside of maybe Thanksgiving morning. So I had some time while waiting in line to observe my fellow citizens.

Next to us in the “15 items or less” aisle was a couple. Not exactly dressed for church on a Sunday morning, but who am I to judge? It wasn’t their choice of attire that caught my attention however. It was what they had in their shopping cart.

  1. A four-pack of bargain toilet paper.
  2. A half-gallon of the expensive, name brand drinking water.
  3. One cucumber

I’m not one to be jumping to conclusions or looking down on my fellow man, particularly on a Sunday morning in the checkout aisle. But I do give my brain free rein to wonder about the universe around me, and I had to wonder about those facts.

What set of circumstances leads a couple, not just one of them or the other, but a couple together to get dressed and come to the big grocery store, not the convenience market or 7-11, to get those three items?

If you’re going for the premium drinking water, why the bargain toilet paper? Or vice versa.

And the one cucumber?

The mind boggles.

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Filed under Paul

February 3, 2018 · 23:35

Pro Tip – February 03rd

After a very long, somewhat brutal in spots, 12-hour day at the hangar (this is the “relaxing” day after the long week(s) at work), do not drink that truly fine Ace Hard Pineapple Cider if you intend to get any more work done after your 21:00 dinner.

This is not to say that the adult beverage was a bad choice. Not at all. One could successfully argue quite the opposite.

But if there were a deadline tomorrow (and I’m not saying there is), best you be getting a six-pack of that Ace Hard Pineapple Cider and giving it as a peace offering to whoever’s expecting that deadline to be met.

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Filed under CAF, Deep Thoughts

February 2, 2018 · 23:19

Groundhog Day

Simple statement – “Groundhog Day” is a perfect movie.

I just realize this might be the only movie I’ve seen more than the original “Star Wars,” and I was one of those kids who saw it over fifty times just in the theater. But I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if I have seen “Groundhog Day” more times now.

Bill Murray – perfect. His every expression given the circumstances and timing. His growth and change through the movie. The ups. The downs. The enlightenment.

Andie MacDowell – perfect.

The concept – simple. The execution – eloquent.

Go ahead. Prove me wrong. Name one thing wrong, one scene that doesn’t click, one missed beat or missed step.

I triple dog dare you.

“Groundhog Day” is a perfect movie.

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Filed under Entertainment, Movies

February 1, 2018 · 22:41

That Feeling When – February 01st

That feeling when you’ve had yet another long, long day at work toward the end of yet another long, long week at work and you don’t even get to go home yet because you have to go swing by Fry’s (aka “The Seventh Level of Hell“) to get stuff that you need for one of the office systems so you’re just going through the motions until you slowly become a tad more aware only to find yourself confused because the elevator is acting odd by not doing what you’re expecting so you hit the “6” button and again it just sits there with the doors open and not moving and AGAIN you hit the “6” button with a bit more awareness (but obviously not nearly enough) and this time you notice that the illumination on the light when you hit it just blinks off and you hit the “6” button AGAIN and AGAIN it lights for about a millisecond and then goes off and you’re not sure what’s going on only to finally be rescued when someone from the next office come out and get on the elevator while looking at you curiously and you AGAIN hit the “6” button because it will work now that you have a witness but it doesn’t and the guy from next door edges away from you to hit the “G” button so you can leave the sixth floor where your offices are and go down to the “LAAAABY” so you can all go home and all you can mutter in your dawning horror is, “Thanks, man, I don’t know how long I would have been stuck there if you hadn’t come along.”

Then you go get into your half ton of small & zippy automobile and drive out with the rest of the zombies trying to get home.

It’s a wonder any of us make it through the day alive.

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Filed under Castle Willett

January 31, 2018 · 23:17

Someplace Special – January 31st

Springfield, Vermont (probably 1969, might be 1970)

(Ice and cold – could it be coming up on fifty years. This was a time of cold and isolation, everything symbolized by ice and snow, black and white with dirty grey everywhere in between. But there’s that one spot of color – green means go. And with time this world melted and warmed into a place quite beloved in my memory. I survived, as did this grainy, flawed slide, somehow now echoing across the decades. Ice and cold again now, inside if not always out, looking again for that spot of color and a way to hang on and get through. Spring is coming.

But for now it’s only the end of January.)

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Filed under Deep Thoughts, Paul, Photography, Travel

January 30, 2018 · 23:58

Pre-clipse

I’ll be up late tonight, but not late enough to catch a little portion of the start of tonight’s “Supermoon Blue Moon Blood Moon” eclipse. For those of you on the North American west coast who are going to get up early – have fun….

I was out at the hanger on a late-night run earlier and did see this Pre-Clipse view as the moon was headed toward the Earth’s shadow (which would have been to the lower left of the moon I think, not that you could see it).

Those clouds might also be a good reason to not exactly hustle out of bed at 04:00. I’m thinking that not getting into bed until after 01:00 might be another excellent reason!

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Filed under Astronomy, CAF, Photography