Moving soon

The blog that is!  No, this was originally a joint blog about a change in lifestyle and so on so forth.  I have since commandeered it and turned it into a nerdy/geeky place to post all the cool science stuff I find.  At least stuff that interests me…

Anyway, pretty soon I’ll be moving this and so forth and this domain will eventually fade away but for the time being I have to think of a snazzy name.  Any ideas? I have a few!

A view into my world

So if you were to look through my eyes, usually, you’d see:

I'm not kidding.

Comics and randomness

Believe it or not, years and YEARS ago I used to draw.   A lot.  It’s like a muscle though.  If you don’t work it and practice at it, you get rusty.  Well, I did at least.  I still like to doodle but mostly I like to think of funny little stories or scenarios.  Something like SNL skits or anything along those lines.  I’ve doodled them before but never really did much with them.  I have TONS of comics I drew when I was in middle/high school.  Mind you, these are simple three panel comics – not X-men or Spiderman comics.  I wasn’t quite of that caliber.

I like to think of myself as more of  someone who’d write or help write the story.  So I’ve decided to take my zany ‘one liner’ thoughts and turn them into comic strips here and there.  They are crude stick figures but that means nothing.  The guy over at XKCD has some of the funniest (and cool) stuff I’ve ever seen and it’s predominantly stick figures.  Yes, I’m copying that style in that I’m not an exquisite artist.  I also don’t have time for that.  So little lumpy sticks will express my humor.

Well, today on the way to work we were talking about ‘s-exting’ and a funny thought popped into my head.  Here is that thought in ‘doodle’ form:

I Cannot Drive a Vacuum Cleaner to Work

Preface

Ok, this adventure is just too good to pass up.  I’m actually thinking about writing a comedic novel about door to door salesmen who are vampires.  I want to say this: The product was good; the method of selling it was not.  On top of that, we weren’t going to buy it to begin with.  I’ve gotten way ahead of myself.  Let me back up.  Sit back and enjoy.

Shave and A Haircut

We had gotten home around 6pm and there was nothing unusual about this.  The drive-by mail check; the neighbors kids playing outside; all things nominal.

We headed inside to begin our ritual of changing into comfy clothes and begin dinner.  Not five minutes into our routine, there is a knock on the door.  It’s suspiciously ‘friendly’.  It was the ever so infamous ‘shave and a haircut, two bits’ knock.  The neighbors don’t knock like that.  Family doesn’t knock like that either.  She and I looked at each other as if to ask “who wants to look behind the door?”  What horrors awaited us?  There was only one way to find out.

Upon opening the door, there was a slightly bewildered looking gentleman holding a can of Febreeze.  The first thing he asks is if was a bad time.  I said “Yes, actually it is.” Thinking that was the end of the transaction.  Oh no, it wasn’t.  He said they were in the community offering free carpet cleanings and giving out free gifts; This would explain the Febreeze.  I was hesitant and thought to myself “OK, they’re a cleaning service; I’ll get his card and he’ll be gone.”  So I agreed to let him ‘have a look’ at the carpet.  He then responds “OK, I’ll get my stuff.”  That can’t be good.

She has this look of “NOOOO” on her face as if she just found out her dad was Darth Vader.  I’m already dreading seeing this guys ‘stuff’.  A moment later there’s another knock on the door.  And now, let me explain what stuff is.  Stuff is usually inanimate,  yes?  Stuff is blocks, dirt, clothes, etc.  Well this guy had some special stuff because his stuff had legs and could walk.  Oh wait, right, it was another dude.  What?!

So now these two guys barge into our house and I see it right off the bat: a box that reads KIRBY.

You’re Fired!

So here we are, in our messy house, in our messy clothes and these two salesmen have infiltrated.  Like vampires, we’ve let them into the house.  Problem is we can’t kill salesmen trying to make a buck, damn.  So the first guy, we’ll call him Guy, says “OK, Bob here is going to clean this floor for you and  I’ll be back to pick him up.” Wait, what? Guy says that Bob will help us pick up the floor and clean it because “that’s his job”.  They promised only 15-20 minutes.  Yeah, right.

OK, five minutes ago we’re relaxed and about to cook dinner.  Now we have two strangers hocking their damn vacuum cleaner on us.

Well, Bob gets started into the routine.  We know how it works.  They spend several minutes assembling the damn thing.  Whilst assembling the damn thing they ask questions like ‘How does dirt get into the carpet?’ and ‘Why do you buy a vacuum cleaner?’  What kind of dumb ass questions are those?

Look, hey, Bob, I know your vacuum is five or even ten times better than mine but mine is ten times cheaper.  See how that works?  Math, Bob, math!

So we give the standard ‘dur hur’ answers of: it comes from the outside; to clean our carpet.  What are we supposed to say;  The magical dirty fairy visits us every night and we use the vacuum cleaner to fight him off?

While assembling he also noticed some smudges on the unit.  He then proceeds to flaunt his managerial status and say “I’m going to find out who did this and let him know he is fired”.  Good job, ass.  You’re in our house, at dinner time, complaining about how a guy left smudges on your damn vacuum? Rich!  Granted we let him in but they lied to get in!

The Amazing Technicolor Cheese Wedge!

They put these little white filters into the machine and repeatedly show you how much dirt is in your carpet.  What is funny is that he ran the thing, not kidding, over thirty times in one spot.  It was still getting dirt up.  Now, correct me if I’m wrong but if this thing is so great, why is it still getting dirt up after that many passes? Is our carpet just a cesspool of disgust? (ok possibly) Or does this beg the larger question: Is it even possible to completely, 100%, clean your carpet to look brand new?  I’m going with the latter and my answer is: NO!  Just not possible.  Very clean? Yes.  Perfectly clean? No.  Worth $2500+? Possible, if it isn’t a couple of jerks pitching the sale.

Well we’re getting rather irritated at this pointed but we’re courteous and nice people.  That’s not always a good thing as we tend to be door mats but that’s fine.  Why? Because we take a certain glee in knowing his efforts will be entirely in vain.  Sure, demonstrate all you want.  Ride the damn thing to the Moon! We won’t buy it.  Ok, to the Moon, maybe.

The kids are also providing much in the way of being absolutely zany and curious.

After some thirty minutes of this, we catch a break and my phone rings.  It was a friend asking about attending an event sometime in March.  I leave the room and I’m chatting as I hear the guy say something like “OK, I understand, I’ll give Guy a call…”  What’s this?  He’s leaving?  Score!

Turns out the kids were acting nutty and she said we had to fix dinner or they’d turn into gremlins or something.

Awkward…

So now we have to wait for Guy to come back and pick Bob up.  What kind of crap deal is this?  “OK, I’ll drop you off at a random house and go to IHOP for a short stack, see ya!”

I’d begun to prepare dinner and further extend the message of GO AWAY.  He’s just sitting around chatting it up with us.  This is weird.  We just totally canned the deal and now we have to be nice.  I’m sure he was irritated.  Well what the hell do you expect, Bob?  We’re trying to have a nice evening with the fam and you try to get us to finance something we don’t need.  Yes, we’re not happy either.

Some ten minutes later Guy shows up and off Bob goes.

So, here is what it comes down to:  We’re buying or making or burning or acid etching a sign into some part of our property that says “NO SOLICITING”.  If we want something, we go buy it.  It’s a simple concept!  From now on, anyone knocking on our door will get the picture a lot quicker.

IT’S FRIDAY…FRIIDDDDAAYYYYY

Anyone remember that song that played on Atlanta area stations not very many years ago? It was the 5 o’ clock whistle. It wasn’t a song as much as it was a hodgepodge of various songs that were written for one sole purpose: The Weekend.

Well the last station in Atlanta to play it, to my knowledge, was Z93. This was before it went to crap and turned into DaveFM. Sorry, I hate DaveFM. Naming a station after Dave Matthews… really? Seriously, they played Dave Matthews for 24 hours after the new station identity went live. I was sorely disappointed! More than that, the whistle was gone!

At one point I had downloaded it from the Z93 website and burned it to CD.  Over the years it got shoveled around and eventually I misplaced it.  Perhaps it is still somewhere, on a CD, or something.  Point is, I can’t find it.

All around us, the intersections of space and time are conjoined in the Cosmos

I thought a Google search would promptly alleviate this.  I was wrong.  I kept finding old songs and forums of people saying they remember the good ol’ days.  Screw that!  I want to download the flippin’ song.  Ok, it was free from Z93.  Someone else surely downloaded it and has it for download elsewhere.

Page after page after page of old song lyrics by Glenn Miller, I had given up.  That is, until recently.  I stumbled upon one page by chance that had a version of the song that was mostly in tact.  I downloaded it and even though the sound quality wasn’t super I was satisfied.  Also missing was the entire “Gimme some lovin’” by the Spencer Davis Group.  Shanty by Jonathan Edwards was also in poor condition.  The other songs would suffice.

I used a couple of Zune credits to buy those two songs in MP3 format and patched them in and recreated a masterpiece.  IT’S ALIVE!  Perhaps with more time I can patch in other songs but the voice of the angry, yet elated, fellow yelling “FRIDAY!” is irreplaceable.

So, from me to you, here is the Five o’ Clock Whistle in it’s, almost, original format (if you lived in Atlanta).  That is, this is the best I can remember it.  It might have ended with the guy yelling instead of the song.  Whatever, it works for me.  It’s free and sounds decent.  It makes me want to yell “I FOUND IT… I FOUUUNNDDD IT…I FFFFOUUNNNnnnDDDdd…. it!”

Five o’ clock whistle

Ares I-X is history

The first flight of a new space flight system is in the books.  The first in nearly thirty years.  I say it’s history because no matter what, it is.

If this is the only Ares that ever flies, then it’s something to remember and cherish.  Every time we, as humans, attempt to push the outer limit, it’s something to remember.  A lot of hard dedicated work went into this machine.

If this does end up being the new flight system for our American Astronauts then we were there to witness the birth of a new era.

I read off color and idiotic comments left and right on the test flight.  It really makes me sad.  I can crack a joke as well as the next guy.  The thing looks like a giant toothpick or even a Qtip.  I can laugh at that, it’s comical.

I’m not really sure what people were expecting from a “test” of an “experimental” flight system but it seems that we expect too much.  The common person sees a two minute powered flight that costs him 400 million tax dollars.  Cry me a river.

The savvy person sees beyond that.  We, yes I’m savvy, see the future of mankind.  We see the hopes and dreams of our children.  Putting man into space almost defies definition.  It’s something that invokes a sense of wonder in some people.  Sure, I’m a little biased (ok a LOT).

We, as a culture, only seem to care when a rocket blows up and kills people.   We care little about the titanic effort that gets our men and women into space in the first place.

So, with Ares we will have to sit and wait.  The current White House Administration is going to play a large role in what happens.  I only hope that petty politics do not cloud anything.  Bush put forth the mandate to get to the Moon and retire the shuttle.  So, if something gets canceled out of spite, I’ll be one ill space cadet!

Let me end with a paraphrase from Carl Sagan.

The Earth is the shore of the cosmic ocean.  We’ve waded a ways out and the water seems inviting.

So what are we waiting for?

Bombing the Moon?

Are people serious?  I’ve been following LRO/LCROSS for nearly a year now.  Sadly, it seems people only know LCROSS as an attempt at bombing the Moon.  This is thanks to the media who presumably do a poor job at explaining what this particular mission entails.  My wife told me there were actual protests to LCROSS.  I really don’t understand the big deal.  So, in the next few paragraphs I’ll try to explain what LCROSS actually means.

I’m going to use lots of laymans terms.  First of all I’m not a scientist, but I have enough understanding to know that LCROSS is in no way a “bomb”.  There was no detonation.  There was nothing to detonate.  Having a detonation would have contradicted the mission objective.  I will explain.

LRO/LCROSS launched on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket on June 18, 2009.  I watched the launch, good stuff. LRO (Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter) is notable here because it has taken some incredible imagery of the Moon.  LCROSS stands for Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite.  I don’t see anything referring to a bomb in that name.  Well, if it isn’t a bomb then what is it?  LCROSS is made up of two parts.  There is the shepharding spacecraft and then there is the impacter.

The shephard craft is what will take measurements of everything that the impacter kicks up.  It is actually the LCROSS part.  The other part is a spent rocket stage.  This is important!  The stage is spent.  It was filled with liquid propellant at one point, the majority of which is used in getting the vehicle into space.  The remaining propellants had to be gotten rid of.  How?  Simply by slowly spinning the space craft around it’s center of gravity.  This helped to push all remaining propellants to one end so that they could be purged.

So, no, it wasn’t a bomb.  There was actually a point where the vehicle WAS a bomb.  That’s when it was sitting on the pad, fully fueled.  By the time it reached the Moon, it was nothing more than a 4000 lb. hunk of metal.

Bombing the Moon is out of line and downright wrong.  A better analogy would be that we’re “shooting the moon”.  The spent stage was traveling a little over 5,000mph when it impacted.  That’s a little over 1 mile a second or somewhere around 6000ft/sec.  Now, with that said, 2 tons of metal traveling at that velocity is going to make quite a dent on the surface.  I can almost certainly say that there is nothing left of the Centaur stage.  At the velocity it impacted it’d almost certainly be vaporized!  The key difference is that we’re using energy used to reach orbit nearly 4 months ago – not a weapon or a detonation of any type.

The plume of debris kicked up by the impact is what LCROSS was designed to study.  Is there water in this debris?  That was the burning question.  I believe the data is still being looked over.  This is also why the stage had to be as clean as possible.  They didn’t want contaminants in the debris cloud.

So, to recap, again.  This was not a bomb.  It wasn’t a bomb.  No weapons were used.  No madmen could get their hands on this.  This isn’t a huge conspiracy to test out space warfare.  If you still believe that, then just go back to watching Scyfy, or whatever it’s called now.  If you wish to know why we want to smack the Moon in the first place, keep reading.

Water, water everywhere and wait, where again?  Water, is there.  But we need to know exactly.  Why? Money.

Lets just load up a bunch of Dasani and go! Launching rockets is not cheap.  Cost per pound is in the thousands of dollars.  Think about how much a gallon of water weighs.  Add a crew and how many gallons they need just for consumption.  Oh, now the “cha-ching” sound is starting to rack up.  Solution?  Use what is there.

Problem: you must know where it is.  If you land 30 miles from the nearest extractable water source, then you might as well have landed 1000 miles away.  Future space exploration depends on our ability to use resources available at the destinations we reach.

To conclude, I just want to say I watched this event live.  The impact was so uneventful that I was shocked.  When the impact was announced, I frantically scanned the television for any sign of anything.  There was nothing visible.  That’s the point.  This impact was nothing but a microscopic pin prick to test for water.  Look at the Moon as a whole.  It’s gotten the crap beat out of it.  Guess what?  We didn’t do that.  Space is dangerous!  It’s a shooting gallery.  What we did with LCROSS probably felt like more of a tiny tickle compared to what the Moon has endured.

I can understand people just not knowing what is going on.  I just get irritated with the people we look to for news get it wrong as well.  In their defense, if you see half of a news report, it’s easy to misread context and draw the wrong conclusions.  How unscientific!

Here is my final point.  Do the research yourself.  If you feared the Moon was in danger, you simply needed to Google LCROSS or lunar impacter and a torrent of information would have been available.  That information would (should) have put your fears to rest.  Still, some people just want to get their 15 minutes…

Oh hey I remember this place

Life.  In a word; busy.

So lets recap a bit:

Lots of dental work.
Kids are both a little older.
I’m a little older and feel it.
It’s fall now.

I think I’m ready to retire.  Bring me my black socks and sandals and a house on the beach.  I want to sit back and eat soft serve while I watch rockets lift off from Kennedy Space Center.

On a serious note.  HAHA, serious note? Here?  At any rate, it’s a wonder I found the time to even make this meager addition to my blog.  It went from a “get stuff done” blog to a “it’ll get done when it damn well gets done” kind of blog.  Not a great way to go through life, eh?  Well, each day sort of feels like going through a car wash, sans car.  Getting pummeled and hosed down and by the time you’re done you want a drink and a nap.

I feel bad for our six year old though.  He’s at school all day long and guess what he gets to do when he gets home?  Homework!  EVERY. SINGLE. NIGHT.  Ok, not Friday sometimes.  Seriously, I don’t remember this much homework from that age.  So I’m either losing my mind OR they’re pushing too much crap on kids these days.   Overload warning?  I think we should have him knit socks on top of that too, ya know, to really make him earn his keep.  Well, his day is coming.  Once he’s able to crank and push a lawnmower, yes, I’ll set up a lounge chair outside and sip lemonade while my minions work for me.  Then I’ll take credit, of course.  Not to worry, I’ll pay with candy and donuts!

Anyway, I’m at work now so I should work.  I just thought while BLOGS were on the brain I’d visit my own.  Nice to see it’s still in one piece.  Ok, back at it.

Chevy Volt – It’s Electric! It’s Expensive!

Just a few quick thoughts.  It’s a great idea but is riddled with potential problems.

First, I read that it has an MSRP of $40,000.  Wow.  Ok, but it gets 230mpg!  Well, you still have to plug it in.  That’s fine, if you have a garage or extension cord.  If you live in the city, this might not be a viable option.

I just can’t get past the price tag.  Not to mention how long do the batteries last?  I’m sure the price is hefty due in part to those puppies.  If one needs replacing, am I stick with the bill?

Great concept going forward but right now I don’t think it’s highly practical for most.  Give it a couple of generations (in automobiles, not human generations) and I think it’ll gain more of a following.

Just my opinion!

Twilight Invades Barbie Land

Really?

Sneak a peak here

Now, of course, this has them seeing $$$ but what I want to see is Eddie ‘glitter’ when you shine a bright light on him.  Then it might be worth buying.

I just had to post about that.