Astute viewers of this blog will have noticed that my running data in the sidebar has been updated. Yes, I waited until the temperature dropped below 100°, put on my running shoes, clipped an new Nike+ sensor, and went running around the neighborhood. Ok, it was actually a painful-looking jog, but I got out and did it.
You can also see that my last run was 7/29/07 which was the San Francisco Marathon. No, I really didn’t actually run for 31.82 miles. My Nike unit was not calibrated correctly and read a little high. I forgot to turn the thing off at the end so I did record more than the 26.2 miles and 6h 05m time.
In any case, I’ve been meaning to begin seriously exercising again. Being a single parent, I don’t think I’ll be able to train for another marathon for a while but on the days I don’t have the kids I can go out exercise. Tonight went well. I was able to run almost continuously for 30 minutes with only two short walking periods. I hope to be able to meet a modest goal of running about three miles without walking by the end of July.
Night running around the neighborhood brought back lots of memories of my 2007 training.The heat (98° at 10:00 PM), black widows hanging in webs on the edge of the sidewalk (four total), and I saw someone being arrested.
As many of you know, I just returned from a family reunion in Texas. We spent some time with some family friends in Austin and met some other friends there at the Mexican free-tailed bat emergence on the Congress street bridge. Our Ausin friends videotaped the amazing bat emergence:
We picked up Missy as a stray on a wet winter day in Denver in 2001. She was a friendly black and white cat with a few missing teeth and sharp claws. She immediately dominated and terrified our other three cats but was friendly and nice to her humans. Eventually, she got along fairly well with Spencer and Kooshie but she always had a special disdain for Maggie. Although missing a lot of teeth and pretending to only eat soft food, she would craftily steal french fries and Doritos.
When Boo came along, Missy was an amazing and wonderfully patient cat for the baby to play with. She tolerated, and almost seemed to enjoy, wet sloppy kisses, pulled tails, and baby poking and prodding the cat. Doodle and Missy also got along very well. She would plop down in his “path of terror” and he would plop down right on top of her. As recently as this weekend, Doodle would roar with laughter at Missy flicking her tail at a rambunctious two-year old.
When my wife left in March, Missy was often in my lap or on my chest purring and comforting me. She made a house that was suddenly way too big and too quiet seem cozy, comfortable, and warm.
A few weeks ago, I noticed her appetite begin to wane. She wasn’t begging for food the moment I got home and wasn’t jumping up on my lap anymore. She’d still climb into Boo’s bed when I went to wake her in the morning and would still tip the trash over when I forgot to lock it up. When I brushed her last week, she didn’t fight as hard and I managed to escape without scratches for the first time.
This weekend, it finally clicked to me that something was seriously wrong. Her food was sitting untouched and her litter box was going unused. Her belly was distended and hard. I took her to my vet this afternoon and an x-ray found her belly was full of fluid and some of her blood chemistry was out of whack. The possibilities ranged from dire to moderate illness that at the very least would require a lot of testing and treatment. She needed a lot more work than a simple round of antibiotics. Reluctantly, we decided that the best course was to put her to sleep.
Boo and I spent a few minutes saying goodbye and my daughter comforted me.
We may be saturated with information, but we are also living in an age of ignorance unmatched in centuries. I am completely serious in saying that I believe not a small part of the blame can be laid at the feet of our eviscerated science curriculum, which has undone in one generation the progress of the past 200 years.
People die because of this. Entire ecosystems, maybe our whole planet, are at risk if we don’t start teaching people to understand and value the truth and power that a genuine study of science leads to.
When students enter a science classroom, they should see things they cannot imagine in their wildest dreams. Science, done right, is the most amazing, mind-blowing thing we as a species have ever invented, and we need to show our children that. And although some children will be enthralled at a demonstration of how a sheet of paper dipped in water can spread out the colors in pen ink, I’m sorry, that just doesn’t do it for me.
My heart goes out to the families of the passengers and crew of the Air France airliner that crashed in the Atlantic Ocean on June 1, 2009. Tim Vasquez, who used to do tropical en-route weather forecasting for the US Air Force, does a fascinating analysis of the weather along the route of the doomed Air France flight. It’s well worth checking out his analysis which seems to be much more reasonable than traditional media reports. I agree with his assertion that it was probably severe turbulence that destroyed the plane and that other factors such as icing, lightning, or engine flameout due to ice or water ingestion are unlikely.
Furthermore, many weather experts and pilots have offered very illuminating comments to Tim Vasquez’s web page.
I do hope that the French Navy is successful using their considerable resources to locate the Flight Data Recorder and Cockpit Voice Recorder and that the data they recover helps solve the mystery of this terrible disaster.
Yesterday, I took a chance that NASA would call off a Kennedy Space Center landing of Space Shuttle Atlantis due to continued bad weather in Florida. I left Las Vegas at about 4:00 AM and stopped by my friend Ryan’s to borrow his 400 mm Canon prime lens. I checked the excellent updates on Spaceflight Now a few times while driving (yes, I know that’s really bad) and finally got confirmation that NASA had switched the landing site from Florida to California:
1402 GMT (10:02 a.m. EDT)
CALIFORNIA BOUND. Space shuttle Atlantis will not touch down at Kennedy Space Center to conclude its mission. Persistent unfavorable weather conditions at the Florida spaceport has forced NASA to divert Atlantis’ landing to the backup site at Edwards Air Force Base, California.
The deorbit burn is scheduled for 10:24:41 a.m., leading to touchdown at 11:39 a.m. EDT (8:39 a.m. local; 1539 GMT) to finish the final servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope.
Ideal weather conditions await the shuttle in California’s Mojave Desert today. At landing time, meteorologists are expecting clear skies, good visibility and southwesterly winds of 11 peaking to 17 knots down the runway.
And this:
Altman and company had hoped to close out the 126th shuttle mission Friday with a landing at the Kennedy Space Center. But low clouds and thundershowers at the Florida spaceport forced entry Flight Director Norm Knight to order a waveoff in hopes of better conditions Saturday.
The astronauts ran into more of the same Saturday. Knight considered diverting the crew to Edwards then, but ended up deciding the wave off another day in hopes of better weather Sunday. Atlantis had enough on-board supplies to remain in orbit through Monday and forecasters were predicting slightly better conditions in Florida for the crew’s third attempt.
Conditions were, in fact, better but with offshore clouds and rain threatening to move into the landing zone, Knight ordered another waveoff and diverted the crew to Edwards to close out a high-stakes mission that left the Hubble Space Telescope in its best health since launch in 1990. (Link)
I arrived at a spot adjacent to the Edwards AFB boundary fence and overlooking the base just a few minutes before Shuttle Atlantis arrived. Using the Delorme Map Atlas for southern California, I had located a great spot with a good view of Runway 22. After a few minutes, the Shuttle appeared as a white speck, very high and moving fast.
Soon a double sonic boom announced the arrive of supersonic shock waves at ground level.
Atlantis began to make a 200° turn to the left to align with Runway 22.
Gliding like a pair of pliers, Atlantis dropped 7 times faster than the normal descent rate of a commercial airliner.
Gear down!
Flare!
Touchdown!
Drag chute deployed.
Wheels stop!
It was an awesome experience and amazing to watch. My dad had taken me to Edwards to watch Columbia land on July 4, 1982 (STS-4). We were also treated to see the newly completed Challenger do a low flyby on the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft. Now I need to get to a launch before the Space Shuttle program ends in 2010. Anyone at NASA want to get me a seat in the observation area?
