Month: February 2008

Behold the power of the internet… already there are hundreds of eclipse photos on Flickr. Here’s one that’s a bit fuzzy, but I liked the wispy icy clouds:

And here’s one that was actually taken last year but is an impressive shot:

It’s amazing how nature is so beautiful at times.

Sadly, tonight’s lunar eclipse was marred by cloud cover. Around 8:30 the clouds cleared a bit, leaving some wispy ones floating around the moon, and I was able to take a few pictures.

It’s always cool to see the moon turn red (apparently a result of sunlight refracting through Earth’s atmosphere) and even cooler to see the curve of Earth’s shadow. The photo doesn’t really do it justice, but I enjoyed the sight anyway.

I’m listening to Joga’s “Dam Dariram”, which is a song included on Dance Dance Revolution Ultramix 2 and has a great beat. The lyrics aren’t too bad:

But then you get to the refrain:

Whoa. I guess they couldn’t think of any words so they sort of threw together a bunch of syllables that sounded catchy.

Mmm… today marked my return to ultimate for the year. I haven’t played since November (when the weather was amazing) due to weather, trips, work, illness, and general laziness. So I hit the field today, along with a dozen other guys who also haven’t played for three months, and we had a good time in the (relatively) warm weather.

Of course it reminded me how out of shape I’ve become during the course of the winter…

Here’s a cool photo from our trip to Idaho a couple of weeks ago. There were some pretty serious blizzards in northern Utah, but on the day we drove through the area it was a beautiful (but cold) sunny day.

Zack and Alex have been asking for months if we can play “that game with the little figures”. They’re talking about Axis and Allies, of course, which has a gazillion miniature tanks and fighters and battleships. So today, at long last, we pulled out the game and played it as sort of a birthday party for me.

I warned them that a full game of A&A takes about five or six hours, so most likely they would get bored pretty quickly. Also, it’s fairly complicated and probably not really intended for a six-year-old. But we pressed forward, spent about forty minutes sorting the pieces and setting up the board, and then started playing.

They lasted two turns and were ready to call it quits and go outside to jump on the trampoline. Honestly, that’s about one turn more than I expected.

So I guess we won’t be playing A&A any time soon, although one of these days they’ll be old enough (and patient enough) and we’ll have a good time.

Today’s my birthday, of course, and I got some sweet goodies from my pal Rick. He works at Google and told me to pick out a couple of things from the Google Store. So I scored a really nice pullover, which I’m wearing around the office today.

Tony and Luke picked up everything from water bottles to LED crank flashlights to tote bags. Laralee got a nice jacket, and the kids got glow-in-the-dark yo-yos. Rick threw in four lava lamps (yes, lava lamps) which are awesome.

Thanks, Google!

I’ve been watching the saga of the dying spy satellite with vast amusement. It seems that in the next few weeks a big (multi-ton) U.S. satellite is going to deorbit due to lack of fuel, and come crashing to earth. Somewhere.

The “somewhere” is the problem– it’s unlikely the entire satellite will burn up in the atmosphere, so some pieces of it are almost certain to hit ground. And at this point it’s virtually impossible to know where that will happen. Since it’s a spy satellite, it’s in an orbit that’s specifically intended to take it over land and populated areas as much as possible. I imagine the odds are still pretty good that it would land in ocean (since that’s 75% of earth’s surface) but apparently The Gov has decided to take no chances.

So they’re going to blast it out of the sky with a missile. The official story is that the government is concerned about the dangerous hydrazine fuel on board, and how terrible an effect it would have on people who find the crumpled remains of the satellite and– I don’t know– decide to drink the fuel or something.

This is the funny part to me. The whole reason the thing is coming down is because it has no fuel left. If it had fuel– even a little– they could use a deorbit burn to push it down and intentionally crash it into the ocean somewhere. Thus, the story about the toxic fuel causing problems for Auntie Em who finds it is almost completely unbelievable.

The truth, as anyone with the brains of cabbage could tell you, is that The Gov is worried the satellite will end up in China or somewhere that a handful of smart engineers could get the pieces, dissect them, and figure out some of our super duper spy technology. It has absolutely nothing to do with hydrazine, and everything to do with protecting secrets.

My question, I suppose, is why they don’t just come out and say that. Why not admit that they’re worried about technology falling into the wrong hands? Heck, Bush could even use the mysterious specter of The Terrorists and say he doesn’t want al-Qaeda to find the parts. But no. They concoct this incredible story about dangerous fuel, probably knowing full well that even a mildly retarded ferret could figure out the truth.

Laralee says the reason is that (and I quote) “They don’t even know how to tell the truth any more.” And in a way, I wonder if that’s true. The Gov is so accustomed to lying about its activities– clandestine or otherwise– that they can’t even come out with a true statement when everyone knows what’s going on.

Personally, I hope the thing plows into the White House or Pentagon in a spectacular fireworks show. That would be poetic justice.

Laralee just came back from the store with a bunch of grapes (“bunch”– get it? hah!).

Our kitchen looks like a freaking winery.