Monthly Archives: May 2006

Scenes from Space #30

Posted on May 19, 2006 by joel
This picture was taken by the fisheye lens camera on the Huygens probe as in descended to the surface of Titan - Saturn's largest moon. Titan is wreathed by a thick layer of clouds, and its suface cannot be seen from the Earth. This probe was released from the Cassini orbiter on a close approach of Titan, and parachuted down through Titan's atmosphere to land on the surface. Even cooler, if you check on NASA's website you can find a time-lapse video of the descent to the surface, as seen by this fisheye lens. Very cool.

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Seventh Son

Posted on May 16, 2006 by joel
I've been listening to an interesting podcast recently - it's called "Seventh Son", and is acutally more of an ameteur audiobook. It's pretty entertaining so far - especially for something that was free. :)

Here's the premise, direct from the author's website:

7th Son, Book One: Descent is the story of seven strangers who have been brought together after the recent assassination of the U.S. president. These seven men quickly discover they have one disturbing thing in common: They all appear to be the same man, with the same name ... and the same childhood memories.

Unwitting participants in a human cloning experiment, these "John Michael Smiths" have been gathered by their creators for one reason -- to catch the man who murdered the president.

Their target? The man they were cloned from; the original John Michael Smith, code-named John Alpha.

The author has recorded and posted 13 episodes so far (of a planned 24), and if you've got the time and dig sci-fi, check it out!

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Splish Splash!

Posted on May 13, 2006 by joel
When Mommy's away, the boys will play! Lori and her brother James went to a movie and lunch today. That was Lori's Mother's Day present - a "Mom's Day Out". While she was gone, Sean and I went to the store to pick a few things and couldn't resist this kiddie pool for the backyard. Sean was lovin' it! At first, he just gave me a confused look, like "Dad, we're supposed to take baths IN the house". But once he got used to the idea, he started having a ball.

When I eventually took him out (after at least an hour), I wrapped him up in a towel and we sat on a chair near the pool. He cuddled into me and said "da da da" over and over again in a very content, very happy little voice. And every now and then he would lift up his upper body and clap softly while looking right in my eyes. I really think he was trying to find a way to say "thank you". It was great. Sean and I have really been connecting lately, especially in these last few months. I feel like a have a new little best friend.


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Scenes from Space #29

Posted on May 13, 2006 by joel
Skylab was the first space station put into orbit by the United States. The station weighed 75 metric tons, and was in orbit from 1973 until 1979. Unfortunately, the station was only manned for 171 days out of its 2249 days in orbit. One interesting this about Skylab is that it was actually the refitted second stage of a Saturn IB booster rocket, leftover from the Apollo program.

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Making Mud Pies

Posted on May 10, 2006 by joel
Sean hasn't played outside much lately - it's been raining a lot, and the back yard is a mess. The other day we decided to throw caution to the wind (what rebels!) and let him play outside anyway. He spent his afternoon sitting in the mud, and squishing it through his fingers. This probably went on for almost half an hour, and we finally had to nearly drag him away. He stayed surprisingly clean - the damage was more or less isolated to his fingers, and not so much his clothes.


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Hong Kong Shuffle

Posted on May 7, 2006 by joel
I recently bought some super-bright blue LEDs on eBay, in an attempt to get some brighter LEDs for my PWM lighting project without breaking the bank. When the package arrived, it was covered in Hong Kong stamps. When I had purchased them, I guess I just didn't notice where they were coming from. Not that it would have made any difference - but it was a cool surprise to get this envelope and to realize that it had come to me from halfway around the world. I took a couple of pictures of the envelope to share with everyone.


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WoW – Giddy-Up!

Posted on May 6, 2006 by joel
I hit level 40 last weekend in World of Warcraft, and was finally able to purchase a mount. Sweet! Aside from just being able to get around faster, these things are the real status symbol of achieving level 40+. I remember being a low level character, checking out all of the high-level folks heading out of town on their mounts - and how I had to hoof it across the same terrain at half the speed.


I've also come across a couple of cool sights while exploring the world in this game, and you can see a few of screenshots below. The first image reminded me of the huge Christ statue on a mountaintop overlooking Rio de Janeiro. The second image is of a dam in the game world that holds back an enormous lake - I really dig the dwarven faces carved into the dam, with the water spilling out of their mouths. Cool visual.


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Scenes from Space #28

Posted on May 5, 2006 by joel
I saw this picture (taken by Hubble Space Telescope) sometime last week. Isn't it amazing? It always blows me away to see a picture like this, because it reminds me of just how many other stars are really out there. When you hear the numbers, it sounds like such an abstract concept. But to see a picture of even a small portion of sky - taken by a powerful telescope - you really get a sense of how densly packed with stars the sky really is. This picture is of the stars of open cluster NGC 290, which is a cluster of young stars that lies about 200,000 light-years distant in a neighboring galaxy called the Small Cloud of Magellan (SMC).

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