But I’ve been in meetings in DC all day. Heading back to LA tonight.
Category Archives: Administrative
Arrived In Mordor On The Potomac
In case anyone was wondering why blogging has been light, I’ve been in the air most of the day and just got into DC, at 2 AM. Probably not a lot more in the next couple days, because I’ll be busy here.
My New Gig
…at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. The pay? So far, this and five bucks will get me a date in Manila. But it’s a useful platform.
Happy 1/1/11
And of course, early this morning, it was 1:11:11, and then, ten hours later, 11:11:11 on 1/1/11.
Anyway, I have a space bleg. I have a vague recollection of a chart that shows all of NASA’s failed attempts to develop a new launcher over the past decades. Does anyone else know about it, and how to find it?
A Very Merry Christmas
To all my readers who celebrate it, whatever their beliefs. We’re having a quiet one, at home, with guests for dinner tomorrow.
[Update a few minutes later]
I got a Green Christmas. A lot of sequestered carbon emissions in my stocking. Again. Yay me.
[Update a while later]
Some worthwhile links for Christmas reading.
Not Too Late For Deals At Amazon
And I still get a cut
It Never Rains In Southern California
…but man, is it pouring now, with reportedly a lot more to come. It’s a real pineapple express, with a stream of moist air three thousand miles out from north of Hawaii. Glad I don’t live in the foothills. Hard to see how they’re going to avoid mudslides this week. But at least we’re building up snow pack in the Sierra.
An Exciting Night
I power washed the patio, balcony and stairs on Sunday, and didn’t get the washer put away, leaving it on the patio (which is upstairs, above the garage — our living area is upstairs and the bedrooms down).
Early this morning, about 1 AM, Patricia was awakened by noise on the patio. She thought she heard someone testing doorknobs, and there were other noises. Suddenly, the security light at the bottom of the stairs came on.
I got up to see what was happening, looked out the kitchen door, and saw a fire on the patio. I ran outside in bare feet, turned on the hose, and put it out. What you see below is the charred remains of the power washer.
Patricia called 911 while this was happening, and they sent a fire truck, even though it was under control. The firemen came, looked at it, and we all stood scratching our heads trying to figure out how it had seemingly spontaneously combusted. But the fire was out, and they shrugged and left.
After we got to bed, I think I figured out what happened. He or they were probably kids looking for an easy house to burgle, couldn’t get in, saw the washer, wondered what it was or how it worked, and picked up the nozzle and pulled the trigger. I had left it plugged in, and the power on. Even with power on, it doesn’t do anything unless the pressure in the hose drops when the trigger is pulled. Unfortunately, there was no water hooked up to it, because I’d turned off the hose and disconnected it when I finished spraying on Sunday, so probably the motor started running attempting to pressurize the non-existent water, which also acts as a coolant. I’m guessing that they held it on long enough that the motor overheated and caught the plastic case on fire, at which point he/they panicked and ran down the stairs.
I’m guessing they won’t be back any time soon, though I suppose we should report it to the police, just for statistical purposes. Normally, it’s a pretty safe neighborhood. This is the first burglary attempt of the house while we were home, as far as I know, in the almost twenty years that we’ve lived here.
[Early afternoon update]
Patricia points out that I’m understating the noise level (I was still half asleep). We actually heard things being shoved around up there, and the patio table was definitely in a new position. If it wasn’t burglars, it was very strong, aggressive and curious raccoons. I’m still going with human-caused disaster.
Sorry, Folks
That last post on the Dragon launch wasn’t supposed to be published — it’s going up at AOL News a little later. It picked up sixteen comments before I realized that I’d hit the wrong button. I’ll look through them and maybe repost them here.
Of All The Times To Lose My Internet Connection
I got up this morning, and had no bandwidth, so I missed the SpaceX webcast, but I watched the launch on Fox News. Poking around some, now that I’m back on line, I see that they went into orbit. I’m assuming that it was a clean insertion (no unanticipated roll, as there was in June). Now comes the fun part. It’s supposed to do just a couple orbits, so it should be entering and coming down in the Pacific late morning, PST. Congratulations to SpaceX on mission success to date.
[Update at 9:17 PST]
Alan Boyle has a story. I’ll probably have one at AOL News later, but I want to wait to see how the entry/recovery goes (by the way, one of my pet peeves is the word “reenter,” which everyone uses, but implies that it has entered before — only the Shuttle has ever done that…).
[Update a few minutes later]
At the request of a commenter, here’s one of the first Youtubes out.
[Update shortly after deorbit burn]
Here’s more video.
OK, I’m hearing that drogue and all three main chutes have deployed. Still no word on first-stage recovery. Anyone else heard anything?