Category Archives: General

General, Space

Senseless

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I just got some bad news. When I saw this story at NASA Watch, I recognized the name, but hoped that it wasn’t the Darren Spurlock with whom I’d worked three years ago on the CE&R studies for NASA, back before Griffin came in and decided to implement his own ESAS architecture. That Darren was at least a decade younger than fifty, and he worked at Boeing. But it seemed unlikely to me that there would be two aerospace engineers in Huntsville with that name.

Sadly (though of course it would be tragedy regardless of which Darren Spurlock died) I just got off the phone with one of his Boeing former colleagues. The paper got the age wrong, and he had left Boeing to work for Marshall only three weeks ago. I never met his wife, but want to extend my condolences to her. I believe he left a young family. I’ll be getting info about memorial services, and post them when I get them, for those interested in the Huntsville area.

I didn’t know Darren that long–the CE&R study was my only work with him, but he was a good man, a good, smart hard-working engineer, and he worked very hard to come up with and document architectures that would be affordable and sustainable in getting us off the planet, in consonance with the president’s Vision for Space Exploration. He was as frustrated as anyone when NASA basically ignored everything we’d done under Steidle to come up with the current…plan. But he moved on, obviously, and must have been looking forward to doing good things at the agency itself. Now, senselessly, a valuable career and valuable life have been cut short.

[Evening update]

This post now comes up numero uno in a search for “Darren Spurlock.

Who knoweth the ways of Google?

General, History

Memorial Day

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I’ve been busy working on an article, and finishing the gutters (all done now except strapping the downspouts, because the straps I got are too short), so no posting today. But I did want to note the history of the holiday, for those unaware. Unlike Veteran’s Day, it’s not a day just for remembering war dead, but dead loved ones in general. I remember as a child that my grandmother would always go up to her home town of Beaverton, Michigan (sometimes stopping by on the way home from our cottage by Houghton Lake) to put flowers on her husband’s (my grandfather, who died when I was six) grave.

Administrative, General

Busy Weekend

7 Comments

Slow posting because I’m finishing up painting and starting a new project–reguttering the front where we removed the gutters over the garage, and putting them in on the rest of the front of the house where there was never any, but now we have new landscaping to protect from the rainy season which starts in a couple weeks.

The challenge is that it turns out that the roof fascia board slopes in the direction opposite the one that I want it to in order to put one of the down spouts at the end of the house. In fact, the whole house seems tilted slightly toward the east three inches or so end to end (probably settling toward the intracoastal, since it was built on fill). So it works fine for the east spout, but not so much for the west one. Which means an ugly angle on the westward side to force the water to run uphill, so to speak. Still not sure what to do about that one, but now I know why the old gutter never worked very well…

The other joyous part of the adventure is that the fascia isn’t vertical, as the hangars expect–it’s seventeen degrees off with a slight overhang. So I get to cut a bunch of wedges from two-by-four to make up the difference. Which is where our new Craftsman double-bevel mitre saw, that we got for crown and base molding installation (which I haven’t started yet) will come in handy.

I’ll also add that laser levelers are well worth having. It would have been a real PITA to figure this out with a standard bubble and tacked string.

General, History, Popular Culture

Remembering Slim Chipley

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Most of my readers will find this of no interest at all, but I just ran across a new blog dedicated to remembering the good old days in Flint, Michigan. Nostalgic memories abound.

The population trend in the sidebar is depressing. When I was a kid it had a population of almost two hundred thousand, and there was an ongoing feud with Grand Rapids over whether it or Flint was the second largest city in the state (after Detroit, of course, which had its own hemorrhage of people). Now it’s down to just a little over half that.

[Update in the evening]

OK, again, unless you’re from southeast Michigan, this will be meaningless, but via the blog above, I found a coney blog. That actually understands the difference between Flint and Detroit style.

And there are those who say that it’s a lost art. For many, Angelo’s defined the Flint coney island, and once he died (my father was in the hospital with him at the same time, as they both had heart attacks in the late sixties), it became franchised, and lost the magic. But my mother used to tell me (and we even went there when I was young) that the original Flint Coney Island, on Saginaw, north of downtown, was the best. But it went under decades ago.

Anyway, I’m glad to hear that it’s a hit in Phoenix. Maybe we can keep the brand alive.

My darling Patricia doesn’t understand the appeal. But then, she’s not a fan of raw onions. Nor is she a fan of me after I ingest them. But once in a while, I have to indulge, consequences be damned…

General

The World’s Ten Scariest Runways

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I’ve only flown into three of these, but as I was reading, I wondered if they would mention Saba. Sure enough, it’s number ten. I don’t recall either JFK or St. Maarten being that scary, from a passenger perspective, but we flew into there on our way to Saba, which is quite an experience. As noted, it is a very short runway, with a dropoff over a cliff into the ocean if you don’t stop on time. They fly very short takeoff/land planes in there. We flew in with a naval aviator and his wife who were stationed at Rosie Roads in Puerto Rico, and he said that it would be good training for a carrier landing, except that it was a lot more stable.

Anyway, it was worth it. A very quaint little Dutch tropical island, with a couple nice hiking trails around and up the mountain, with great views of Anguilla, St. Maarten/St. Martin, Nevis and other northern windward islands. And a marine preserve, for great diving.

General

The World’s Ten Scariest Runways

I’ve only flown into three of these, but as I was reading, I wondered if they would mention Saba. Sure enough, it’s number ten. I don’t recall either JFK or St. Maarten being that scary, from a passenger perspective, but we flew into there on our way to Saba, which is quite an experience. As noted, it is a very short runway, with a dropoff over a cliff into the ocean if you don’t stop on time. They fly very short takeoff/land planes in there. We flew in with a naval aviator and his wife who were stationed at Rosie Roads in Puerto Rico, and he said that it would be good training for a carrier landing, except that it was a lot more stable.

Anyway, it was worth it. A very quaint little Dutch tropical island, with a couple nice hiking trails around and up the mountain, with great views of Anguilla, St. Maarten/St. Martin, Nevis and other northern windward islands. And a marine preserve, for great diving.

General

The World’s Ten Scariest Runways

I’ve only flown into three of these, but as I was reading, I wondered if they would mention Saba. Sure enough, it’s number ten. I don’t recall either JFK or St. Maarten being that scary, from a passenger perspective, but we flew into there on our way to Saba, which is quite an experience. As noted, it is a very short runway, with a dropoff over a cliff into the ocean if you don’t stop on time. They fly very short takeoff/land planes in there. We flew in with a naval aviator and his wife who were stationed at Rosie Roads in Puerto Rico, and he said that it would be good training for a carrier landing, except that it was a lot more stable.

Anyway, it was worth it. A very quaint little Dutch tropical island, with a couple nice hiking trails around and up the mountain, with great views of Anguilla, St. Maarten/St. Martin, Nevis and other northern windward islands. And a marine preserve, for great diving.

General, Popular Culture, Technology and Society

I Know What He Means

5 Comments

Lileks:

The Piccadilly was knocked down for the Marriott Marquis, which is really one hell of a hotel. I stayed there for a week; loved the rooms and the hotel and the location, but I absolutely hated the glass elevators. Practically had to huff a bag of laughing gas to get on the things.

It’s a problem with Marriotts in general. The large atrium with the glass ‘vators seems to be a trademark. I hate them. They don’t seem to take into account the acrophobes among us.