messiestobjects

Area 48... Area 49... Area 50... Area 51! Ready Or Not, Here I Come!

    So leapfrogging back over the last inexplicable post, remember when I said that we go to Europe for castles, history, sexy accents and beer, and that they come here for the amazing landscapes, New York City, sexy accents, and... um. Definitely not the beer? Well, Death Valley has a castle for those of us who can't go to Europe whenever we want, and in case Europeans get homecastlesick. On our way out the next morning (after a fabulous night in the 50s-fancy Furnace Creek Inn thanks to a room upgrade) we hit Scotty's Castle.

    Scotty was a con man who convinced some rich dude to invest in his non-producing gold mine, and the rich guy built the place so he could be near his investment. By the time that the gold mine fell through and Scotty had disappeared, Rich Dude had discovered that the desert was good for his health, so he stayed.

    Interesting place, but not so interesting that we wanted to pay $30 to take a tour. We left Death Valley and took the sceneic drive back to Las Vegas, revisiting a cool place I went to once before...

    Yup. That small outpost of humans just outside of Area 51, Rachel Nevada. In fact the long route from Death Valley goes north, east, and then south for about 300 miles and circumnavigates the gigantic military installation which houses Area 51 as well as the Tonopah Test Range where if you look at it from google maps, you can see the hundreds of gigantic craters left from the nuclear bomb tests they were doing all throughout the 50s.

    The road that travels along the north end of Nellis Air Force Base, State Route 375, is known as the Extraterrestrial Highway.

    Of course we stopped in at my favorite American diner, the Little A'Le'Inn, for lunch. Damn fine cuppa coke, alienburger, and shoestring fries.

    On the last occasion I visited Rachel, I was stopping in at the Inn when this crazy ass Donnie Darko-lookin' storm rolled in out of nowhere, and I got a cool shot similar to this of this tow truck and Inn sign out front.

    After lunch, I chatted up the employees and asked them if they'd mind if I published the shot, if I ever had the oportunity. There's this whole thing about property releases that the sign in the photo necessitates. So the owner, Pat Travis, was in and she came out and asked to see the picture. I pulled out my laptop and showed it off:

    And she said she'd sign a release on the condition that I send her a copy to hang in the diner! She may have simply been being polite, but she does have a lot of stuff hanging on her walls in there so there's a good chance that any future visitors will see my picture in there. And in any case she signed the back of a card for me so, it's a win-win.

    From there, Julie and I headed over to Area 51.

    The famous black mailbox. It's funny because lore had it that it was some sort of secret drop-off box for Area 51, when in fact it's just a mailbox for a local rancher named Steve Medlin. He has had to take extreme measures to make it secure because people keep vandalizing it; he's repainted it since the last time I was here.

    And then the 5 or 7 mile dirt road journey to the anti-climactic border of Area 51.

    I have this juvenile glee for taking pictures of signs that say photography prohibited, and then pulling out my zoom lens for close-ups of seeeeeecret things. Like this strange alien-shaped spy device looking down on us from a hilltop.

    Or these creepy guys in this creepy truck looking down at us through creepy binoculars from a creepy hilltop.

    Rumor has it that if you step one toe over the border into Area 51, these guys will rush down and arrest the fuck out of you and take you to a local county jail, where you have to pay a $500 fine. Kind of not so scary... If I had a bunch of money and I wanted to risk losing my job I'd seriously consider making a break for it, just for laughs. I've been cuffed by military types before; it's more funny than intimidating.

It's All About The Little Differences

I was in San Diego for a week and on one of my days off, naturally I headed down to Tijuana Mexico. There's not much to see there, but I wanted to get a real Mexican taco and some cheap prescription medication. Specifically I was looking for a topical creme (none of your business!) that even with a prescription here in the land of the medically fleeced is wicked expensive. Also I was thinking of picking up some prescription strength ibuprofen because the constant long flights criss-crossing the land of ridiculously high medical care costs can get tedious in my lower back and ass-bone area.

These are pretty much the only pictures I got in Tijuana, but I have more border town follies to tell. Luckily, I also visited the Mount Palomar Observatory while in Southern California and there's not much to tell about that trip so I'll punctuate my Mexican tale with those pictures instead.

So randomly, I chose one Mexican pharmacy out of hundreds; a tiny corner shop that I liked the look of. I went in and the proprietor introduced himself as Federico. I asked him if he had my topical creme (shut. up.) and he did, and then I asked him about my ibuprofen. He had it of course but it was a bit expensive for me so I opted not to get it there and maybe shop around a bit first.

So as I was purchasing the topical creme Federico pulls up a bottle from behind the counter and asks me if I like Tequila. I stutter for a moment but what is one supposed to do in such a situation? I say well sure, who doesn't? So we do a shot of tequila together. I then sputter a bit with the tequila shivers, but it's actually pretty smooth stuff and I enjoy my shot. I say well that's mighty nice of you Federico, thank you very much. He says hang on hang on, want another?

So we're hanging out for a while, chatting about this or that, doing shots of tequila in this pharmacy over the counter in broad busy daylight and I think, "Mexico is different." Then he asks me why I wanted the prescription strength ibuprofen for and I explain to him about my lower back pain and all of that. So my new friend ducks down under the counter again and pulls out a large blue pill and hands it to me with another shot of tequila and says to try this one out. I of course take it because I trust this mad chemist completely, for some reason (I'm guessing it had something to do with the tequila but I suppose we'll never know for certain). "What is it?" I ask, putting down my empty shot glass. "Vicodin my friend," he says. "Wonderful," I reply.

I had sprained my foot jogging on a hotel treadmill earlier and I quite forgot about it during my afternoon in Tijuana. I had the nicest time, walking about, buying a cup full of salty pomegranate seeds from a street vendor. I got my taco and a cerveza too, and they were delicious and I felt very good and nice.

My job in San Diego was on a Navy Base, and the next day I was talking to one of the Navy guys in the class telling him about my trip to Tijuana and he got all weird on me. He said "You went to Tijuana?!" And I was kind of like uh, yeah why not? It's like 15 minutes down the road, what's the big deal? And apparently the big deal is that the military has forbidden servicemen to go into Mexico while off duty because of all the drug cartel related violence down there. He was telling me how people are getting killed there all the time, or kidnapped, even American bystanders and I was thinking huh, I'm glad I went and had such a nice relaxed time there without knowing about all of that.

Mount Wilson Observations And Coronal Messy Ejections

Stuck in LA for three days because of mass flight cancellations due to Hurricane Irene while Julie is at home alone filling the bathtub with water and battening down the hatches, and what do you do? You find the coolest thing in LA and go there. The Mount Wilson Observatory is up the road past Pasadena, high up on top of Mount Wilson overlooking the city and as George Ellery Hale surmised in 1904, a really good spot to put an astronomical telescope or two.

This of course was before LA was a smog and light-polluted blight on the planet and, due to the natural inversion layer there which causes the temperature of the air to increase with height, was a doubly good spot as a side effect of the inversion is that Mount Wilson hosts some of the steadiest air in the country. I suppose the reason this is good for astronomical observations being that stars twinkle less and you can get a better look at them. The inversion also happens to be a major cause of smog, as it traps the noxious gases and helps keep them there, but whaddyagonnado.

But in 1904, the smog and the light pollution were not an issue and as a result some very important Astronomy was performed here, and I love to pay homage to historic scientific sites. As per my hit or miss luck with such things, I happened to arrive on the day when they conducted the very first ever paid tour of the Observatory, and as a result was among the first of the public ever to be conducted inside the building housing the 100-inch Hooker telescope, pictured in the first photo on top, but we'll get to that in a bit. Now this is a picture of a picture on display in the small museum there that tickled my funny bone:

If you are familiar with the Astronomical bestiary, you will know that pictured above is not in fact a nebula, spiral or otherwise, but a Galaxy as noted in the smaller print underneath. This picture was taken, printed, and on display here at Mount Wilson at a time before Astronomers knew about Galaxies! That killed me. They thought it was only 10,000 light years away, when in fact it is now known to be about 23,000,000 light years away, and 100,000 light years in diameter. We've come so far in just one century in our understanding of the size and scope of the Universe.

The above picture was taken inside of the 150 foot tower, (the one in the middle in the 2nd picture of this post) which is in fact a solar telescope that is still in use. As part of the first paying tour group we were allowed inside to meet an astronomer working on it, and to see some real time sun activity.

I couldn't set up my tripod in such tight quarters so this is not the clearest picture I could've got, but that is the sun, as reflected onto the viewing plate directly through the lens and 150 feet of tower. Now, I could be sensationalistic and say that those are actual sunspots that we got to see, but the fact is that what you can't see in the picture is that those spots are on a small piece of paper which he put down next to the actual, much smaller sunspots which we were able to see but which the brightness of the sun has washed out in the photo. He did this as an exercise in comparison; the big ones you can see are a copy of the largest spots ever observed at this telescope, and the ones not visible in the photo were the actually occurring at that moment, and were the size of the Earth. So those spots you can actually see there are in reality tens of times larger than our whole planet.

They had a couple of walls of this kind of Data in there, and I love that stuff. One other thing about sunspots; relative to the rest of the surface of the sun, they are much cooler and therefore appear to be black, shining far less brightly. In reality they still range in temperature from about 2727–4227 °C and would still burn the fuck out of your eyes if the sunspot light was isolated. One photo on the wall caught my attention as an example of what you can do with a little planning and a really really good telephoto lens, or an astronomical camera advantage.

Love it! What a cool photograph. They also had some other very interesting pictures hanging on one wall. Apparently Einstein and Hawking both visited on various scientific errands.

So that's how star hunting is done in LA, for real. Messiestobjects style. And so last and best was the 100-inch Hooker telescope. Obviously it's quite large; the 100-inch refers to the size of the lens. This is the building it's housed in.

In we went and up some stairs and voila, scientific glory.

Using this telescope, this fabulous beautiful piece of machinery, Edwin Hubble discovered that those Nebulae were in actuality Galaxies. Rather than oddly shaped clouds of dust and gas, they were in fact gigantic, amazing whirling structures of stars, millions and billions of stars. Structures of a size to rival what we thought previously to be the size of the entire Universe, all there was, our own Milky Way. And once again, our own personal size and place in the cosmos was reduced, yet our understanding of it made more unimaginably awe-inspiring.

This is also where Hubble and an assistant discovered the redshift, the indication that our Universe is expanding rather than static as Einstein had hoped. More than many other such places I've visited, standing underneath this historical object really gave me a glimpse of the scientific endeavor and it's awesome sense of the joy of discovery.

At any rate, it was awesome, but I still had three more nights and two full days, stuck in that helLA hole. So I decided to get out. I went down to Palm Springs, got a nice little hotel, sat in a salt water pool and jacuzzi, and ate a bunch of good food. I took no pictures because it was a dreadfully dull place and is a good example of the occasional downside of my job.

'Going In Circles' Would Be The Name Of My Travel Show

Well I finally had a job last week. Don't get me wrong, it was awesome being home for a month, being with my family, working out, gathering and cutting wood for the winter. But I definitely appreciate the balance in my life of being domestic then being on the road then being domestic then being on the road, etc. etc.

My work was actually in Ridgecrest, California. Normally I'd fly into Las Vegas and drive through Death Valley, and I was actually looking forward to it as it's one of my favorite drives and I haven't been out that way yet this year. But then I noticed on the map that if I flew into LA instead, I'd drive right through Mojave on the way to work.

Mojave Air & Space Port is of course the home of Scaled Composites, who are famous for being the design team behind SpaceShipOne, the craft which won them the Ansari X Prize for being the first company to successfully launch a privately funded, manned space flight.

And there it is. Actually it's a replica, which irritates me. The original is hanging in the Smithsonian's National Air And Space Museum right next to the Spirit of St. Louis. I was there a few years back and saw it, but it seems like it should be at Mojave, the site of it's triumph.

The other thing that irritated me is that if it's a replica, why do they shut it in a glass tomb that you're not allowed to go in? Hard to get a decent picture on a sunny day. I guess I can console myself with the HDR shots that make reflections look somewhat arty, where no art credits are deserved.

I took the 5 dollar tour of the airfield. There was no other space related stuff that I saw out there, but I saw Scaled Composite's work hangar, though it was closed. They are currently working on SpaceShipTwo in there. Which will be test flown at Mojave until it's ready for its first commercial spaceflight. Which will take place at Spaceport America in New Mexico. Which is currently under construction where I went and blogged about a few months back. It's the circle of messiestobjects, man.

Exciting, right? But what was cool about the tour is that the airport actually serves as a dumping ground for planes. Whenever airlines want to retire a plane or just store one somewhere for a while, Mojave is one of the places they do it at. Their HUGE plane yard was full of old wrecks, planes used for spare parts, and planes on sabbatical. It was totally wild and a photo shoot there would yield some fascinating gains, no question. But I wasn't allowed to take pictures, it was screamingly frustrating. Apparently the airlines don't like pictures of wrecked planes and whatnot circulating around out there because they feel its bad for their image, which is silly of course. However you know how they won't show movies on planes about bad things happening to planes, so they are famously touchy about that stuff after all.

I snuck that one photo after the tour from the road with my telephoto, which tells you nothing about how awesome the place really was. Those are resting planes, you can't even see the junkers unless you're deep in Mojave airport territory. One really fun thing about the tour: there was this couple who were on it with me and the guy was a huge plane nerd. He recognized all the different types and was ohhing and ahhing and saying stuff like "Check out that old 7blah blah something 7 fuselage just lying there! Awesome!" or "Man, I haven't seen one of those engines in years!" And his wife, who was less technically savvy was nonetheless as weird about it as he was. She was into them for different reasons: "I love those old USAir planes! I prefer the old color scheme to their new one." Or, "Oooh! There's an old Continental! Those are my favorites" (She declared those old Continentals to be her favorites at least 4 times) Or, upon seing an old Aloha Air (which no longer exists) plane; "Wow, look at the artwork on that tailfin! It looks so 70's, very groovy!" It was hysterical, but I couldn't laugh because they were very serious about it. It was like they were birdwatching and going nuts over the plummage.

Anyway, after Mojave, and on my way back to LA after completeing my work in Ridgecrest, my flight home on Saturday morning was cancelled due to Hurricane Irene. It took me hours to get someone at the airline on the phone to reschedule, and by the time I did the earliest they could get me home was Tuesday. Stuck in LA for 3 days! LA kind of sucks. I'll get to that in another post.

Oh, Write Of Me, Not "Died In Bitter Pains," But "Emigrated To Another Star!"

Who knows what myriad colonies there are
Of fairest fields, and rich, undreamed-of gains
Thick planted in the distant shining plains
Which we call sky because they lie so far?
Oh, write of me, not "Died in bitter pains,"
But "Emigrated to another star!"

- From Helen Hunt Jackson, "Emigravit" (1886)

So as promised, the high point of my second work week in New Mexico. Spaceport America. Funny story. Funny sad, not funny ha-ha. I was actually signed up to do the tour with Follow the Sun Tours during my first week in New Mexico, on Friday May 13th. Which was the very first tour they were ever going to do of the place. They called me the night before to say they had to cancel, because I was the only one signed up for the tour. My heart broke a little on that day. I begged them to let me pay extra for the privilege of being the first paying tourist of what will become the World's first private Spaceport, because how cool would that be?! But, no go. They asked me if I wanted to reschedule for Saturday, and still be in the first tour group as they had people signed up for that one, but I was flying home and couldn't do it. So that, grandkids, is how your irascible 'ol granpa was cheated out of his itty bitty spot in history. But I knew I'd be back in a week or two, so I rescheduled for that and settled for just being one of the early tourists, who probably get no historical recognition but still get to say "We were there, before everyone in the world wanted to be there."

Indeed, we were there before they were even finished constructing it! This is a view of the approach to the Spaceport, what will one day very soon be the main entrance. Where those who are wealthy enough to pay Sir Richard Branson and his company, Virgin Galactic, for the $200,000 ticket will arrive for their trip to sub-orbit on SpaceShipTwo. Sigh. Once upon a time, I was flush enough to afford a trip to the very edge of space on a Russian Mig-25 jet just outside of Moscow, but this particular ride will be out of my price range until prices come way down. Doublesigh.

This is a testing pad for vertical launch and hover landing models, I think. The tour guide wasn't allowed to stop or let us out of the vehicle while in this area apparently, so I was trying to snap shots through the window while being bounced about on gravel roads as he was giving the tour spiel so I didn't really catch everything. But yeah, the pockmarks in the concrete pad are from rocket testing. I don't know why there are rocks on top. Paperweights?

In the foreground is what will one day be the Spaceport Operations Center, and in the background, the side of the Spaceport. Here's a better side view:

They did let us get a bit closer, naturally. Here we all are, wearing our fashionable construction site tour-wear in front of the gaping entrance to the hangar which will one day house spaceships.

Spaceships! Hahahahahaha! I will come back one day, so that I can see them.

Ok, here come a few more shots of the hangar area.

See how the side facing the runway has mirrors?

Yes well, if you know me at all, you should be able to see what's coming next.

That's me in the mirror there! Standing on the entrance to the runway! Waving!

It's going to be a very pretty building. One of the cool things about touring the Spaceport during its construction phase is that we got to poke around in areas that will not be open to the public once it's open for business, such as the runway, obviously. Very soon, they will cease allowing tourists to walk out onto the runway.

Spaceport runway points! The Spaceport, by the way, is located right next to a portion of El Camino Real (The Royal Road), which was a major trade route between northern New Mexico and Mexico City from 1598 through 1882, until a railroad was built parallel to the Real in order to make the 6 month journey, well, take a bit less time. And now, the runway of the Spaceport has been built parallel to both of them. A very literal symbol of technological progression, and a striking one at that.

Unfortunately when I asked if there were any plans, even very remote plans, to build an airport near Spaceport America, I got a definitive no. There are lots of good reasons for not building an airport, including ecological issues and a nearby no-fly zone over White Sands testing range which rivals the White House's no-fly zone, but what I interpret this fact to mean is that Spaceflight at this location will always be a rich fucker's club. They did not plan this public Spaceport to ever be public enough that you can hop on a commuter from Chicago, Newark or LA to get here, and then flea-hop a quick 45 minute space ride over to Dubai or Sweden, where there are plans to build connecting spaceports. So as exciting as visiting a real live Spaceport was for me, it is only the itty bittiest of baby steps towards a future where spaceflight is as common as air travel. Still, it's more exciting than your typical Sunday drive.

Interlude: Observing The Observatory And Wandering The White Sands

On my free afternoon I headed out past Alamogordo to Sunspot, New Mexico. There is a secluded community of solar scientists there, and one of two missions for the National Solar Observatory. It was neat-o.

The other mission of the National Solar Observatory is at Kitt Peak in Arizona, where I got to go a couple of times last year. Unfortunately I got to Sunspot after the visitor's center was closed, but I was able to walk around outside and snap a few shots anyway.

This is the Dunn Solar Telescope, and it looks spooky in black and white. I framed it with the sun right behind it because I'm all apropos like that.

And the obligatory myself-in-the-mirror shot, of course.

After my science pilgrimage, I drove back to Las Cruces, stopping off at sunset in the White Sands for a few shots.

I wasn't quite in time for actual sunset, but a sandstorm was rolling in and it looked so cool these people started dancing. I think that's what they're doing. Those are dried up Yucca plants in front. I have two other nearly identical pictures of this scene, but I like them all.

I'm not good at choosing between similar pictures sometimes. I like the people dancing in the first one, but in the second I like the way the Yucca is in the middle of the sunset colors. In the next one, well it looks like some sort of romantic stock photo. Yuchsh. But still, I like it.

I stuck around a bit so I could find a Yucca plant that had live flowers because they're really neat looking, and I wasn't disappointed. Got three shots of this one, too.

They're a bit grainy; it was dark, windy, and sand-stormy so I had to have enough exposure to light the subject, but not so much that it blurred the plant because of the wind. Difficult. The graininess comes from using a high ISO, but whaddyagonnado? I like the way they turned out anyway.

See? Pretty Yucca flowers, and wavy sand.

I'll get to the high point of my trip in the next post, promise.

Yet Another Very Large Array Of Photos Of The Very Large Array, This Time At Sunset

And so after leaving the Las Cruces area, I drove the four hours back up to the San Agustin plains, and got there just in time to catch some sunset photos of the VLA. The cold opener above is an HDR I tried out and they aren't supposed to come out looking like that, but I really really like it.

I got some Plains life in just before the sun set. That deer above was headed straight away from me, so I shot him. And these cows, too.

There is nothing like standing out in a gigantic plain in the middle of nowhere with a tripod and some radio antennae at sunset.

That movie 'Contact' was filmed in part out here, and there is a scene where Jodi Foster is looking out over a canyon, with the radio dishes behind her. Yeah, that's Hollywood stupidity. There is no canyon; I looked. I hate that. Why do they always feel the need to amp up things that in reality need no amping up? If you want the VLA in your movie, film it as it is. It doesn't need a canyon to be awesome.

But HDR doesn't hurt! Actually, taking HDR shots at sunset is a tricky business. Weird colors kept popping in that aren't in any of the original bracketed photos. This next one is not HDR, but it almost looks like it is. I'm learning that not everything needs such embellishment, myself. And also how hard it is not to embellish, sometimes. Maybe I should go easier on Hollywood.

I really like this next one; there's two small line gaps in the dish where the setting sun shines through them, and echoes the reflective train tracks quite nicely. I like the continuity of theme in that; the radio signals from space track down into the dish, and get carried along the train tracks back to the receivers that interpret them.

Ok that's probably not how the signals actually get sent to the receivers, damn you Hollywood! You've corrupted the way I interpret things with your need to visualize everything dramatically! But still. Pretty.

And yes, I really like tonemapping. Sometimes the accidental byproducts are neat, such as green radio dishes. At any rate, remember when I said that there is nothing like standing out in a gigantic plain in the middle of nowhere with a tripod and some radio antennae at sunset? Well, that's nothing compared to doing it at night.

Unfortunately, the moon was really bright that night, and I had to work hard to get any stars in the photos at all.

Damn moon. At one point I tried taking a ten minute exposure, but that didn't really bring out any more stars either. Still.

You'll notice the dish is pointing at a different angles in different photos. They moved them to point at different parts of the sky every so often. I tried to get a shot that captured the motion in an interesting way, but it kept catching me by surprise. This is the best I could do.

At one point, a couple of guys with a mexican accent drove out to where I was in a dirty pick-up and told me I had to leave because the astronomers don't like it when people hang out by the dishes at night. Hope I didn't mess up any of their work! But still, I couldn't leave without at least attempting a laser light self-portrait.

Rockets And Missiles; Salvation And Destruction In The New Mexican Desert

So picking up where I left off, after leaving the VLA I headed down to Las Cruces for work. Actually, I stayed in Las Cruces but my job was in the White Sands Missile Range, just over the mountain pass 20 miles or so. Inside the base, about 100 miles north of where I entered it, is the Trinity site where the first nuclear bomb was tested. It's open twice a year for the public to tour, unfortunately one of those times did not coincide with my visit. There is a museum on base though.

An open air display of many of the missiles they've tested there over the years. What about the Bomb you ask? Here's one. You might recognize it from it's stint on that long con of a TV show, LOST. It's called the Fat Man.

Sobering. I mean, it could have actually had a plot, and then it would have been a great show, but they made their cowardly writing choices, and all we were left with was that fat bloated sorry excuse of a bombed TV show. Bomb... right, sorry, got sidetracked. At any rate, as fascinating as a "museum"consisting of a yard full of devices designed solely to exterminate as much of the human race in one shot as possible is, I did run across something a little more interesting.

I don't know if you'll be able to read that so here it is, cropped.

I would guess that they were trying to insert this into the Roswell narrative somehow, but the "first firing date" of 1966-1967 is well after the alleged UFO Crash near there so it's a clumsy attempt in that case, especially since it also seems to have abandoned the "weather balloon" story but then why bother mentioning Roswell at all? I sort of suspect that it's a bit of a psi-op, or perhaps the military folk at White Sands actually simply have a sense of humor. We'll never know, because I'm sure a sense of humor in the military is classified information.

So out in the middle of the base, just off of the public highway that runs through it, is the White Sands National Monument. It's a vast sea of sand dunes composed of white gypsum crystals, where the military base took it's name from.

Got a picture. The sand really is very white, and because it's gypsum it stays cool to the touch even at midday in a very hot sun. I walked around barefoot for a while, it was nice.

But you know, sand is sand. I drove on to Alamogordo where they have the International Space Hall of Fame, which is not sand, and which is dedicated to the less destructive aspect of rocket technology. It's always fascinated me how the two aspects of rocket science so perfectly represent the potential destruction or salvation of the human species. The ones designed for killing are meant to fly only high enough to get over their target before crashing back down in fiery armageddon, while the ones designed for exploration are meant to keep going up and up until they escape the insanity of local politics. The other more interesting thing about this inherent symbolism of rocket science is that we humans are ourselves the architects of the instruments of our own destiny, whichever way it goes. If there is ever a day of Heavenly Judgment, raining fire on us from above, it will be of our own design.

Having said that, they all crash in the experimental phase. This is a crashed V-2 rocket, designed by Werner Von Braun for the Nazis before he came over to our side. They also had a moon rock at the museum, showing that sometimes rockets do get to where they're supposed to be going.

I got to hold it thanks to an amateurish bit of trick photography. I also hit on one of the pretty scientists that worked there. She was all wrapped up in her work though. "Hey baby, can I have a job?"

One of the other museum guides who worked there was a guy named Viggy who had worked on the Hawk missiles from their inception over at Fort Bliss in Texas. He was obviously proud of that so I asked him to pose with his rocket for me.

The only other interesting thing going on at the Space Hall of fame was that Ham, the first chimp in space, is buried there. I paid my respects.

After leaving the Alamogordo area, I headed back to White Sands for work, and from there I made my way back up to the VLA for some more shots before flying home. But I'll leave it here for now.

The Very Large Array Is An Array Of Very Large Radio Antennae, Arrayed Over A Very Large Baseline On Top Of A Very Large Plain

This is the Very Large Array, in New Mexico. I had a job in the south of the state last week for five days, so I flew into Albuquerque and proceeded to head straight for the, uh, very large array of 27 independent radio telescope antennae for a visit on my way down. Get ready for many, many shots.

I didn't get there until the evening, after the visitor center was closed, but I headed over anyway to try and get some night shots. It was windy, cloudy, and cold.

So I did my best, but even with a tripod it is difficult to get clear shots in such weather at night. Black & white helps; makes things look intentionally arty, or summ'at.

HDR could even only do so much for me. But it works. However, my prize for the night came about completely accidentally. I was trying to take some long exposures, hoping to get a few stars in through the clouds (didn't wind up getting any), and I was testing different settings for them to see if I could get it to work (I couldn't). But after I'd got back to my dingy hotel room in the tiny New Mexican town of Magdalena and went through my photos, I saw that with one 30 second exposure I'd caught a meteor shower!

I certainly did not actually see the shower while taking the picture, but the exposure revealed it. I'm not sure how that works but, there you go. My regret of course is that it's such a dark, noisy picture. Had I left it exposed just a bit longer, or used a better ISO... anyway. I tried messing with it to make it look better, and this is the best I could do.

Still noisy, and I honestly can't decide which of the two is any good. But still, meteor shower points! What's weird though is that the expected meteor shower from the tail of Halley's Comet hit Earth and peaked on May 6th, whereas I took this photo on the evening of May 10th, so I'm not sure what it is we're looking at, unless it's just a random shower that nobody predicted, and nobody knew about, because I can't find any mention of news for a May 10th shower. Maybe it's just some Halley leftovers.

At any rate I got up early the next morning and headed the 20 miles back to the VLA. There are 27 (according to Wikipedia) or 29 (according to my admittedly faulty memory) independent radio dishes arrayed about the vast Plains of San Agustin, over a distance of three 13 mile tracks set in a single large Y-shape. The dishes are frequently moved from close together to spread completely out, depending on the configuration they need. Last week, they seemed to be spread completely out, making it difficult to get shots with multiple dishes in them.

But with a telephoto lens and a little determination, I did my best. How do they move them you ask? Why, by specially designed train cars of course. There's this whole process which they explain in a video at the visitor's center, and it's pretty fascinating but if I revealed everything, why would you ever want to visit the VLA yourself?

There are two of those dish transport vehicles, and they always seemed to be moving about on some mission or another. But I like this shot because it gives you some perspective on how large the dishes actually are. Just imagine a little guy standing in the man-lift there and you'll see what I mean. Plus, it's nice to have some color in one of these shots. The Plains of San Agustin (as in the winds are a'gustin'?) are beautiful, but fairly large and colorless. At least during the day, anyway.

So okay having said that, here are the obligatory HDR shots.

And I tried to get all clever with the next one. There's a balcony on one of the buildings that they don't let you go in. The stairs are on the outside, so they do let you walk up to get a slightly higher view, and there is a large window which acts as a one way mirror so that you can't see in. But it allowed me to experiment further with HDR.

As Julie noticed, in our mirror Universe, people smoke. In our mirror near-twin Universe, they do not. Also, the dummies who smoke are so primitive that they need handles to open doors. And I just like this next one. The fluorescent lights behind the mirror make it look like the dish is shooting death rays.

Well that's all I got on that morning's trip; I had to head down to Las Cruces for work. There's only so much free time on my work trips, after all. Sigh. But don't worry, I had to fly home from Albuquerque (which brought me past the VLA again!), and the area around Las Cruces held a few surprises as well, so there are more pictures to come. But this post is long enough and I got other stuff to do. I'll post some more junk later. Meanwhile, check out 'ol Radiohead, here.

In Another Universe, This Post Is About This Universe. (Where This Post Is About Another Universe, Where This Post Is About This Universe...∞

I want to do a book report on Brian Greene's new publication in the worst way, but I'm not sure that I am capable of it. I used to read popular science books quite regularly, and I'd realized that it's been years since those days at about the same time that 'The Hidden Reality' caught my eye. As I was going through it I realized that reading, and keeping pace with, popular science texts is a skill which must be practiced, especially if one is not particularly well trained in physics.

That's not to say that he doesn't do a great job of explaining the concept behind 9 different types of multiple/parallel Universes quite engagingly; he does. It's more that, once I put the book down for a few minutes after every couple of pages to think about the implications of whatever mind-blowing concept he's introduced, the particulars begin to drain away because my poor little head is not lately used to holding on to the strange and complicated concepts behind Infinity, Relativity, Quantum physics, and String Theory.

However I'm going to try because I feel that my motive in writing about this book is more an effort to hang on as best as I am able to the understanding of a beautiful dream that fades quickly after waking than an attempt to convince anyone else to read it. Of course after completing that last sentence, I've sat and stared at the book cover for about ten minutes trying to figure out how to start. Sigh.

So here then; let's begin with the apology. Mr. Greene himself goes to great lengths in the book to make the reader understand that, at the moment, no versions of the multiverse which he posits are actually provable with hard data, and therefore may fall slightly outside the boundary of science. I say slightly, because though their detection may currently lie beyond our best detectors, they are in fact unavoidable outcomes of certain aspects of science which ARE scientifically sound, mathematically speaking.

As a comparison, when Einstein published his theory of General Relativity the technology available at the time was not capable of disproving his math. He came up with that theory using creative visualization, math and perspiration. And whatever other tools of genius he had at his disposal. But he himself did not go out and measure the Cosmic Background Radiation which ultimately helped to prove his theory correct. Now I'm not comparing Brian Greene or any other String Theorist to Einstein, (and neither was Greene in his book) merely the scientific process itself which is at work here. If you follow the math it leads to amazing places which, more often than you might think, describes the cosmos as it is in reality, even though it may also lead beyond all common sense. So this exploration of the side effects and the possibilities of infinity, string theory and math is extremely valid science, even if in the end it turns out that they've missed something and there are other things at work. You have to explore every avenue if you want to find out what's actually out there.

So why bother getting all excited over Parallel Universes if there's a chance it's inaccurate? Because it's exciting. And because, all things being equal, it's probably not inaccurate. It is currently science's best guess, much as Relativity and Evolution once were, and therefore worth a lengthy consideration.

So I'll start with the multiverse which I understand the most clearly, naturally. He calls it the Quilted Multiverse and here is how it works: There is some question in the cosmologist community whether the space that we inhabit is either very, very, very freaking large but ultimately finite, or whether it is in fact infinite. It all depends on the overall shape of the universe, which we don't yet know. (It's important to have a good grasp of the concept of infinity for this one, which I am lucky to have in some finite degree thanks to Rudy Rucker. His book 'White Light' is a rollicking exploration of infinity, and with extremely visual storytelling really helped me to glimpse what mathematicians actually mean when they use the term infinity. I highly recommend it.)

At any rate, If our Universe in fact turns out to be infinite (as the current trend of thought among cosmologists apparently believe is the likeliest scenario) then there is almost certainly another messiestobjects out there, writing up a book report about a publication by Brian Browne, (the last name of the author perhaps being the only difference between that Earth and this one) and positing some strange world where a version of himself is typing up a book report on a publication by a Brian Greene. In fact, there would be an infinite amount of Earths out there, that look just like ours. And there would be an infinite amount of other possible Earths as well. One, perhaps, that was solely inhabited by shrimp. Or one with no shrimp. Let your imagination go wild, like mine!

The reason why this would be so is simply statistical. Matter is evenly distributed throughout the visible Universe on very large scales. What that means is, you can take a really big box, say about 100 million light years cubed and chunk it down here, then weigh all of the matter in it. Then pick it up and chunk it down over there, again weighing all of the matter. Do this in several locations throughout the Universe and you will find that each box-full of matter will weigh in at about equal amounts, and it will be so all throughout the Universe. The idea here is that while matter may be evenly spread throughout an infinite Universe, there is a finite amount of forms that matter can take.

So the implication of this is that matter, as much of it as there is, can only arrange itself in so many ways. It's like a deck of cards; there are 52 cards in a deck, and 52 cards can be arranged in 10⁶⁷ unique ways. That number fully written out is 80,658,175,170,943, 878,571,660,636,856,403,766,975,289,505,440,883,277,824,000  which is obviously a really huge number. However, once you have arranged those 52 cards in that many unique ways, the cycle will repeat and you will start to get duplicate arrangements. Of course, some arrangements are more likely than others, so you will have odd random assortments of cards duplicate more often than you will see the deck fall out completely arranged from aces to Kings in all four suits, but as unlikely as that is, it will happen eventually.

The same is true for the arrangement of matter. In the entirety of our visible Universe, there are about 10¹⁰¹²² possible particle configurations. Which again, is a totally inconceivable number yet is definitely a finite number. Once you've reached every possible unique combination, the patterns will begin to repeat, and repeat infinitely. Thus, messyobjects is out there, messierobjects, and even an evenmoremessiestobjects, all trying to say hi to me right now. Since our brains and life experiences are nearly completely identical and in some cases absolutely identical, I can say hi to them and they've received the message! I know this because I've received their message, having sent one myself. We're totally braintext messaging across the infinite light years right now. They say hi back, and ask how's the wife and pets and I say oh, the same as yours, pretty much. ad infinitum. (Of course it's not a very interesting conversation, having identical thoughts and all, but there's always a downside.)

Whew. That was the first and easiest version of a multiverse in this book, and believe me they get far more difficult to grasp. The existence of the Quilted Multiverse depends only on discovering the shape of the Universe we currently reside in without calling any of the more unproven forms of science into the matter, but it is important here to note that Brian Greene and other String Theorists did not go out looking for multiverses. They did not read some ridiculous New Age drama and say "Oy, how can we finagle the math to come up with parallel dimensional portal-thingies in order to dazzle the public?" No, the attempt to understand actual observed phenomena through the framework of String Theory led them mathematically all on its own to many other different types of possible multiverses.

The Inflationary Multiverse, which better fits the definition of a multiverse in my extremely humble opinion, is one in which bits of our universe break off and inflate into bubble universes of their own, our Universe having broken off from another "larger" one at its own birth. There are also the Brane, Cyclic, Landscape, and Quantum types of multiverses. I like the Quantum Multiverse; it basically goes back to the Schrödinger's Cat thing, and Quantum uncertainty.

(jpeg of a print by Jie Qi) In case you are not familiar with Schrödinger's Cat, it is a Thought Experiment designed to help one visualize how Quantum Particles behave. The way it goes is, you put a cat in a box, close the lid, and have a radioactive atom timed to decay and open a flask of poison. In the quantum world, there is an equal possibility of the decay happening and causing the cat to be dead or alive when you open the lid. Until you open the lid, the cat is actually in an uncertain state, being both alive and dead at the same time which would be an unsettling thing to witness, I'm sure. The traditional outcome of this little game is that when you open the box, the probability wave collapses and the cat becomes one or the other. Thus the very act of observation determines the ultimate quantum state. (For a more accurate and less confused rundown of the thought experiment in mid-twentieth century science nerd jargon, visit the wikipedia page on the subject)

This is weird. But this type of behavior has been observed in quantum particle physics, hence the Quantum Uncertainty Principle and it does not apply to the world of things of our size, only to the realm of the very, very small. There is a gap between the quantum scale and ours where Quantum Theory breaks down and reality then becomes guided by Newtonian physics and Relativity. If you add String Theory math to this experiment, you can bridge the gap and in fact the cat is actually both alive and dead for realsies, in two different universes! Long, complex, nearly-incomprehensible-to-a-non-String-Theorist story short, the reason that Quantum particles behave so oddly is that we are seeing them play out every possible state of existence across a multiverse.

As an interesting aside, that particular multiverse explanation is where the idea comes from that every time one makes a choice, universes diverge and a separate reality for each choice carries on it's course. It may sound a bit hippie or New Age-ish, but if String Theory turns out to be correct, this in fact may actually be happening, right now, right next to you.

Another multiverse is the Holographic Multiverse, which is conceptually easy, but also very hard to explain the whys and wherefores of. This one is due to the nature of information and how it is stored in the universe, and when looked at closely begins to look a bit as though all matter as we see it is actually a projection of another type of matter on a distant quantum dimensional surface. In this multiverse all of our actions, in fact all interaction between all forms of matter everywhere is a shadow play. We're hand puppets. Don't ask me to explain the science though. It has something to do with Black Holes, very tall drinking straws, and math. Beyond that, I haven't retained a thing. Damn it.

The final multiverse of the book is the so-called Ultimate Multiverse, a distinction earned due to a new twist on the Anthropic Principle, which is the idea that asking the question "How is it possible that our planet, our very universe have the conditions necessary to bring forth life?" is meaningless because life evolves in the place to which it is suited. In other words, we are here both to ask the question and be the answer. I like this one for purely philosophical reasons, as it's an (yet another) answer of sorts in the debate between religion and science, at least for a certain set of debate points. The religious often like to point out that the Universe, Life, and Everything are far too complex to have "just happened" which is about as far as their understanding of the sciences of Cosmology and Evolution usually go. A very sad, limited viewpoint indeed.

At any rate, the Ultimate Multiverse answers the question of why the Physical Laws of our particular Universe are just right in order for galaxy, star, planet, and life formation to "just happen". Because in an infinite multiverse, where every possible Universe that can exist does exist, one with our physical laws and conditions for life merely becomes an inevitability, not a miracle. Therefore there is no "why" of existence, merely the statistical likelihood of it. You'll note that the Ultimate Multiverse differs from the Quilted Multiverse in the sense that, with the latter, there may be an infinite set of volumes with repeating particle configurations, allowing for infinite versions of themselves, however they are all still set in the same Universe as we are and subject to the same physical laws, merely separated by distances too large for any technology to ever cross. The Quilted version answers the question of why there is life on Earth, but does not answer the why of the overall conditions in our Goldilocks Universe and its particular laws of physics being just right in order to allow life to come about in the first place. The Ultimate Multiverse does, however. It states that while there are Universes like ours with just the right amount of density for galaxies, stars, and planets to form, there are also an infinite amount of stillborn ones. Our Universe is the Royal Flush that comes along once in a blue moon... or rather once in a Blue Iteration.

There are solid mathematical underpinnings to the Ultimate Multiverse, as well as for all of the others, but I'm not going there. If you want to try to understand them, or any of the other concepts, I suggest that you pick up a few popular science books and get cracking. 'The Hidden Reality' is wonderful, but unless you've already attempted to come to grips with the ideas behind Relativity, Infinity, or Quantum Physics, you might want to get a more basic picture of the Universe first. 'Cosmos' by Carl Sagan is an excellent place to start for basic Cosmology, that Rucker book I already pimped for Infinity, and Brian Greene's earlier work 'The Elegant Universe' is a great introduction to String Theory. So get busy with the head scratching, braniac!

Another great way to contemplate infinity, by the way, is to obsessively-compulsively watch fractal zoom videos. I've posted about fractals before, here and here. I don't know how, but I'm sure that fractal math figures in to multiverses somehow. This one magnifies the Mandelbrot set 10²⁷⁵ times, and ends up at a copy of itself. Apropos.

 

It's A Beachball, It's A Ufo... No, It's SUPERMoon!

I need a better telephoto lens. Sigh. Even at it's closest point to us in 18 years, the moon is still too far away. So I'm thankful for modern cropping technology.

Better, but not perfect. Zooming in only increases the size, not the quality of course. There are a jillion better moon pictures out there, but I'm trying to take opportunities to practice night photography whenever I can.

Plus, I need something to post every once in a while. Here's a filtered moon shot I took that kinda looks like the BP logo. Bad moon!

"Astronomy Compels The [Mind] To Look Upwards And Leads Us From This World To Another"

Guess where I went again? And this time I brought my tripod. One aspect of my job that I very much appreciate (one aspect among many) is how I am able to return to the same place more than once. With some assignments it's not the greatest, but getting to return to Napa Valley, Death Valley or Kitt Peak on multiple occasions way more than makes up for multiple Nowhere, Indiana or the occasional Harrisburg, PA types of assignments. I like going some places many times because each time I go, I notice something different or have a new experience, and I get to know that place a bit better. Also, when I am somewhat familiar with where I'm going, I can make more adequate preparations.

Several things about my second visit to Kitt Peak totally ruled. As I said, a) this time I was prepared and brought my tripod, b) it was a much clearer night than on my previous visit, with no clouds or moon out, which makes the stars extremely bright and multitudinous and c) it was less windy and a bit warmer (though still quite desert-at-night chilly) and so they opened up a different telescope for us to use this time. So all around it was a totally different experience than before. The telescope we used this time was more or less the same as the other one (pictured above), except this one was housed a bit further up the hill in a flattop observatory rather than a domed one. The flattop style would have been quite dreadful on a windier night, open to the elements as it is, you see.

That flat part to the left, hanging over the red light, is the roof; it's been rolled back from the cylindrical observatory on the right. We got to see some really awesome stuff this time around. The middle star in Orion's sword stands out in my memory mainly because while it looks like a single star to the naked eye, it's actually four newborn stars surrounded by clouds of gas and dust cast off from their birth. It was quite lovely. You can see Orion in the next picture. That really bright star just above the roof-line of the Observatory is Sirius, the brightest star in the sky and only 8 light years away, and Orion is just above it, the next brightest stars in the picture being his sword. It looks like I also caught a faint shooting star, between Sirius and the telescope. Or maybe that's an airplane, who knows. I bet Astronomers really hate airplanes.

Oop, there's another one. It's a meteorite, it's an airplane, no! It's a...! Well, no it's got to be one of those two things. You decide.

I also got to see something that is apparently very difficult to see in most places due to light pollution. Kitt Peak is far away and high enough from any major city that the night sky just pops, more so than I've ever seen but less so than people could see from anywhere only 100 years ago. I know that last picture rather looks light polluted from the ground, but that's mostly just a quirk of shutter exposure. At any rate, what we were able to see was the Zodiacal Plane. It's the plane in which all of the planets orbit the sun, and the reason it's see-able is that the millions of leftover particles and gases that are trapped in the same orbit from which all of the planets emerged reflect a faint light. The really bright star just above the robot-looking weather sensor thingy is actually Jupiter, and you can see how the sky is brighter just around it.

I also got to see the double star Almach, The Eskimo Nebula, the star cluster M44 with hundreds of tiny blue stars, the cigar galaxy M82, and our docent even showed us how to find the Andromeda Galaxy with the naked eye. And of course, the only other thing which my camera is actually capable of taking a picture of, the Milky Way.

Although I did get this picture of Jupiter early on just around sunset. I was just playing with settings on my camera when I took it, and it's totally dull and would never make the cut in a million years except I just happened to shake my camera in just the right way to give the planet its self-referential initial.

Hee hee. Anyway, one thing I didn't mention in my first Kitt Peak post was that at the end of the evening, around 10pm, they have to lead us in a caravan down the mountain because you're not allowed to turn your headlights on as they would interfere with the Astronomers doing real work at the observatory. Parking and taillights are fine because they are not luminous enough to have an effect on the telescopes. So as they were gathering us up to go this time, I realized that I'd forgotten my tripod bag back in the flattop observatory. So while everybody else drove down the mountain, I got to wait behind for the docent to come back so he could let me in to get my bag. While I was waiting, I got a nice shot of the parking lot and everyone's taillights as they queued up and drove off. Now I'm not saying that I forgot my bag on purpose, I'm just saying that it worked out rather well for me.

So another awesome night at Kitt Peak all around. I really hope I get to go at least one more time because aside from all of the astronomical learning, I figured out a thing or two about taking night sky pictures which I didn't know before and I'd like the chance to try them out further. At any rate I'll leave you with my final picture of the night; when I got all the way down to the bottom of Kitt Peak I stopped to take a final shot which I thought was poetic, and sad.

I Went As A Proctor, I Went To The Mountain, I Looked Through The Eyepiece, I Drank From The Coffee Urn

Kitt Peak was. Awesome. I had done Tombstone the previous day in what was originally supposed to be my only free time after a job in Fort Huachuca, but I couldn't get a plane out until Saturday so Kitt Peak was my overstay day two destination of choice.

Cartoon cactus! Kitt Peak National Observatory is about a 2 hour drive West of Tucson. It is the home of 26 telescopes, the largest array of them anywhere in the world. Included among them are one radio telescope dish which is a member of the VLBA (Very Long Baseline Array), the largest solar telescope in the world, and the first telescope used to search for near-Earth asteroids that could possibly strike us one day.

It was a holy pilgimmage. Only better, because the sense of holiness at the top of this mountain felt like something real, something tangible, and not simply mass superstitious willfull delusion. (That needs a better word; is there a word that describes The Emperor Wears No Clothes syndrome? Mass delusion, hysteria, or hypnosis don't really cut it because we need something to connotate the willfullness of it.)

There is always a very real sense of excitement when one visits such places, places where the advancement of the human race has occurred, is still occurring, and will always occur as long as there are those who use their minds rather than their emotions to peer into reality. Or at least engage in the attempt.

It's a feeling of utter joy and freedom, something I never did feel as a member of a certain religion. Perhaps, in light of my previous paragraph, I ought not to use the word 'feeling'. Obviously I don't mean that emotions are evil; though they do lead one into error quite handily, especially during investigations. One should feel one's emotions, take pleasure in them, even use them in any form of expression you might choose, but never be guided by them.

Well enough of traveller's philosophy. Suffice it to say, I prefer a big metal telescope on a mountaintop to a guru any day.

So getting back to the details of my pilgrimmage; having a whole day and night until my departure from the desert around Tucson, I decided to take part in the evening observation program which they offer nightly. It was awesome. First they take you on a brief sunset tour of a few choice spots on the peak.

Then they let us into one of the working telescope domes for a brief lecture and demonstration of stuff. You know, sciencey stuff.

But the absolute high point was of course actual observation. We got to play with one of the telescopes. A dinky one to be sure, as far as Kitt Peak scopes go, but certainly a more powerful one than I've ever had the opportunity to use before.

We got to see moon craters, a binary star system, and Jupiter's cloud bands. it was pretty freaking sweet. In the advanced observing program for amateur astronomers, they let you use their digital telescope cameras to take and keep pictures of stuff that you choose to look at. But that program costs like $500 and is a sleepover so, not in the cards for me on this trip. (Or should I say, not in the STARS for me on this trip? Yuk snort! No, no I guess I shouldn't.) Next time.

I also got to sit around and take cool night photos while other people got a turn at the eyepiece so, win win all around. I took a metric ton of these, but I'll spare you and post only the money shot.

And that's pretty much it. It was quite a hushed evening, meditative even; there's a stillness on an astronomer's mound at night, even among a group of other stargazers, that has to be experienced to be appreciated, hence all of my holy comparisons.

There was an infrared camera inside, and I couldn't resist a parting shot of myself in the monitor. Creepy right?

And now I am currently on my Honeymoon! You know, with that girl I married. It's been a great trip so far, but I just wanted to get these Kitt Peak pix up before the onslaught of European photos begin.

Rockets Rockets Everywhere, And Not A Spot To Think

I went on a couple of jobs this month to places that were interestingly related. I was in Minot, ND a few weeks ago, giving a computer security exam on the Air Force base there to military personnel responsible for well, computer security, on the base there. Minot AFB is one of two bases in the US which apparently contain our largest stockpile of Nuclear Bombs. They proudly display an old Minuteman I Missile as you enter the base.

I didn't know that before I got there, that I was going to be aiding and abetting our Nuclear arsenal personnel, and I admit I felt a keen sense of ambivalence when I found out. (That sounds like nonsense, doesn't it? A keen sense of ambivalence?! Kind of an oxymoron; however if you've ever had that emotion you'll know what I mean.) I mean on the one hand, I will always feel the guilt of aiding and abetting our previous administration's dishonest and uber-destructive war reconstruction in Iraq. And so here I was again, in a position of compliance with the most immoral weapon yet conceived by humanity's spinal column thinkers. However I also feel that as long as nuclear weapons exist, well then by gum they oughtta be secured and if my small presence there as an exam proctor allows those with the crucial duty of keeping our warheads safe from being hacked to do their jobs better, then I suppose I feel good about it. Much as I hate nuclear weaponry and wish they'd go away, I don't want them getting lost or stolen!

Wait, what? Uh... do you guys remember that 2007 incident where some nuclear warheads went missing? Yeah, it happened at Minot. They were transporting some ICBM missiles (just the missiles, without the nuclear warheads attached) from Minot to the other big nuclear bomb site in Louisiana, so they loaded them up onto a B-52 for transport, and forgot to remove the warheads. A little bit later, someone was doing their, what, Bi-annual inventory checklist? And said "hey uh, where're those, um, y'know, nuclear warheads that are supposed to be on that shelf over there?"

Meanwhile, there were some very surprised cargo unloaders in Louisiana. "Hey uh, dude? Are we getting paid danger salary today? Do you know how to unscrew a nuclear warhead? Well, I'm sure we can figure it out."

Jesus. Here's a nice shot of some B-52s I got from the public highway.

I hope I don't get in trouble for posting that photo. I shouldn't; like I said I was on a public highway and it's public knowledge that they have bombs and B-52s there, and if they can't be bothered to hide their runway from view on the highway, then I can't see them being bothered to worry about the occasional photo showing up online.

ANYway, so my next job this month was to Huntsville, Alabama, also known as Rocket City. A different kind of missile history, home of Marshall Space Flight Center (itself the original home of NASA) and Space Camp. I had a job for a company that is involved in space and defense contracting, and that was a much better feeling. I think Space is really really cool. I don't know if you know that about me. I got to go to the Rocket museum there.

That was sweet. I did all the kid stuff; saw a 3D movie about Mars, an Imax about our moonwalk missions, and climbed around in old rockets and spacejunk. They obligingly placed some of their items in such a way that taking a wry picture was possible. Space rockets, War rockets, and a carnival ride; whee America!

The West Is Big And Full Of Holes And Rocks

As promised, here are a few more pictures of the Trona Pinnacles. I know it's been a while; it's been a very busy few weeks here. But Christmas is over, I'm finally getting settled in to the new place, and my routines are slowly renewing their control over my life, so here we go. The picture above isn't really a scary-ass man with a halo, it's just a rock with the sun placed conveniently behind it. But you can see why maybe some location scout thought this might be a good place to film a Forbidden Zone or two.

As I didn't get a chance to explain last time, the Trona Pinnacles were once formations at the bottom of an inland sea in southern California. Now they are formations in the middle of a desert in southern California. Geology is quirky that way. I took the following photo from the top of one of the pinnacles. There was absolutely no one and nothing for as far as I could see (except for the borax mining company we passed on the way in; much of the ground on the way out to the pinnacles is white with borax. Pretty neat looking) and there were no signs telling us we couldn't climb them, so of course one is obligated to do so.

I put up many many more very forbidding shots over at my smugmug page, as usual. The Trona gallery is here. And now for...

Meteor Crater Arizona! After our 2 days at that really large canyon, we headed down to Flagstaff Arizona to see what was what. The first thing I wanted to do, naturally enough, was to blow right past town and head out to Winslow where a meteor crashed into our dear home not too long ago, around 42,000 B.C. and made yet another really really big hole in the ground. It's hard to get an idea of the size of this thing from the photo... hell it was kind of hard to get a good perspective on it standing right at its rim! Granted, it's not even close to the immensity of the Grand Canyon, but this is a very different beast and equally as cool for different reasons. So here's a gauging aid:

That itty bitty pebble on the top of the rim, directly above the viewing scope is indeed the size of a house. Big crater. Small meteor. Makes one really hope that we figure out a way to blast bigger rocks out of the Earth's path jackrabbit quick. I mean, an even better way than sending oil rig drillers into space. (That would be an Armageddon reference, by the by. What's the opposite of creative genius? Michael Bay, that's what) It was so windy the day we were here that I was actually picked up off my feet slightly when I tried to go up past an area they had roped off so I could get a better shot. That was neat. I of course have my Meteor Crater gallery with more photos over at smugmug. Anyway, back in Flagstaff...

We visited the Lowell Observatory! Percival Lowell thought he'd discovered canals on Mars back in like 1895 with this very telescope! What a maroon. I'd loved that story since hearing about it from Carl Sagan in Cosmos, which I'd read long before seeing the TV series. Because of his mistake, he fired up many a young boy's imagination with thoughts of Mars and Martians, culminating in HG Wells' War of the Worlds. Pluto was discovered here, as well as the observation that the galaxies were receding from us very very fast which lead to the discovery that the Universe is expanding. Good scientific history. The telescope was also awesome to visit because it just looks so damn cool. Very Steampunk. Those are truck tires which rotate the roof of the observatory so that the telescope can be pointed at any direction in the sky. Here's a quick video I took:

The only other thing notable in Flagstaff was the hotel we stayed at, the Monte Vista. It has a bunch of hokey ghost stories about it which Miss Luongo posted about already. Parts of Casablanca were filmed there, and it's one of those places where movie stars love to check in. We stayed in the room in which Lee Marvin resided while filming some western or other. Wicked. Flagstaff Gallery is here.

So I actually have more stuff, but I'm tired of this post. I'll save it for the next one. I took way too many pictures this trip and had way too much free time, causing me to visit way too many Arizona attractions. Ugh. Work is hell.

Ba-Doink-a BOINC

I don't often do this, but there is a gnarly piece of software that I want to recommend that everybody use. It's called BOINC, and it's awesome. I actually used to use it years ago, but between all my traveling and moving I kind of forgot about it, and I've just rediscovered it. It's basically a screen saver program, but not just a pretty one. It's useful. What you do is you download the BOINC software, and then choose a project. The instructions are all there on the homepage. But what BOINC does is this: When your computer is idle, it comes on just like your normal screen saver would, and it uses your computer processor to perform calculations needed by various scientific projects which you can choose from, showing you a neat little visual of the calculations being performed as the screen saver. What's so powerful about this tool is that thousands of people doing calculations on a project offers more computing power than is possible to the individual scientific programs on their own, so you can help them to do some really incredible things.

I myself run a project called SETI@home, which I've I had a link to on my sidebar forever and still managed to forget about all this time, dur. But as an example of how BOINC works, SETI@home is the radio signal project for the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) people. You may have heard of them from that movie Contact, in which Jodi Foster represented them, based on the book by Carl Sagan. So anyway, what they do is point their radio telescopes at different points in the sky for periods of time, and record space noise of all sorts. They record this space noise in huge batches and parcel it up, then send it out to everybody running their project via BOINC. BOINC, with the help of your computer processor while you're not using it, then sifts through this raw data, searching for patterns and signals, and sends the results back to SETI. If your computer is the one that finds indication of Extra-Terrestrial radio signals, you'll be famous. Here's what my screen saver looks like:

Of course I understand that a lot of people might think that this is a loopy project, with about a zero chance of ever finding anything meaningful. To you people, I say up yours. Aliens is cool. But, you know, there are plenty of other projects to choose from should the search for the answer to the most profound question we have (are we alone?) not be your particular cup of awesome.

There is a nice one called Rosetta@home, which needs your help to determine the 3-dimensional shapes of proteins in research that may ultimately lead to finding cures for some major human diseases. There is also one called climateprediction.net, which is the largest experiment to try and produce a forecast of the climate in the 21st century because climate change, and our response to it, are issues of global importance, affecting food production, water resources, ecosystems, energy demand, insurance costs and much else. There is a broad scientific consensus that the Earth will probably warm over the coming century; climateprediction.net should, for the first time, tell us what is most likely to happen.

But there is a whole list of such non-profit projects you can choose from over on the BOINC project page, so you can choose one that you feel is important, regardless of the ultimate importance of the Alien question.

The Space Coast Is The Most

I just got back from Orlando and I think I have to eat some crow and say that it's not so bad a place as I may have thought after my first trip there. Actually, on this trip I had a really great time and the reason is because on this job, I had a lot more free time. On regular jobs, such as my aforementioned first trip to Orlando, you have to pretty much stay near the hotel where the students are staying because on top of being their computer test proctor, you're also their concierge during their week of intense computer training. But this last job was an Onsite, which means that a company has paid us to train their own employees at their own facilities, so all I have to do is show up on testing days, which gave me 3 full free days to find something fun to do. I really like the onsite jobs. My trip to Wyoming was an onsite.

Anyway, I hit the Kennedy Space Center, which was the awesomest place ever. I'd actually been there once before; when I was packing oranges at Vero Beach one year right after my first summer in Alaska, a couple of the guys I was working with and I took a ride up there. That was around 11 years ago though and my memories of it are fuzzy. Anyway I didn't have a camera then and this time I could afford to take the big tour, which is kind of expensive. I got to see the rockets from the Mercury and Gemini missions,

walk around one of the space shuttle launch pads up close,

and see a Saturn V rocket from the Apollo missions.

Awesome. The other really cool thing they had was a Shuttle launch simulator. It was basically a tube with seats that goes from horizontal to a vertical sitting position and shakes around a lot while making really loud noises while an astronaut yammers at you from the video screen in front of footage of the view from a real shuttle taking off into space, but if you suspend your disbelief sufficiently it's easy enough to imagine that you're on your way up there. It even does a passable job of simulating zero gravity when you're "in space" by tipping you on a forward angle so that you're slightly out of your seat and only being held in by your shoulder straps. The Zero-gravity I experienced on my flight in a Mig-25 to the edge of space was a bit better, though.

See? Even the pigeons want to go.

Anyway, I believe that the 60s NASA missions comprised one of the most exciting times in human history, and I really loved getting a sense of what it must have felt like to be a part of that. When I got home yesterday I immediately popped in that movie The Right Stuff. It's really fantastic. I can't believe there's no big movie about the first moonwalk; If you want to see something about the Apollo missions, you're pretty much stuck with Apollo 13, which is great, but it's no moonwalk. There are documentaries I suppose, of which I have several, but they don't really capture the excitement quite the same way a good NASA drama does. The Dish comes closest to that for the Neil Armstrong walk, but it's not actually about the mission itself.

Well I do carry on so. But Space is the Place, man.

On my second free day, I hit Cocoa Beach. It's kind of a famous beach because that's where a lot of the crowds would gather back in the day to watch the Rockets lift off, and I think that's where the astronaut bars were, but I'm not sure. Anyway, I didn't see any of that, but it's a fairly nice beach anyway. Good waves. The next day I had to work in the morning, but in the afternoon I went for an airboat ride on St. John's river and saw loads of alligators and birds and crazy cypress trees with Spanish moss. It was pretty damn cool. Those airboats are pretty zippy.

On that last photo you can see the head and back of an alligator kind of just peeking up from the water by the base of that tree.

On my third free day... well, I did it. I went to the Magic Kingdom. I'd never been there before... I always wanted to go as a child, of course, but when I got older I got cynical and realized how evil Disney is and sort of decided I didn't really want to go as all things Disney tend to be shallow and banal, and they destroy the stories they tell. BUT, I did have this extra day with nothing to do and I couldn't figure anything else out, and also my brother and sister were taken there by my family when they were kids and I never was, so, I figured it was something I had an opportunity to get out of my system. Believe me, that whole morning I was filled with a bizarre emotion consisting of dread, bittersweet, shamefaced excitement. The approach to that saccharine hell-hole did nothing to alleviate it, and neither did almost anything I did there.

The coolest part was Space Mountain. I'd been dying to do that ride all my childhood, when friends would come back from there and tell me about it. And you know what? It's still fairly cool. A roller coaster ride in the dark, only feebly lit up by stars, planets, and galaxies? Punctuated by terrified screams coming from all directions, some of them possibly but not definitely from my own mouth? What's not to like? The Haunted Mansion was also pretty wild, although not scary at all. But the special effects were sweet.

But the rest of it? Everything I ever hated and feared about that place. Every time I saw a parade of some Disney freaks grinning and dancing about, I wanted to smack them and ask them what the hell they thought they were doing, prancing about like happy little idiots. There was one ride that, while being horrendous, was nonetheless quite interesting. The so-named "Silly Jungle Cruise." It's a boat ride through a mock jungle river, filled with plastic animals. It's not a kiddie ride, either. It was all adults on my boat. It looks like, once upon a time, maybe back in the 50s or 60s, it was possibly a high class Disney ride. But I think that fake plastic jungle cruises likely don't have much staying power in this day and age, so what they've done is to turn it into a joke. The boat guide makes fun of everything you see for ten full minutes. A large orange fiber glass snake hangs from a tree, and pretending to be frightened, the tour guide asks what is large, orange, begins with a 'P' and can kill you? "Python!" shouts out one of the, um, adult, cruisers. "That's right," says the guide, "Plastic."

Oh, he had a ton of 'em. But what's interesting to me is that that ride is probably the most honest Disney has ever been with it's customers. A fake plastic safari is set up to give a cheap thrill, which is kind of Disney's over-all philosophy actually, and instead of trying to get you to go along with it, in this case they are forced to cop to how phony and silly it is, because it's really a horrendous ride and there's no hiding it as they do with everything else. Quite illuminating. It's like when Big Tobacco was finally forced to admit that smoking is unhealthy.

I even had a personal moment of clarity on that ride. As we were passing all the plastic, immobile animals, I was thinking to myself how I'd seen these kinds of animals for real in the semi-wild at South Africa Kruger national game park. And then: we came to a plastic temple and the guide announced that we were now passing a Cambodian jungle temple. My mind kind of froze because I've actually been to Angkor Wat and explored tens of actual Cambodian jungle temples, and here I was at Disney, the phoniest place on Earth, passing by a phony temple.

I love this:

Virtual Magic Kingdom? What, that's in case your mind is so jelly that you can't walk down the street here to the actual Magic Kingdom?

Well anyway.

The Kennedy Space Center. Wicked cool.

Sermon On The Mount Of Space Tourism And Exploration

Something that really bothers me is when I hear otherwise-intelligent people making denigrating jokes about the idea of Space Exploration, or in the particular instance that has set me off on writing today’s rant, Space Tourism. Now I don’t actually know if Lewis Black can be safely bedded in the intelligence camp or not; he seems a little too coked out or something to retain much hold on his objectivity, but he is a regular on John Stewart’s show, and you have to respect that. I was watching the Daily Show yesterday, here on one of the two big plasma TVs which they have in the lobby of Freedom Rest. Incidentally, the mini-palace compound that is Freedom Rest is just a few blocks down from Saddam’s Presidential Palace (now the US Embassy), and served at one time as an Officer’s clubhouse for the former Iraqi President’s more favoured staff. Now my friends Darren and Steve, who were awesome enough to let me stay here until I can get out of country, run the place and oversee a team of people dedicated to making sure that soldiers here on R&R have fun. There’s a guy here whose job it is to fill up water balloons. I think I’ve mentioned that one before. The first time I came over here to visit a while back, Darren was refereeing a Sumo Suit match… that’s pretty much what it sounds like, where the contestants wear these really large padded suits which resemble sumo wrestler blubber and attempt to roll each other around the mat. Now as cool as all that is, let’s change the subject and talk about what a waste of money space adventuring is. (Yes, in case you missed it, there was definitely some snark in that last sentence. The Government spends a lot on Morale, Welfare, and Recreation programs for soldiers… which in and of itself is not a bad thing, but come on, it produces a resume which claims ‘water balloon filling’ as job experience?! Anyway, I won’t even get into the overall waste of money that is the war in Iraq; I think we’re all on the same page as far as that goes at this point.)
Anyway, Mr. Black was making fun of Anousheh Ansari, who returned recently from her 8 day sojourn aboard the International Space Station, saying that the reason she spent the $20 million for the experience was so that she could basically yell nyah nyah at the world’s poor from really high up. It was funnier the way he said it, I suppose, but as I’ve already said that sort of narrow minded joke telling irks me. I understand the fact that a lot of people consider Space Exploration, and more importantly the money that Space Exploration costs, a huge waste. I understand the fact, but not the why. Miss Ansari is an Iranian-American, and was the main sponsor of the Ansari X-prize. A real hero, as far as I’m concerned. The Ansari X-prize was an award of $10 million to the first non-government organization that could build a reusable space craft; it had to be launched and reach an altitude of 100 kilometers, the true boundary of space, twice within two weeks. The X-Prize has done more to spur competition in the private sector for reaching space than anything before or since, and has directly led to the possibility of affordable space flight for those of us who were too dumb in high school to understand that you had to get really really good grades to become an astronaut. With cheap spaceflight, a whole new frontier will open for the world, and the possibilities are awe-inspiring. I honestly believe that, for my (hypothetical) grandchildren to survive, we as a species have to keep moving forward. In a world where large sums of money are spent on infinitely more questionable purposes, it seems like the relatively small amount of money spent on furthering our understanding of the Universe should be beyond ridicule. It is, after all, merely a continuation of the greatest endeavour of the human race. Without exploration, we are nothing, and further, when man is brave enough to push at his boundaries and go where few have gone, invariably he comes back with knowledge that can change the face of what we thought we knew about the world.
Something I hear or read about a lot as an argument against spending money in Space is that the world has too many problems, more attention should be focused on poverty and yadda yadda. All this is true, but why start with bashing Space? There are so many other wastes of money and resources going on, that Space Exploration is a very small fraction of where the world’s money is going, and it has such tremendous possibilities. Compared to other wasteful government spending, for instance, space funding, which usually takes up less than 0.5% of the US Government budget, doesn’t even make the Heritage Foundation's top ten list of wasteful spending! And as far as someone like Miss Ansari spending a cool $20 mil on her lifetime dream goes, well, to hell with Lewis Black. I wonder if he, or even John Stewart, spends the same percentage of their worth on charities that she does? I mean, she was on the board of directors for the Make-A-Wish foundation, for god’s sake! It doesn’t make sense to make a joke at her expense in that manner. Even if you believe that she, or people like her, are morally bankrupt for spending that kind of money on something that you consider frivolous, you have to understand that for those who dream of a better future, Space is the catalyst that can make it all happen, the dream of man come true. It’s the highest ideal worth spending on, certainly more worthy than much of the other 99.5%! Well, that's an opinion, not a fact, but go take a look at that list and tell me that funding for space programs should be cut before any other single thing on it.
By the way, I’ve been trying really hard not to use Star Trek phrases here, (Final Frontier, etc.)  because I hate that anybody with an enthusiasm for space exploration is often lumped in with the Trekkies… I actually rather despise Star Trek. It’s just another easy joke for those wishing to minimize the awesomeness of the whole endeavour. Irony, sarcasm and wit are fine tools, but not when they are misdirected at the dreams of mankind. Save them for simian Presidents and pig-headed Secretaries of Defense and State. Speaking of which, don’t you think it’s rather amazing that Bush is getting impatient with Iraqi Prime Minister al-Maliki? That takes a lot of chutzpah, even for him. Bush illegally invades Iraq, his boy Bremer disintegrates the Iraqi army, they have absolutely no discernable plan for running the country, and everything goes to hell over a period of three years, so they throw up this poor guy al-Maliki and a few months later are trying to shift the responsibility for all of the chaos to him. They are getting impatient with him for not cleaning up their mess quickly enough, a mess which to all appearances is beyond fixing. I think that someone just needs to punch the man in the face, seriously. It’s way overdue.

Go Get A Cup Of Coffee, As This One Covers Alot Of Ground, Some Of Which Is Of The Same 'Ol, Same 'Ol Variety, & Some Of Which Is New

Clear your web browser's cache! I tweaked my page banner, and you won't get to gasp in awe at it unless you do so. Unless you're brand new here; Hello! I guess that it's not really all that different than what was already there, but I like it better. I couldn't find a font that had a wing ding of a galaxy, of which some are Messier Objects. So instead I settled for one with a little orbiting action, which is not a Messier Object but it's spacey so I still like it. I will keep looking for a  proper wing ding. Anyway, like you really care. Hey, look over here! It's a picture of all the cataloged Messier Objects:

Pretty.

Anyway, I figure that it's about time for an update on my political situation. So prepare to be dazzled by the mundanity of it all. Or stop reading. This is more for me, anyway... Things tend to make more sense to me after I've written them down.
So, we left off in our story way back at the end of July, with me and my 20 Iraqi employees sitting around the camp waiting to find out if we were going to get Castle Stomped or if we could successfully thumb our noses at them. There was a little back-and-forth between us and the JASG for a while there... they accused us of stalling, to which we replied 'Well of course we are, that's what we've been saying all along! We want to not get kicked out right now so we can get a sublease on the property with the Iraqi Government! Duh.' To which they rejoinded 'Bah! We're tired of waiting on such legalities. Get out!' And we waited a week before saying '...ummm, no.' And our lawyer proceeded to list a bunch of reasons why we didn't think they had any authority over us, using sneaky little tricks such as citing International, Iraqi, and US laws. That was almost two weeks ago and we've yet to hear anything back from them. So does this mean we have won? Well, here's where it gets complicated.
See, the thing is, even if they are defeated and are not planning some heinous sneak retaliation, as much as we want these pesky pretenders off of our backs about evicting ourselves and our property, we don't actually want them to entirely wash their hands of us just yet. The problem is, that if they sign over our property to the Iraqi government before we have that elusive lease / sublease agreement signed and sealed, there are factions in the Iraqi Ministry who would love the opportunity to come in here and kick us out, and confiscate all of GBG's property! Our property consisting of the 50 or so trailers we sleep in, our dining facility and offices, and a large warehouse, among other sundries. They would consider this repayment for the crimes to which our hapless leader pled guilty... having bribed CPA officials to get contracts to rebuild portions of Iraqi infrastructure and then doing a crappy job, where there was any work done at all. (The JASG is a direct descendant, by the way, of the CPA, in regards to certain authorities which the CPA had assumed in the Wild East of 2003-2004, legally or not.) In light of the fact that he did plead guilty, it would seem that they do have a point. But it is not my place to decide such matters, sadly.
So it would seem that, as usual, I find myself in a moral grey area between the big stupid rock and a...nother big stupid rock.
Meanwhile, (Saying 'meanwhile' in a grand voice like the narrator from the old '70s early '80s Justice League cartoons has become one of our favorite jokes around here, lately. Say it! MEANWHILE!) here is what I have been doing to get by:
Selling GBG property! Oh, not any of the big stuff... that would get the owner in even more trouble, as all of his assets are frozen. No, I have to get permission through our lawyer from the Dept. of Justice to sell anything more substantial than building material, such as actual buildings or vehicles, and so far I have received no such permission. Thankfully, there is plenty of useless (to us) material around which I've been able to pawn for enough cash to continue paying the Iraqis, purchasing gasoline for our generators and vehicles, food, and miscellaneous other life-supporting items. It's been kind of fun, actually. I've discovered alot about myself in the process. Such as the fact that I am a lousy, miserable business man who doesn't know jack about what things are worth. In retrospect, I could probably have gotten more money for alot of the stuff I've sold if I knew what I was doing. But hey, I'm the only one here and I do what I can. If the company gets mad later, well, they should've been here themselves. I think that after selling what I can legally sell, I have enough cash to last us another 2 or 3 months, if we're thrifty. After that... Well, I just hope we have some issues solved by then, is all I'm saying.
On a side note: While writing this, something happened that made me realize I am way too jaded with Baghdad and should really leave. I heard a rocket launch, which is actually really loud and can be heard from several kilometers off, and is often mistaken for the actual explosion until you learn to tell the difference. Instead of freaking out, which you stop doing after the 5th one you've been around in your life, I just started typing faster because without really thinking about how stupid a thought it was, I wanted to finish this entry in case the rocket hit nearby and blew out my computer or killed me or something. This is not an unusual reaction, of course. I could tell alot of stories like that. Several weeks ago, Steve Steltzer and Darren Adams (Some Chiemseers who are also STILL here!) came over from their little happy compound for a night of movies and beer, and while someone was telling a story, Darren I think, a rocket hit nearby, shaking our caravans. We all kind of stopped for a second, to let the noise die down, and then Darren continued his story. About a minute later all five of us (Scott and Jeff were there, also) realized what had just happened and that not one of us had really reacted. We laughed about it and then quickly forgot the incident.
This is not a story meant to imply that we are cool, stone in the face of danger. No, what it really means is that we have become too complacent and are stupid. Stupid stupid stupid. Getting used to explosions should not be the same as getting used to the noises of New York City outside your bedroom window. But kind of it is.

I Am The Glitter In The Glue. Koo Koo Katchoo.

Last week they confirmed the existence of Dark Matter! So it is official: You and I and everything that is made of ordinary matter are the glitter in the glue that binds the universe together. Without Dark Matter, which comprises about %25 of the total energy of the universe, our Galaxies, suns and planets would never have been able to congeal long enough to cool down and allow worms, religious fundamentalists, and humans to exist. Ordinary matter, which fundies need in order to bash their beliefs into other people's brains, comprises only about %5 of the total energy of the universe. In other words, you need the extra gravity which Dark Matter provides in order to keep the matter with which we are more familiar orbiting itself, from galaxies in a super-cluster (though I'm not sure that what they are actually doing can be called orbiting... they are condensed into superstructure filaments, however), suns orbiting the galactic center in a whirlpool spiral, to our 4 inner rocky, 4 gas, and 3 dwarf planets orbiting Sol. Previously, there were scientists who tried to explain the fact that matter wasn't flying about all willy-nilly in the universe by questioning their current understanding of gravity, and getting all crazy and trying to prove that gravity was a different animal on larger cosmic scales than it is here in the tiny now. Well, that's done with, for the moment. Of course, there is still that pesky other %70 of the energy of the universe out there milling about all unlabelled... It's been catalogued as Dark Energy at the moment, but they still have to find some direct evidence of it. Maybe when they find some, they could call it 'The Force'. That would be sweet.
Yeah, I know. I seem to be getting a bit off topic, lately. After all, all I really know about real science is what Carl Sagan taught me. You know, the popular stuff. I've been sitting here for months, feeling pretty accomplished because I was stupid enough to spend three years of my life somewhere I don't belong and making local friends and broadening my horizons, and shrinking the world around me. But when I wind up on a real science blog, and then start following links around and find this whole ring of them, it makes me feel lost in a big universe again and now I want to go back to school and learn what they know so that I can really understand what's going on around me. I've actually been wanting to write about Dark Matter all week, but couldn't figure out a way to make it fit in with the rest of the posts on my playground. Finally, I realized that Dark Matter concerns us all, and I need no excuse to go all rapturous on it.
So okay, what is Dark Matter? Well, it's not just gas and rocks that don't reflect light, and it's not a soul-sucking gob of energy like a Black Hole... it's not even quite the same as Anti-Matter, apparently. It's just kind of there, and somewhat out of phase with our matter. They proved it's existence simply by observing the aftermath of colliding Galaxy clusters... the Dark Matter acted rather like the Queen of England... gliding unaffected and unseeing through the cacophony of the masses of common matter with a fake smile and little wave, yet all eyes watch her depart. If you were watching this scene from two thousand feet above, you would know she was there by watching the masses move around her, not by being able to actually see her.
Of course, none of this yet explains what Dark Matter is... That's because they still haven't reached up and grabbed any so far. It's been observed indirectly, and they've proven it's effect on matter, which is gravitational only, but they haven't got a handful of it yet. So the poets and the fundies are still free to dream, theorize, and demonize, but science marches on! The world is round, my friends, and we are of it, not the rightful masters of it. We are not at the center of anything, except ourselves, and the more we understand about nature, the more mankind's preconceived notions shrink into the background cosmic noise.

Welcome, Little Sol Brothers & Sisters!

I was all ready to title this entry 'Astronomers Are Stupid', because of Pluto's demotion. But when I thought about it, I decided that I don't really care if it's called a planet, a dwarf planet, the first "plutonian", or a proto trans-Neptunian ice gob. Actually, now I think about it even more, and realize that the people who are depressed that the solar system just got smaller don't really understand the laws of physics. Einstein's first implied law of E=MC² says that re-classifying the scientific nomenclature of something neither creates nor destroys matter. Therefore, by implication only, of course, one can deduce that Pluto has in fact not gone anywhere. In actual point of fact, this whole thing just makes the solar system even more interesting! Now we have a whole new breed of Sol brothers (and sisters)! Dwarf planets! How cool is that? And instead of just one, we have 3 of 'em! So, instead of losing a planet, we gained 3 dwarfs. Pluto, Ceres, and Xena, and Xena is way hot, I'm told. Good in a fight, too. Looks great in a metal bikini. Okay enough of that.
Also, something that many people might not be aware of, but there may be a good reason why the abrupt turnaround on Pluto. You see, the assembly where the International Astronomical Union decided to vote on Pluto was held in Prague, and as anybody that has been there may know, in Prague, absinthe is legal! Until the last 5 years or so, absinthe was only legal in like 3 countries, and the Czech Republic was one of them, so they have a booming absinthe industry. Absinthe, as anyone knows, really gets the creative juices flowing... Hemingway, Van Gough... it also makes you stupid-crazy in the long term, but you never get something for nothing, you know. There's that pesky science again... conservation of matter and all that. Anyway I digress.
So these Astronomers were all hanging out, getting wasted on absinthe. And although they all showed up with the intention of voting to make Pluto, Ceres, and Xena into planets, they instead got all absinthed up and fidgety, and some tipsy fellow said "Whassat? Kepler wasn' no dwarf intellect you scoundrel! He wuzza planetary motion genius! Tycho Brae was a hack!" And then the smart drunk guy next to him said, "Huzzah! Wot? Dwarf planet!? Tha's fergin' brilliant, is wot that is! In'nit?!" And the rest is history.
If you've had absinthe before, you will understand. Hopefully by the time these guys get home, they'll all still have ears.

Capturing Space Cadet Footage

I just figured how how to capture a JPEG image off of a video, and I'm all psyched 'cause I went back and made some pictures off of my MIG-25 flight Space Adventure video! Here's one of me tossing my camera about at the apex of my flight in near zero-G!

                 And here's one where I'm all space cadet!

And I had fun going through the whole video, so I've posted a couple of other interesting ones here at my Zhukovsky Air Force Base, Russia smugmug gallery, including a badass-lookin' new Jet they were testing on the airfield that day. Sweet!

Being John Mikeovich

I got my Space Adventures video, and this time it works! I asked for it in 2 formats, DVD and MPEG, so I've got it all backed up and I'm a happy space camper.
It's fairly dull; the camera men insisted on keeping the camera on ME for most of it, which is silly because I'm hardly movie material, and everything going on around me is much more interesting... They even had the camera in the cockpit of the MIG pointed right at me, so 30 minutes of the movie is just me looking really out of place in a Russian supersonic jet fighter and the really loud sound of the engine. Blah. They have a little bit at the end of the take-off and arrival of me in the acrobatic L-39, but nothing of while I was actually up in the air, which leaves open a man-on-the-moon sort of debate as to whether I actually went up in the thing and did some acrobatics or whether it was all staged... But all that matters is that my friend Jen believes me! (10!) If only Neil Armstrong had so good an alibi...
But even with all that, I had a blast watching it... it made me want to go again. I am definately not done with Space Adventures; I have to retry the zero-gravity flight, and I'm thinking about the sub-orbital adventure... we'll see.
Anyway, still no word on our contract... although there have been hints that all is not lost. If they don't tell us by the middle of february that we have to go, then the contract stipulates that it is extended by default. So, that should be the latest that we know what the deal is. I think they're keeping quiet because they're having so much fun bullying us into non-contractual work... once the new contract is signed, they won't be able to do that.
Enough of that... it's bored. I don't really care anymore; I can stay or I can go. Either option has it's pluses, really. All I really care about is getting another vacation soon so that I can have something interesting to blog about rather than periodic "still no word" entries... hey! Like THIS one!
Buh Bye.

No News is... no news. Meanwhile, in other news...

Sigghhhh... so life is much less interesting to blog about now that I'm back to work and not flying all over the place... writing about Baghdad is even dull, as I'm afraid I don't get out much and therefore have little subject material. Scott, Jeff & I did get to hang out with Darren Adams and Steve Steltzer yesterday, for any Chiemseers reading. They're doing pretty well over at their little happy camp. Darren now has 7 Sri Lankens whose jobs are to fill water baloons all day. Jerk.
Meanwhile, on the GBG war front... no news. It's fairly obvious that our client wants us out of here pretty badly... the question of when is still somewhat up in the air, however. We have to finish all of our current construction projects for them by the end of the month, or we're out, and then our contract is up for re-bid in early March anyway... lots of factors.
Still no word from our imprisoned leader... not likely to hear anything from him for quite some time. I don't even know if a trial date has been set. They've arrested a third person in the case, a military guy which brought more clarity to the money laundering/gun running aspects of the whole sordid thing. Yay! I think it's neat-o that events surrounding my life have such hollywood overtones.
A couple more people have quit, therefore tightening the noose that much more. I'm just going to continue smiling and getting paid for it.
My Iraqis were all happy to see me come back; apparently there was some question among them about whether I would or not... unfortunately, my coming back didn't magically make everything go back to the way it was, as some of them seem to have hoped. Well, we'll keep trying, anyway. I feel really awful for some of them... work is getting more and more difficult to find around here, not to mention more dangerous, anyway. But we're still employed at the moment, so...
As far as any ideas about what I can possibly do after all of this is finally over? Um... yeah. Maybe I'll try what my friend Jen once attempted and try to break into Chinese children's television programming. (9!) Too bad I'm not small pretty and blonde.
I got my Space Adventures video! I do kind of look like a space-tard in it, but there's some cool scenes too... only half of the video works, however. Bad DVD. So while I write to Space Adventures and await another copy, I will contemplate whether I allow anyone to ever see it. It does capture me falling flat on my face while attempting to make a joke to the very intimidating Russian Mig-25 pilot, Alexander Pavlov, and his oh so stony response. But then it shows me having a good excited laugh when he does a roll in the Mig-25, which is kind of cool. And it shows my camera getting a little floaty when we reach our peak height. Watching it really made me want to do it again! But I probably won't. I will re-attempt to do the zero-g program though, someday.
So a skeleton walks into a bar and orders a beer and a mop...

Houston, we've got a problem

So, when it rains, it pours... We were in the zero-g flight briefing, had our flight suits on, and they had to cancel it... Some sort of mechanical issue with the plane again. Double Bummer!!! 
So kind of a wasted trip, sittin' here in my hotel room in Ft. Lauderdale. I leave for the airport tomorrow morning at 5 am to go to Pennsylvania. They let me keep the flight suit.
Anyway... that's all. Sorry, no good adventure story this time...

On Weightlessness and Freefall, metaphorically speaking

So... I don't know if anybody's noticed, but my boss has been arrested and indicted for defrauding the government. (Defrauding? Shouldn't it be frauding?) It's been in all of the papers and his picture was all over ABC news the other day. So I'm pretty much out of a job. I'm going back to Baghdad to tidy things up before our client makes us leave... and then I'll be in limbo for a while, I guess. Sigh. It's very upsetting... I knew Phil was a bit shady, but he seemed like a regular business guy type... pretty much like every other business guy in Baghdad. The papers are saying some pretty nasty things about him, much of which I suppose is true.  I do know, however, that the Iraqis who worked for him are some of the highest paid Iraqis working for a US company in Iraq. The people working under me were paid 2 or 3 times as much as Iraqis working similar jobs at other companys in the Green Zone, and because of that I thought of my boss as a good guy. I'm really disappointed that it's turned out to be this way... I guess Al-Jazeera is having a field day with all this. I'm going to miss working there. I'm really going to miss my Iraqi friends... I feel worse for them about all this than anything. They are going to be out of work quicker than I am even... Phil has really screwed alot of good people over because of this.
Anyway, I'm in Ft. Lauderdale at the moment... I'm going to do my Zero-Gravity flight a little bit later this afternoon, and tomorrow I'll go to Pennsylvania. I may have to cut it short and head back to Baghdad earlier than I had planned, however... people are quitting and the camp is going to start falling apart pretty quickly. I just need to get there and help Scott, who's filling in for me, keep it together long enough to tie up some loose ends and get paid... It is really bad timing that this has all gone down on my vacation, I should be there.
Jen, I totally missed you on the last two posts! I'm really sorry, I don't know where my mind was. Anyway, at least I got you for # (7!)
Also, I've added a Mont St. Michel gallery at my smugmug page, and added some new photos in my Paris gallery.

Flying my brains out

Today I got my Space Adventure. IT WAS WORTH EVERY PENNY AND I'D DO IT AGAIN!! Wow. WOW. I got to fly in a Mig-25, flown by a famous Russian pilot named Alexander Pavlov, to 25,000 meters, about 82,000 feet high, ( 25 kilometers, or about 15 miles high... woohoo!) to the top speed of about Mach 2.8 (2,131.4 miles per hour, 3,430.1 kilometers per hour... yeehaw!)... When I post the pictures on my Smugmug page, you'll notice that I took a picture of the Altimeter and Speedometer every so often, but at the peak of speed and hight I didn't snap one, because that was the purest moment of euphoria I've ever experienced and there was no room for thought... I was weightless for several seconds, I have no idea how long, really. The weightlessness was caused by the altitude and the arc of the Mig-25 going over it's peak, which also caused me to have a slight buzz...Looking down at the Earth and up at the Great Black. I was in Jerusalem five days ago, but this was, BY FAR, a much Holier experience.
  I also flew in a second plane as part of the package, the L-39, which is a subsonic acrobatic training plane. When I say I flew it, I mean that literally! When we got to a certain hight, the pilot handed me control of the stick... I was a bit of a wuss with it, I must say, but then he hadn't yet shown me what the plane could do... side rolls, loop rolls, straight vertical dives, vertical ascents, combinations... the best one was this one where he went straight up, then stopped the plane... we hovered, fell straight down tail-first, and then did this sort of figure 8 roll where the nose came backwards over the tail and partway through combined it with a barrel... I felt like a pretzel. It was pretty incredible, and I must say that it turned out to be %95 as cool as the Mig-25... especially when he handed over the control to me again at the end of his acrobatics. I was much braver this time... don't get me wrong, I wasn't up to doing any rolls myself, but I did a pretty steep ascent and then dive, and made some pretty sharp turns... That thing is a big toy! Aside from all of the more extreme forces involved, it was like drving a motorcycle in the sky! I never before realized how truly maneuverable jets could be... I want to buy one!
That South African TV crew was there, and they did do a quick interview with me after the flight... They say they'll send me a copy, but we'll see. I was the first to fly, because I was the only one doing a second flight that day, and while the 2nd guy was up, I was in the L-39. When I got back from that, I got to watch the one News Guy take off in the Mig... I think that If I hadn't been the first one to go, that would have scared me a little bit. It was like watching a rocket take off... which, actually, is what it basically is. LOUD and HEAVY and FAST! I didn't feel it from inside the Mig as much as I felt it from watching it take off... I keep thinking about something my friend Jeff Nimmer wrote to me when he heard I was going up in one: "Freaking Mig 25...you realize that when we were growing up...the military would have killed to get info on the Mig 25... [and they probably DID kill to get information on it...] and you're going to be riding one to sub-space...freaking sweet..."
So all in all, I can pretty much die happy any time now... I'll never top that one. (Unless someone wants to lend me $20,000,000 bucks for the International Space Station trip...? Or the $100,000,000 bucks for the moon ride that they're planning! Hey Jen, can you spare me a few Mil?) (4! Sorry I missed you on that last post... the title of it is all the excuse I can offer...)
Anyway, I am unbelievably exhausted... I'm still a tad light headed and my body feels like it's been put through a sandwich maker...  all them crazy G-Forces, dontcha know.

Cappucino Points!

Too excited to sleep last night, and resultingly feeble attempts to defend myself

AHHH!! It's 7:30 am, I'm leaving in a half an hour to go on my MIG flight! AHHH!

Also, yesterday was fun, but my prediction was self fulfilling; it couldn't possibly live up to the fun of the Communist Rally. (I was at a Communist Rally! In Moscow! In front of Karl Marx's statue! Awesome!)
But I got to tour Star City & the Kremlin, so that's still pretty cool.
Incidentally, I know I've gotten way over-excited about being in a Communist Rally... In case anyone reading this begins to think I might actually be a Communist, I feel that I should defend my self... A communist Rally! In Moscow! In front of Karl Marx's statue! AWESOME!!! ... because it was like something out of the history channel, not becase I dig on officially frowned upon forms of government.

AHHH!! It's 7:40 am, I'm leaving in twenty minutes to go on my MIG flight! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

S.A. (S.pace A.dventures? S.outh A.frica? S.uper A.wesome?!)

My itinerary change is official: I'm signed up for the Zero-Gravity flight on November 19th in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida instead! They had to cancel my Zero-Gravity flight in Moscow due to mechanical issues with the plane. Huge Bummer. But the Mig-25 edge-of-space flight is still on. One less day in Moscow, one more day in St. Petersburg.  The U.S. Zero-G is cheaper than the Moscow one, and I'll be spending the remaining cash on the extra flight and Hotel there, so it pretty much balances out. So I'll be in the States for Thanksgiving for sure!
Also, I just got an email from my Space Adventures planner, and she says that there will be some people from some popular South African news show there on the same day as me to do the Mig-25 flight, and that they want to interview other fliers... so I get to be on South African TV, too. Dude, total package deal. It's a good thing nobody I know lives in SA to see me make a dork out of myself.

First Post!

I've gone and done it. I'm thinking about the whole blogging thing, and here I am, signing up. I'm not quite sure what I'll be doing with it, other than getting some frustration out from time to time.  I feel like this is coming late in my life... I've been slacking around Europe, Africa, and the Middle East for about 8 years now, and now I decide to go public... all my best stuff is old news. HOWEVER...
In one week I'll be flying to Jordan to hang out, take care of some mundane sorts of life things, float in some salt at the dead sea, blah blah blah. And then a week later I'm flying to Moscow so that I can fly to the very edge of the planet in a Mig-25 with the company 'Space Adventures', the same people that put that Tito guy on the International Space Station for 20 million bucks. Here are some details about that and other programs they offer.
So I'll certainly be writing about all that.
So, I guess some backlogging is in order... meh. Perhaps another time when I'm more in the mood to write about myself. You can always check out my about page if you give two craps. If you don't, believe me I totally understand. Having said that, here's a link to my smugmug page where I post all the pictures I've taken on my travels.