Monthly Archives: August 2012

Aug112012

I Know This Is Supposed to Be Reassuring…

…but it actually kinda bums me out:

Source: xkcd (of course).

Aug102012

Spreading the Word

I realize, of course, that people trying to raise money for their pet causes are as common on the Internet as funny pictures of cats. Nevertheless, I hope everyone reading this will take a moment to at least consider what I’m going to ask.

(Facebook friends who’ve already read my plea over there are excused; I don’t want to become tiresome with this, I’m just trying to spread the word as far as I can, through all the outlets at my disposal.)

For the past several months, my lovely significant other has been working very hard to lose weight and change her habits for the better. We both have. It’s something we’ve needed to do and threatened to do for a very long time, but of course it’s so easy to put these things off, to just coast along for another day, another week, another month in the comfortable old rut of processed food, oversized meals, and sedentary lifestyles. But just recently we’ve been confronted with the specter of diabetes, the plague of first-world malnutrition, and it’s jolted us out of our rut about as effectively as stepping on an atomic landmine. If you don’t know anybody with diabetes, or you think you don’t, just wait. You will. It may even turn out to be you. This grim realization is what convinced us both to get bloody-well serious about trying to undo what we’ve done to ourselves over the past 20 years.

Anne has made genuinely terrific progress, dropping a significant amount of weight and learning to eat things she never would’ve glanced at only a year ago. Now, to celebrate and hopefully make a difference in the fight against this damn disease that affects so many of our loved ones, she’s committed herself to participate in the upcoming JDRF Walk to Cure Diabetes on August 25 with our friend Kathy (who has also made some amazing changes over the past year!).

So here comes the pitch: I’m asking my Loyal Readers out there in the darkness to please consider donating to the cause. I know times are tough, and nobody likes having the bite put on them. But even a dollar or two would help Anne reach her goal, which is actually quite modest ($150). It’s a cause we both believe in, for whatever that’s worth. If you’ll just follow this link, you’ll be taken to a page where Anne explains this a bit more in her own words; there’s a button there that will let you donate in her name.

Anne thanks you in advance, and so do I. You’re good people. I know you’ll come through for us.

Aug092012

Song Titles Meme

Howzabout a meme to while away a Thursday afternoon? Here’s one I picked up from SamuraiFrog.

The set-up: Answer the questions using only song titles from ONE artist.

I’m sure my Loyal Readers are already rolling their eyes in their anticipation of which artist I’m going to pick for this exercise, so you know what? I’m going to confound your expectations and go with… Jimmy Buffett. Yes, that’s right, Mr. Margaritaville, about the most un-Rick Springfield-ish musician you could probably imagine, at least from within the pop-rock spectrum of the last 40 years. I realize I haven’t previously said much about my affection for Jimmy, but the fact is, I went through a pretty major Parrothead phase back in college. His imaginary landscape of seedy equatorial port cities populated by lovable scoundrels, misfits, and wanderers was immensely appealing to me at a certain point of my life, back when I was a restless and romantic young man who felt very out of place in his very buttoned-down surroundings. (Oh, who am I kidding? I still feel that way much of the time!) I own every album of his from 1973’s A White Sport Coat and a Pink Crustacean up through Far Side of the World from 2002, which is when I finally got tired of being disappointed by him. (In my opinion, his work has been on a downhill slide since the early ’90s, when he evidently became more interested in running restaurants and selling t-shirts than writing good, honest songs. The last of his albums that I unreservedly liked was Fruitcakes in 1994, and my favorites actually date from the very early “Key West records” to the mid-80s or so.) He’s released three studio albums since then and I haven’t bothered to listen to a single one of them. But anyhow, let’s get down to answering those questions, shall we?

Are you a man or a female?
“Son of a Son of a Sailor”
Describe yourself.
“It’s Midnight and I’m Not Famous Yet”
How are you feeling right now?
“Havana Daydreamin'”
Describe the city you’re living in.
“Stranded on a Sandbar”
If you could go anywhere, where would you go?
“Far Side of the World”
Your favorite form of transportation?
“Ragtop Day”
Your best friend?
“We Are the People Our Parents Warned Us About”
Your favorite color?
“Volcano”
What’s the weather like?
“King of Somewhere Hot”
Your favorite time of the day?
“Stars on the Water”
If your life were a TV program, what would it be called?
“Tryin’ to Reason with Hurricane Season”
What is your life like?
“Growing Older But Not Up”
Your current relationship?
“Perfect Partner”
What gives?
“The Weather Is Here, Wish You Were Beautiful”
You expect what from the future?
“Cliches”
The way you would like to go?
“On a Slow Boat to China”
You wouldn’t mind?
“Boat Drinks”
Your fear?
“What if the Hokey-Pokey Is All It Really Is About?”
Your best advice right now?
“Treat Her Like a Lady”
If you could change your name right now, it would be?
“Twelve Volt Man”
Your motto?
“Why Don’t We Get Drunk (and Screw)?”Oh, come on, surely you knew I couldn’t get through an exercise like this without mentioning that song, right?

Aug072012

Public Service Announcement

Just wanted to note that my friend Diane Olson will be signing her book, A Nature Lover’s Almanac: Kinky Bugs, Stealthy Critters, Prosperous Plants & Celestial Wonders, this Saturday from 1 to 3 PM at the fabulous new Natural History Museum of Utah. If you haven’t been to the NHMU yet, you really ought to take this opportunity to drop in. Diane’s book is a great little volume of fascinating factoids that’s well worth adding to your library — FYI, the book’s illustrator, Adele Flail, will be there as well! — and the museum itself is absolutely breathtaking, one of the best public facilities of this type I’ve seen. (I especially like the exhibit on the Great Salt Lake with the floor-to-ceiling window looking out over the valley… and the actual Great Salt Lake in the distance!)

Anyhow, details on the signing are here; the NMHU’s home page is here.

Aug072012

Before We Move On to Other Things…

Here’s one last photo from Curiosity’s first day, just to prove it really is up there on Mars:

(Considering how few people actually saw John Carter, I guess I ought to explain that the little critter there is Woola, a Martian calot — kind of a dog/frog thing — that takes a liking to the titular hero of the movie. Well, I thought it was funny, anyway… )

Not surprisingly, there’s an entire blog dedicated to this sort of thing, with everyone from Marvin the Martian to Ripley’s xenomorph to the yip-yip guys from Sesame Street photobombing Curiosity’s first view of the red planet. There’s some funny and clever stuff over there, but use caution if you’re checking it out at work, as the triple-breasted hooker from Total Recall makes an appearance as well…

Aug062012

The Morning After the Night Before

I’m sitting here with my eyes burning from sitting up half the night watching the Mars landing, sipping my coffee and pretending I actually care today about errant hyphens, but the fatigue was worth it.

I know there are people out there, possibly even some of the people reading this, who don’t understand or share my enthusiasm about this space stuff. Too many problems back here on Earth we ought to be focusing on instead, they say. What a waste of two-and-a-half-billion dollars, they say, throwing a robot at another planet when times are so tough back here. We’ve got drought and unemployment and wildfires and starving people to worry about; why should we care about going to some other planet?

Well, to those people, I’d point out that the Empire State Building, the Golden Gate Bridge, and Hoover Dam were all built at the height of the Great Depression. Like Curiosity, they were enormous feats of engineering and they cost enormous amounts of money that could’ve been spent helping all the people who were down on their luck at that time. I’m sure many people in the 1930s said the exact same things about them that people say about space exploration now. But they went up anyhow, employing thousands during their building and giving thousands more — if not millions — something to be proud of and to inspire them in their darkness. Today, those three structures are symbols of pride for our nation. I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to suggest that Curiosity may someday be seen in the same light. People who’ve fallen on tough times need something larger than themselves to think about sometimes, as an escape from the grinding anxiety of their daily lives. I think that’s much of the reason why superhero movies are so popular; why shouldn’t people find relief from their worries in the grand adventure of exploration and science as well?

Anyhow, I’m too fuzzy-headed to go much farther with that, so let me instead just point you to a couple of interesting links I’ve run across:

First, Wired.com offers a breakdown of the instruments onboard the Mars Science Laboratory, explaining what they are, how they work, and what they’re for. The bit with the lasers is especially cool.
You want cool? How about this… a photo of Curiosity descending beneath its parachute taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Think about that: a robot space probe falling through the atmosphere of an alien world, photographed by another robot probe in orbit around that planet. And we did that. We built those things. We, those silly little hominids who not so long ago in geological time figured out that if you bang a rock against another one, you get a sharp edge, and that might be kinda useful.
If you couldn’t stay up and watch the live feed from JPL the way I did, there are all kinds of videos to be found on YouTube. I thought this one was particularly interesting… clips from the control room are intercut with that simulation of the landing procedure, so you can get an idea of what the scientists and engineers are reacting to.
And lastly, I couldn’t help but notice as the camera panned around the control room that things have loosened up considerably since the The Right Stuff era of skinny ties, white shirts, and uniform crew cuts… and isn’t that a grand thing? Steel-haired hippies and mohawks, oh my!

(I snagged this photo from here; not sure of its original provenance.)

And now I think another cup is in order… so very fuzzy…

Aug062012

Touchdown! The Crowd Goes Wild!

Wow, what an incredible half-hour that was. That crazy damn contraption actually worked… Curiosity has landed safely and already sent its first photo home, helpfully relayed by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter as it passed overhead, and I (and a whole lot of other folks, judging by the eruption of traffic on Twitter) watched it all live. Well, more or less… given the time delay, the actual events had already happened up there on that other world as we were sitting with our sweaty palms and dry mouths. But still… I was watching all those tense faces in the control room at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, seeing their reactions in real time and feeling like I was sitting there myself as history was happening. I’ve made no secret of the fact that I often feel a little lost here in the 21st century, but at moments like this, when technology gives us the opportunity to share things like this with the people who are making it happen, and the people all over the world who also get excited by the thought of something we built setting down on another freaking planet… god, it’s all so amazing. It almost makes up for nonsense like whether or not eating mediocre fast-food chicken sends the proper political statement.

The official time of landing has been declared as 10:31 PM PDT, which worked out to 11:31 here in Salt Lake, just like we were told in advance. All the control-room chatter I’ve been overhearing suggests that all is well, and it sounds like there was even some fuel left in the Skycrane platform when it crashed down, so it’s not like this adventure was coming down to the wire. Wow. Just wow. If only we could’ve dropped some cameras in advance and seen the rover coming down on its cables below the hovering Skycrane! Maybe on the next mission.

And now I really ought to go to bed. Even though it’s going to be tough to sleep after that…

Incidentally, if anyone cares, here are my own tweets from this evening, most of which are restatements of things I was picking up from @MarsCuriosity, @NASA, and @PeterDiamandis (he’s the cat who founded the X Prize, the competition that brought us the historic flight of SpaceShipOne, the first privately owned craft to reach outer space, among other things). And of course I was listening to the video feed direct from JPL.

Curiosity is now under its own onboard control, inside the orbit of Deimos and closing on Mars… accelerating to 13,000 mph! 10:27 PM
Curiosity entry shell has separated from cruise stage; traveling at 13K mph; atmo in about 16 minutes… 11:17 PM
Mars Recon Orbiter is in position to observe landing… we may get pictures! 5 minutes to atmo, “heartbeat” still coming in… 11:20 PM
JPL control room guys eating peanuts for luck… a tradition going back to Ranger 7 in 1964… 11:22 PM
Two minutes to atmo entry… heartbeat tones good. 11:23 PM
Of course, given the timelag, all of this has already happened… how’s that for weird? 11:24 PM
Seven minutes of terror begin… now! JPL guy is licking his lips a lot… 11:25 PM
Passed through peak heating and accel. Still getting a signal… telemetry coming back! 11:26 PM
Vehicle is down to mach 2. Heartbeat is loud and clear. 11:29 PM
Parachute deployed! 11:29 PM
Heat shield away… getting ready for powered flight 11:30 PM
Powered flight! 11:31 PM
Standing by for Skycrane… nice flat place located… 40 meters up. Skycrane started! 11:32 PM
Tango delta nominal. Whatever that means 11:32 PM
Touchdown!!!!!! The crowd goes wild!!!!!! 11:32 PM
Images coming down… 11:34 PM
Incredible! Pics of the wheels on the surface already, relayed by Mars Recon Orbiter (Odyssey). Many nerds crying at JPL. Me too. 11:39 PM
Keep waiting for one of these guys to yell “It’s Miller time!” 11:42 PM

One final thought before I call it a night, something I retweeted from Rob Lowe, of all people (yes, that Rob Lowe):

Let us be under no illusions: this country is still very capable of great feats that should inspire the world. #NASA #Curiosity

Amen, buddy, amen… I’m not what many people would consider “patriotic,” and I typically find big displays of jingoism and nationalism extremely distasteful, but when it comes to stuff like this, I am very, very proud of my country and a red-blooded American through and through.

Aug052012

Big Day on the Red Planet

This evening promises to be an exciting and nerve-wracking one for space buffs. If you haven’t heard — and if not, then just where in the hell have you been?! — the rover Curiosity is due to land on Mars tonight at 1:31 AM Eastern time, or 11:31 PM here in Utah. Officially called the Mars Science Laboratory, Curiosity is in for a wild ride as it descends through the Martian atmosphere during one of the most complex landing procedures ever attempted. Curiosity is much larger and heavier than its predecessors Spirit and Opportunity, so the airbag system that cushioned those earlier rovers won’t work this time. Instead, this machine — which is about the size of a Mini Cooper automobile — will rely on the largest, toughest parachute ever deployed on another planet as well as a rocket-powered platform called the Skycrane, which is supposed to slow the whole package to a hover and then lower the rover to the surface on cables before zooming off to safely crash some distance away. And if all that isn’t anxiety-inducing enough, the landing will be entirely automated; radio signals take 14 minutes to travel between Earth and Mars, so there’s no way to interact with the probe in real time. Once the atmospheric entry begins, it will be entirely up to Curiosity’s onboard computers and the various mechanical components of the landing system to get her down in one piece. Those components have been tested back here on Earth, but they’ve never all functioned together as a unified whole. And tonight, there won’t be any second chances — everything has to work properly and at exactly the right time, or Curiosity goes splat. And remember that Mars has a nasty habit of eating space probes. We won’t even know if the landing was successful or not until long after it’s all over.

To help you picture how all this is supposed to work, here’s a helpful video narrated by actor, writer, blogger, and big-time geek — do I even have to mention he’s a Star Trek alum? — Wil Wheaton:

A journey of eight months and 350 million miles all coming down to a seven-minute window and something that’s never been done before… that’s drama. And drama like that is one the biggest reasons why I groove so much on space exploration. It’d be more exciting, of course, if there was a human being inside that aeroshell that even now is nearing the edge of the Martian atmosphere… but for now, I’ll live with our robotic proxies.

Godspeed, Curiosity!

Aug032012

Friday Evening Videos: Loverboy’s “Heartbreaker”

For a couple years in the mid-80s, my favorite band was Loverboy, the Canadian quintet that recorded the party anthem “Working for the Weekend” and whose lead singer, Mike Reno, was infamous for performing in skin-tight red leather pants. I saw them live in 1986 during their “Lovin’ Every Minute of It” tour… and then somehow I lost track of them for 20 years. Now, like just about every other big arena-rock act from my adolescence, they’re back out there touring again, and I’ve been thinking I’d like to see them a second time. But somehow I keep missing the opportunity. They’ve played Wendover, the Nevada border town a hundred miles west of Salt Lake where the Girlfriend and I go just about every year to see my main man, Rick Springfield (pics from the most recent show here). And I think they played the state fair a couple years back. Missed them both times.

Tonight they’re appearing here in the valley at Usana Amphitheater with Journey and Pat Benatar (another ’80s icon I’d like to see live), but I’m not going to that show either. It’s the Girlfriend’s birthday, you see, and I didn’t want to make her do something I wanted to do on her day, and anyhow we’ve been to Journey a couple times already in recent years, so it just didn’t seem like a huge priority and we were going to talk about it some more, and then all of a sudden the date was upon us, and… well, maybe they’ll play Wendover again sometime soon.

There is a consolation prize, however, in the form of a brand-new Loverboy single and music video I just learned about a couple days ago. The song is called “Heartbreaker” — no relation to Benatar’s “Heartbreaker” — and it’s a cut from the band’s upcoming album Rock N Roll Revival, due to release on August 14. I think this is a great track; I’ve played it at least a dozen times since I stumbled across it. Reno’s voice is still strong (although it doesn’t look like he’ll ever get back into those red leather pants!), the melody is infectious, and the chorus is as instantly repeatable as anything from the band’s heyday. This is the kind of simple, fun song that makes me feel an uncomplicated sense of happiness, especially on a pleasant summer evening when the day’s heat has mellowed into something like a lover’s caress, and the shadows stretch across the road as I make my way home through golden sunlight with the top down…

Aug022012

My Dad Is a Rock Star

It’s true. At least for one weekend a year, in one specific location: a place called Wells, Nevada. Don’t feel bad if you’ve never heard of it.

Wells is a tiny outpost town located on I-80 midway between Elko and Wendover. With a population of only 1,200 souls, there’s not much reason for passing motorists to notice it. Its quaint historic main street was damaged by an earthquake several years ago, and there’s been no money to repair or even demolish the crumbling buildings. It boasts a number of mid-century “motor lodges” — motels, to us younger road-trippers — but many are boarded up, their neon signs broken and swimming pools filled with dust blown in by the desert winds. About the only going concerns are the truck stops clustered near the freeway exits, a modest casino, a couple of restaurants, and of course the pair of legal brothels that are primly separated from the rest of the town by a railroad line (they’re literally on the wrong side of the tracks!). But whatever Wells may be lacking in amenities is more than compensated by the hospitality of its citizens, who once a year throw an incredible three-day party known as the Wells Fun Run.

While it’s ostensibly just another weekend gathering of classic-car enthusiasts — my parents participate in a half-dozen of those every summer — the Fun Run feels more like an old-fashioned, small-town founders-day celebration. In addition to the cars, there’s a parade, a fireworks display, a big barbecue hosted by the local casino, a community breakfast in the park, and a Saturday-night street dance. People pour into town from the surrounding ranches dressed in their finest western-style shirts and pressed jeans, giving the impression that this is the biggest thing that happens around these parts all year long. And unlike other shows where, frankly, there isn’t much to do, the folks behind the Fun Run organize actual events for the car people to compete in — drag races, “slow drags” (a ridiculous thing in which the object is exactly the opposite of a regular drag, i.e., you’re supposed to go as slowly as possible without stopping; the first one across the finish line is the loser), and burnouts. And it’s in these events — particularly the burnouts — that my dad has built his reputation. Well, he and his ’56 Chevy Nomad.

If you don’t know your cars, the 1955 through ’57 Nomads were essentially station wagons, but sporty ones, with only two doors and the same nose and tail styling as the eternally popular Chevy Bel-Air. Dad’s Nomad is even sportier than most, with a blue-on-blue color scheme that includes digital readouts in place of the original dashboard gauges, a purple flame job across the hood and fenders, and a monstrous 502 cubic-inch big-block V8 engine. Oh, and there’s also a nitrous injection system when he needs a little extra “umph.” To be honest, the Nomad is too much car for me, and I don’t enjoy driving it very much. But Dad has complete mastery over it; when he’s behind the wheel of this behemoth, he’s in his element, and at those times I can very clearly see the motorhead greaser I know he once was, back in his youth during the early ’60s.

Dad would no doubt scoff if he read this, but he knows how to excite a crowd, and between his innate sense of showmanship and the general awesomeness of the Nomad, he’s made a big impression on the citizens of Wells over the years. So much so that the organizers of the 2012 Fun Run granted him just about the biggest honor there is in cruiser circles: they featured his car on this year’s souvenir t-shirts. Which means that after last weekend, there are now several hundred people walking around with this image on their backs:

As I said, my dad is a bona fide rock star… he even has his own tour merchandise! How bloody cool is that?

He hasn’t made too much out of the t-shirt thing — Dad’s pretty laconic most of the time, in the spirit of all the great Hollywood cowboys — but I’ve seen subtle indications of his excitement. (He got the Nomad’s bumpers re-chromed before the show, for one thing.) And I’ve been very excited on his behalf for the past several months, ever since I first saw a lo-rez JPEG of this artwork. It might sound a little cheesy to say this, but what the hell… I’m very proud of my old man. I don’t go to many car shows any more — I got burned out on them a number of years back, and anyway, I’m pretty busy most of the time — but I made a point of driving out across the desert this past weekend for this one, as a show of support for my dad in his moment of glory. I’m glad I did, too; my parents and I had a good time together, and I think it made him feel good to know I was there. In addition to the honor of the t-shirt, I’m happy to report that he also took first place in this year’s burnout competition! I’ll be posting video of his burns in a couple of days, so keep your eyes peeled…