This must be my own personal Geek Week! Check out the far end of that line of shuttle craft… I recognized that one right off! Find a few more pictures after the jump, and the rest at the homepage of the Sci-Fi Airshow! This is soooo cool!
Sci-Fi Airshow!
June 21, 2010
geek, Pictures 2001, Battlestar Galactica, Sci-Fi Airshow, Space 1999, star trek, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea Leave a comment
Summer Solstice Monday 4:28am Pacific
June 21, 2010
geek, Personal first day of summer, pacific high, pagan, summer solstice, tropic of cancer Leave a comment
Here’s more of that ” it’s the real thing ” stuff that makes me go into full geek mode. Today, just now, as a matter of fact (as I’m writing this, anyway), the Earth just passed the point where the Sun reached it’s most northerly declination. It’s now officially summer in the Northern Hemisphere, and winter in the Southern! If you’re watching at sunset, the Sun will drop below the western horizon further south each day. If you were on the Tropic of Cancer, at 23.5 degrees North Latitude, the sun would be directly overhead at local noon, but only today and maybe tomorrow. Depending on how carefully you measured it, you’d see a slight difference starting tomorrow, or Wednesday. It won’t go any further north. We now begin the long march towards winter. Each “day” will get shorter from here on out. Well, the daylight portion will, at any rate. The day remains 23 hours, 56 minutes and some seconds. (but that’s another geeky blog some other time!)
“But wait!” you might say… “aren’t we still weeks away from the hottest time of the year? The Sun is marching back south… why isn’t it the hottest right now?” And in that lies all kinds of science and knowledge and total geekiness! The quick answer, before your eyes glaze over and your minds turn to mush, is that the oceans and land masses of the planet act as heat sinks, absorbing heat, and then releasing it over time. There’s a lag in both effects, and that affects the weather patterns and large scale climate. Here for us locally, the Pacific high that sits in the mid-Pacific Ocean will move north, and deflect storms into Washington and Canada. Here’s a little climate tidbit for you… Central and Southern California is one of only five places in the world where the rainy season is in the winter, instead of the summer! And that’s due to that high pressure system sitting off the west coast, shoving all those summer storms to our north! Didn’t know you were living in such an uncommon area, did you?
One more thing. Notice on the chart above, how the Earth is further away from the Sun right now. That’s not some distortion to show the solstice. It’s really that way. The Earth’s orbit is not a circle, it’s more oblong, and the planet is actually several million miles further away from the Sun in our summer than during our winter. And therein lies more geeky science stuff about angle of the Sun’s rays and atmospheric absorption working together to make us hotter when we’re further away, and colder when we’re closer.
Science is so much fun!
OK, end of today’s geekiness. Happy Summer Solstice! If you are a pagan, you might be having a big party today! Are the rest of us invited??
Carl let me down
June 19, 2010
commentary, Personal Carl's, Carl's Jr, drive thru, fast food, teryaki burger, visalia 3 Comments
Last year it was the King who disappointed me, getting my orders wrong time after time. Now, it’s Carl. He didn’t get the order wrong, but it certainly was a let down. I pulled into the drive through at the nearby Carl’s Jr this evening, intending to get one of their “Six Dollar Burgers”. I first saw the window banner, then the menu board listing for the teryaki burger. That’s it in the picture. Well, that’s the advertising model, at any rate. Looks delicious, doesn’t it? I’ve had some really good teryaki burgers in the past, and I had high hopes. Red Robin has a good one, and the now-closed Baker’s Square had one I really like, too. I thought to myself, “self, that looks good! Get that!” My self replied “You’re right! That looks yummy! We’ll get that!”
I really wish I had taken a picture of what I got home with, but I didn’t think of it until it was too late. The pineapple was a slim little cut, less than a third of the thickness you see above. The meat was probably close, but it was a bit tired looking, like it had been under a heat lamp a couple of minutes too long. The lettuce was limp, the tomatoes a bit bland. The only thing that lived up to expectations was the onion slices.
That is not an acceptable burger to send home with someone, especially after teasing them with pictures like that. So, sorry Carl, you’ve joined the King on my shit list.
Next.
JimmY Joe Reeves, with a “Y”
June 16, 2010
Gay, Personal, Pictures Facebook friends, Germany, Jimmie Joe Reeves, Jimmy Joe Reeves, USA Leave a comment
The stats page for this website includes a list of search terms that brought readers to my site. One day, I noticed “Jimmy Joe Reeves” in the listing, and wondered if they were looking for me and simply misspelling my name, or if there was something else going on? My name is spelled Jimmie, with an ‘ie’ at the end. This search term was Jimmy with a ‘y’. So, being the ever inquisitive fellow I am, I immediately “Googled” ‘Jimmy Joe Reeves’. Here’s what I found!
Meet Jimmy Joe Reeves, from Germany.
He’s apparently an actor (one video on his site shows him in a German movie with American actor Stacy Keach, but it’s in German, so I’m not sure what’s going on). I do know one thing: he’s pretty hot! 😉
Here’s his Facebook page, and some more pictures after the jump.
Rodney McKay is… James Bond
June 11, 2010
Humor, video James Bond, Rodney McKay, spoof, Stargate Atlantis Leave a comment
This is just too cool! I should have known Rodney had it in him… deep inside all of us geeks/nerds/brainiacs lives our own version of James Bond. We usually have the toys, if not the guns and cars.
World Cup at Mos Eisley, Tatooine
June 10, 2010
Humor, video addidas, Cantina, Mos Eisley, Tatooine, World Cup ad Leave a comment
This isn’t quite how I remember this scene…
A Happy Ending
June 10, 2010
9-1-1, commentary 9-1-1, challenges, dispatcher, happy ending Leave a comment
When calling 9-1-1, many people are having their worst day ever. Whatever is happening, from a medical problem to finding their home burglarized, it’s now pretty well ingrained in folks to call 9-1-1. We still get calls where someone has called a friend or relative first, and they call 9-1-1, but generally speaking, we’re first on most lists. Sometimes it’s difficult to categorize the call as a real emergency, but we’ll do the best we can. Sometimes a call to 9-1-1 can prevent an emergency.
Tonight we got such a call, and we had a happy ending. A caller dials up 9-1-1 and tells the operator that earlier that day they had lunch at a small cafe in one of our mountain communities. The lady left her purse in the restaurant when they left, and did not miss it until late in the evening. This was a case where a lost purse could have had terrible consequences. Inside the purse was medication for the family’s young son, a 7 year old cancer victim. If the purse and it’s medication could not be found, the family would have to immediately leave and return to southern California to acquire the proper treatment for the boy. They were back at the cafe, but it was now late at night, and the business was closed. At a loss for what to do, the call to 9-1-1 was placed. While we will do our best no matter who is involved, when you tell a bunch of dispatchers (or deputies, officers, firemen, or EMTs) that a child is involved we’ll move Heaven and Earth to get the job done.
Channel 3 Is Now Closed
June 10, 2010
9-1-1, Humor, Personal Channel 3, Channel Three, close the channel, dispatch, TCSO Radio Leave a comment
Normally, it’s just that… “Visalia One to all units and stations, Channel Three is closed”. Sometimes we get to play a little bit. All unauthorized and unapproved. But fun, anyway!
JimmieJoe / KC6YRU 
The Sky on Fire
June 20, 2010
Jim Reeves commentary, Pictures aurora australis, Earth, ISS, NASA, souther lights, Space Station Leave a comment
South Polar region.
The sky is on “fire”.
The aurora australis — the southern lights — snakes its way across the Earth’s magnetic field as seen from above!
In this picture taken by astronauts aboard the International Space Station, charged particles from the sun interact with the Earth’s magnetic field, lighting up the sky.
Things like this is why I prefer science to superstition and mythology. Those stories are entertaining, and inform much morality, but they pale before the real thing. This isn’t because some “god” decided to light the sky on fire, this is simply the end result of natural processes. Figuring out why it happens, how that might affect us, and that it might lead to other exciting discoveries and advances is what science is all about. How unsatisfying to say merely “because God made it that way”.
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