Wit, Wisdom, and Whimsy. (your mileage may vary)
April 18, 2014
News city council enacts water restrictions, climate change, drought restrictions, Global Warming, visalia, visalia water restrictions 1 Comment
Visalia’s City Council recently invoked severe water use restrictions for landscaping and car washing.
Here’s the info on the rules, now in effect in Visalia, brazenly appropriated from the City’s own website:
Odd = Addresses ending in an odd number (1, 3, 5, 7, 9)
Even = Addresses ending in an even number (0, 2, 4, 6, 8)
April 15, 2014
commentary, geek blood moon, lunar eclipse, orbital dynamics, warning from god Leave a comment
A Lunar eclipse occurred last night, with the Moon slipping into the Earth’s shadow. The refraction of light through the Earth’s atmosphere created the reddish hue, not quite darkening our sister planet. (The Earth and Moon are more accurately a binary planet system, rather than a primary and satellite system.)
The term “Blood Moon” seems to be the result of the media glomming onto a doomsday prophet, ‘end of the world’, God is coming book seller. It doesn’t seem to have any historical relevance, but since it’s caught the fancy of reporters around the world, we’re stuck with it. Some have gone so far as to claim it’s a sign from God, warning President Obama (about something… pick a wingnut cause and use that, for all the sense they make).
Several more of these eclipses will happen in the next few years, just as they’ve happened ever since the Moon reached it’s current orbital distance from the Earth. (the Moon used to be much closer to Earth, but tidal friction and orbital dynamics have been moving it further away ever since it formed. Using devices left on there by the Apollo missions, we can measure that movement precisely.)
Space Cadet Jimmiejoe contributed to this blog.
April 7, 2014
It’s a shame local business people don’t understand the law, and basic human decency. TEDG, it might be reasonable to reconsider the June 17 dinner location.
April 6, 2014
geek Curiosity, HiRISE, Mars, NASA pics, space science Leave a comment
Curiosity, on Mars, from orbit. Photo taken by HiRISE. Just wow.
To give you a sense of scale, here’s the Curiosity’s twin on Earth:
Science!
(and, as an aside… if NASA can take pictures like this from orbit, and release them, can you imagine what spy satellites are capable of these days? It boggles the mind. Next time you’re outside, look up, smile, and wave. It’ll give the CIA and NSA guys something to wonder about!)
April 5, 2014
commentary, Humor, Personal aisle wanderings, Home Depot, home repair, Homo Depot, mr fixit Leave a comment
Searching Home Depot for a light fixture to replace one that failed. I only had to walk the aisles twice before I found what I was looking for. The staff is usually helpful, but I seldom ask where things are located, and the guys I did see working the floor were… shall we say… not the type to make me break old habits and ask for help. I hear so much about those stores, but I never see anything! I must be going at the wrong hours. 😉
March 22, 2014
geek, Pictures astronaut selfie, george clooney, gravity, NASA, sandra bullock 1 Comment
I’m sorry, but Sandra and George didn’t come close.
March 20, 2014
Personal moro rock, sequoia national park, throw back thursday, Tulare County 1 Comment
January 1986, on the top of Moro Rock, in Sequoia National Park, which is just up the road from my home in Visalia. It may look like I have a death grip on the rail, but I don’t remember being at all nervous there. I’m 28 here, and there are two things I notice in this picture: how much hair I have compared to today, and how much snow on the mountains compared to today. Both were much thicker than now. Mother Nature can be a bitch, and Father Time a bastard!
March 17, 2014
commentary, geek, Personal chinese space station, george clooney, gravity, ISS, sandra bullock, space movie, space shuttle explorer 1 Comment
They say you have to “suspend disbelief” to enjoy some movies, but when a movie is about something you’re really interested in, it becomes more difficult as the filmmakers take “artistic license” to the extreme. The new movie “Gravity” is one such example. Where to begin with all that’s wrong with this film?
First, let me tell you what was good. The technical aspects were first rate. The visuals, the micro-gravity, most of the movement were spot on. It looked almost like it was filmed in space! The scenes of the astronauts in orbit, the Earth, the space shuttle and space station looked incredibly real. The story line was mostly good, but some really odd things popped in from time to time, making one wonder “what the hell was that?” (the chinese guy talking with the barking dog and crying baby? huh?)
Now, for the bad…
[SPOILERS ALERT]
March 5, 2014
commentary, geek, Personal cell phone, communications satellite, hoverboard, I live in the future, jimmiejoe, SpaceCadet Leave a comment
A few minutes ago, I was sitting in my living room, holding a little piece of plastic and metal to my ear, no wires connecting me to any plugs on the walls, talking to a friend in Virginia as he drove down a highway. Space Cadet JimmieJoe was jumping up and down in my head again, amazed.
When I was 12, the Space Cadet often daydreamed about the future. There were spaceships and incredible computers. Meals would be selected on a screen, and be magically transported to the table by a conveyor. Communication anywhere on the planet would be simple, quick, and complete with video. Super sonic jets would whisk you to anyplace on Earth in a short time, and, of course, flying cars would be everywhere. Think – “The Jetsons”.
Well, the future is here, but it looks a bit different than Space Cadet JimmieJoe imagined.
JimmieJoe / KC6YRU 
Throwback Thursday: July, 1958
April 17, 2014
Jim Reeves commentary, Personal El Paso, Jimmie Reeves, throw back thursday, USAF 3 Comments
It’s July, 1958. El Paso, Texas. “Big Jimmie”, as he will come to be called by his family now that he has a “Little Jimmie”, turned 20 this month, and is an airman in the United States Air Force. When I selected the picture for this week’s “Throwback Thursday”, I noticed something I hadn’t seen before. I’ve always seen him in pictures of me, and that gets truer the older I get. Until today, however, I had never noticed my Mother in me. I see her in this one, however. Something in my face reminds me of her, and I wonder why I never noticed it before. I also see many of my other relatives. Or rather I see the common familial features we all tend to have as infants. We might all look very different as we grow up, but you can certainly tell we’re all related in our baby pictures.
Oddly, it reminds me of how I first became aware of Keanu Reeves.
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