It may sound like I’m blowing my own horn here, but this would never work on me. I simply know too much about satellites, the actual size and shape of the UARS satellite, and what happens when they de-orbit. Whatever parts survived the re-entry splashed down somewhere in the Pacific, sinking quietly into oblivion. You have to remember a few things about orbiting machines: In orbit, they are moving at 17,500 miles per hour. That’s a lot of kinetic energy that has to go somewhere, and that’s why we see those huge fireballs if we’re lucky enough to see something hit the upper atmosphere. Also, 3/4’s of the planet’s surface is ocean, so the odds are pretty good it’s going to splashdown, not crashdown.
The funny part of the video, for me, is that the ‘victims’ of this prank have no clue that what they’re seeing cannot happen. A little science education would have told them immediately they were the victims of a prank. But it makes for good television!
Well, we’re in the third day of the post-DADT world. Have we lost the wars, yet? Are the recruiting centers empty? Do we need backhoes to find our troop’s moral? Are our enemies plotting our overthrow, now that the military is all homo-fied?
No. No. No. Yes, but they’d have been plotting that anyway, so no big change there.
It won’t take long for most people to come around to the conclusion that this will be the biggest non-event in military history. Right wing Chicken Little’s not withstanding.
To all our active duty service members, and to the veterans, thank you for your service, thank you for being part of the finest military in the world, and thank you for showing the rest of us how to live up to our national credo. Salute.
Deputies conducted a traffic stop on an unoccupied vehicle
I’m pretty sure you can’t conduct a traffic stop on an unoccupied vehicle. Unless that whole Transformers thing was actually a documentary, and not science fiction, there’s just no way to make that work.
I don’t understand why we let things like that get out. Just how do you stop an unoccupied vehicle?
As the saying goes, only the good die young. If that's true, being only just in my 20's I can rest assured that I won't kick the bucket until well into my 90's. So after I've lived a full life making immoral, and irresponsible decisions and I'm beating young whippersnappers off my lawn with my cane while grunting "back in my day…", if I can consider myself one-quarter of the badass that Clint Eastwood is, I'll be a happy grumpy old man. Clint E … Read More
Always good advice. We got a bunch of calls about this sign after it appeared on Road 80, north of Visalia. Construction is ongoing, the formerly two-lane road being upgraded to four lanes between Visalia and Dinuba. Nobody’s quite sure who’s responsible for the message, but the sign itself belongs to a contractor working on the highway. It was finally taken down. Probably a good idea, no telling how distracting (or suggestive!) it might have been!
Friday morning (well, just after noon, but way morning for me), as I’m in that kinda-asleep-but-kinda-not condition that you get to experience if you don’t wake up to an alarm clock, I heard the text-message chime go off on my phone. At first, I try to ignore it, after all, I’m still “asleep”, but my curiosity got the best of me, and I pick up the phone to see what was up. Ted sent me a message, saying “pack your bags ur going to bass lake for the weekend!!!!!!”. Well… you can’t argue with something like that, so I started packing.
Here are some pictures and details of the weekend.
NASA’s Mars Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, carry pieces of metal recovered from Ground Zero. Both rovers are equipped with identical parts. This image, provided by NASA, is of the rover Spirit, and was taken by the panoramic camera on February 2, 2004. The piece of metal with the US flag emblem is aluminum recovered from the World Trade Center, after the September 11, 2001 attacks.
Image: NASA. Click on the image to go to the NASA site.
So a few minutes ago I’m checking out the stats page for my blog, when I see 2 hits from the search engine term ‘sexy ham radio’. I really had to do a double take on that.
This image is closer to the reality of ham radio. ‘Sexy’ is not a term I would generally attribute to it.
Random thoughts, occasional rants, illuminating commentary, and an odd story now and then from the world of 9-1-1 dispatching. All this and more from a gay liberal atheist living in California’s Bible belt. I recently married, so MAGA beware! I’m your worst nightmare! Some names have been omitted to protect the innocent, but the guilty will be hung out to dry!
So a few minutes ago I’m checking out the stats page for my blog, when I see 2 hits from the search engine term ‘sexy ham radio’. I really had to do a double take on that.
JimmieJoe / KC6YRU 
This is so wrong…
September 25, 2011
Jim Reeves commentary, geek, Humor satellite falls to Earth, TV prank, UARS Leave a comment
It may sound like I’m blowing my own horn here, but this would never work on me. I simply know too much about satellites, the actual size and shape of the UARS satellite, and what happens when they de-orbit. Whatever parts survived the re-entry splashed down somewhere in the Pacific, sinking quietly into oblivion. You have to remember a few things about orbiting machines: In orbit, they are moving at 17,500 miles per hour. That’s a lot of kinetic energy that has to go somewhere, and that’s why we see those huge fireballs if we’re lucky enough to see something hit the upper atmosphere. Also, 3/4’s of the planet’s surface is ocean, so the odds are pretty good it’s going to splashdown, not crashdown.
The funny part of the video, for me, is that the ‘victims’ of this prank have no clue that what they’re seeing cannot happen. A little science education would have told them immediately they were the victims of a prank. But it makes for good television!
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