Apropos of Nothing *4*

Palomar · 2005-04-22 09:36:52

*I was enjoying an interesting astronomy article and a couple of beautiful astrophotos when real life intruded. (An unpleasant telephone call).

Can get so absorbed in what I'm reading and seeing, that I sometimes forget about "here." LOL!

--Cindy

Palomar · 2005-04-24 07:38:38

*God, did I have a scare last night. Woke up for no apparent reason around 3:15 a.m. Saw a shaft of moonlight on the floor which couldn't be attributed to the window in our bedroom, from the spare bedroom or from the living room. Puzzled, I thought I'd better check it out.

The front inner door was wide open with a gusty breeze coming in. The outer metal door was shut.

Where's my husband??

Some of you know he's had a seizure disorder, lately very well controlled with VNS therapy (an implanted device similar to a pacemaker).

But he still has occasional seizures and for a couple of years, during them, he'd want to get out of the house. We've taken precautions with the locks and noise alerts, in the event I'm in a deeper sleep than usual and he's having a non-noisy seizure or is pre-ictal and trying to get out of the house.

I called for him -- he wasn't replying. Everywhere I looked he wasn't there and I was starting to go into a god's-honest panic. But he's hard of hearing. And then I saw him, curled up on the couch. He was okay. What a sigh of RELIEF.

He says we didn't secure the door last night and perhaps didn't lock the inner door either; the wind must have pushed it open. I could have sworn I'd secured that door (the back door is). I'm still wondering if in his sleep he didn't open the door. He was fine after I awoke him, he's fine now.

Thank GOD the outer metal door was double locked. And especially that he was okay and here. I'm a generally light sleeper and doubt it could happen, but have been afraid some night/early a.m. I'll awaken and he'll be out of the house because he's pre-ictal or is between seizures -- wandering the streets, and for how long?, etc.

All's well that ends well, but it took a month off my life I think.

--Cindy

dicktice · 2005-04-24 12:22:09

It was fortunate that he (and you) survived the event, and please don't think me callous, but where did the unattributable shaft of moonlight that may-or-may-not have awakened you, come from?

Palomar · 2005-04-24 12:47:50

It was fortunate that he (and you) survived the event, and please don't think me callous, but where did the unattributable shaft of moonlight that may-or-may-not have awakened you, come from?

*Through the opened door. The front of our home is oriented towards the southwest and my car is parked in front of the house; the best I can figure (based on where the Moon was in the sky at that point), some moonlight bounced off my car's window and was reflected into the house.

What I meant was that when I first woke up, I couldn't attribute a source to the moonlight coming in -- if the doors were closed, which I presumed it was until the shock of getting up and seeing the front door wide open. The outer door is a mesh screen door, which the moonlight came through of course.

I think it was the gusty wind coming through the door which finally awoke me -- the sound of it. I wonder how long that danged door was open before I woke up. :-\ There's no way of knowing, I suppose.

--Cindy

Palomar · 2005-04-27 04:15:09

*Maybe it's true that there is a first time for everything. I just dreamed, half an hour ago, about a gal I used to work with in my very early 20s. We were on friendly terms. I dreamed a relative was hospitalized and I had to return to that area, of course, to visit/tend to my relative. This gal came into the hospital cafeteria with her husband/boyfriend.

I recognized her, even though I haven't seen her in 18 years...and in the dream she'd aged appropriately.

In all other dreams I've ever had about people, they look as they did when I knew them; including my father, who always looks to be in his early 50s (which he was when he died) in dreams. And actually I didn't realize -this- until just now.

Okay, so I've "aged" a dream figure. In any other dream this gal would have looked as I last saw her; 21 or 22. Nope, she looked like a person about to hit the big 4-0. Weird.

--Cindy

Cobra Commander · 2005-04-27 10:00:26

Clear skies, about 50 degrees and a slight breeze as I walked into the pizzeria.

Not five minutes later walked out into 40 degrees, strong wind, grey skies and a mix of rain and hail. ???

Palomar · 2005-04-27 10:18:08

Clear skies, about 50 degrees and a slight breeze as I walked into the pizzeria.
Not five minutes later walked out into 40 degrees, strong wind, grey skies and a mix of rain and hail. ???

*I'm not sure if MI considereds itself part of the Midwest, but that sounds like Midwestern weather for sure.

Spring is always "interesting" around your neck of the woods. Two Spring days in the late 1980s that I remember: One was warm (68 F or so), sunny. The next day was 28 with a nasty ground blizzard.

--Cindy

Cobra Commander · 2005-04-27 10:23:35

Two Spring days in the late 1980s that I remember: One was warm (68 F or so), sunny. The next day was 28 with a nasty ground blizzard.

That happened here last week. :laugh:

Soon the migratory herds of Canadians will pass through.

BWhite · 2005-04-27 10:47:29

Now http://mosnews.com/news/2005/04/27/spac … shtml]this is important!

Cobra Commander · 2005-04-27 10:54:43

Now this is important!

It says something about the state of the station if a crewman doesn't want to go up their sober.

What would it take to convert a Progress module into a big keg, I wonder. . .

Palomar · 2005-04-27 10:56:12

Now http://mosnews.com/news/2005/04/27/spac … shtml]this is important!

*Well...alcohol might definitely help to reduce the sense of claustrophobia!

--Cindy

Palomar · 2005-04-27 11:01:20

http://mosnews.com/news/2005/04/22/chil … ml]America still has a big heart

*Nice to read something positive about my nation in the media, for a change.

--Cindy

Grypd · 2005-04-27 18:29:48

I was finishing the latest robot that I have been making on and off for the last year(no time too busy). Just a beam robot with a striking resemblance to a beetle but with only 4 legs. Anyway put the battery in again and started it up and had it communicated with the computer when my 3 almost 4 year old hit it with one of my shoes.

He had seen it done by his mother last week and thought that was what you did to insects.

needless to say its knackered, And im not a happy bunny.

Trebuchet · 2005-04-27 18:52:56

Brave kid for taking on such a large 'bug', Grypd

Clear skies, about 50 degrees and a slight breeze as I walked into the pizzeria.
Not five minutes later walked out into 40 degrees, strong wind, grey skies and a mix of rain and hail. ???

While the details are different, the schizophrenic weather reminds me of Florida. I once saw (and my co-workers at the time are witnesses) a 'spotlight' of rain - a little over ten feet wide - in which it was absolutely pouring, while outside that spot, it wasn't raining at all. It was like something out of a cartoon, moving across the parking lot. Plenty of times it's been raining on one side of the house but not the other...

Florida rainstorms are strange.

Palomar · 2005-04-28 05:44:19

*Geez. There's these 2 lawyers in El Paso, TX who are making such pretentious commercials about their law firm. Lately they've taken to going to clients' homes and informing them of their accident/insurance settlement with a check and etc. ala Publisher's Clearinghouse Sweepstakes: Jogging up the lawn with cameramen and boom mikes in tow. They forgot the balloons and flowers, though. :laugh: Some of the clients are puzzled or act as though they are...who knows.

Another favorite commercial gimmick of theirs is one of them appearing to have driven a car too fast, it turns over on its side (stock footage), then switch to a new scene of that lawyer climbing out of a similar-looking car which has been turned upside down. He then strides triumphantly towards the camera, saying how you too can successfully walk away from an accident, yadda yadda, all while wearing tan trousers tucked into boots which look like jackboots. He's very overweight. I'm like, "Mister, that look only looked good on slender Germans ala 1937."

I wonder what's next. Not that I'm looking forward to it, because I'm not.

--Cindy

Grypd · 2005-05-02 15:32:02

Well the last launch of what was left of the British space program just happened successfully the Skylark sounding/small science rocket of course then again it rarely had a failure even over the 441 launches.

The Skylark 7 launched from sweden at 6pm BST and reached its apogee of 250km before coming down again.

The first Skylarks could only carry a 45kg package and only as far as 150 km but by the end of the program and construction in 1977 the skylark 12 carried a 200kg package to 576 km and once in Brazil a very light cargoed Skylark reached 1000km.

Still the reason for this post is to really ask why. Why did Britain become the only country to voluntarily give up a space program. Why when our technology was freely handed to our allies the French and the USA to there benefit and we remained stuck to the ground. Why when Britain was famous for its exploration and its science did this so obvious step not happen. And when we talk about Skylark whos manufacture ended in 1977 but continued with the so many in storage is an example of what was. In the 1950s and 60s when Skylark was dreamt up British space technology was as good as any in the world. We had rocket plane fighters and where the inventors of missile silos. We even used rockets to deliver mail.

Still the answer will be money and a bit of fraud and a lack a real lack of foresight. Still if anyone is interested here is a history of the British space programme and what could have been.

http://www.spaceuk.org/index.htm#]A Vertical Empire..Nicholas Hills incredible site

Palomar · 2005-05-03 12:00:03

-some things best left unsaid, even if they're strictly "real life" and nothing pertaining to anything here-

dicktice · 2005-05-03 16:09:31

My widowed (once) divorced (once) sister (b. 1938) just got married in Albuquerque, and sounds giddy as a teenager on the telephone. She's a two-time gold medalist in something called the Senior Olympics (badminton) and now going for a third gold. Met him (same age) at the (Games?) and now has more grands (her two and his one daughters') and interests in life than you can shake a stick at--and no complaints. She doesn't give a beep about hot-air balloons, or gliders, or astonomy, or even space travel. Can you beat that, living out there where it's all located practically next door to their (new) house?

Palomar · 2005-05-03 20:44:48

My widowed (once) divorced (once) sister (b. 1938) just got married in Albuquerque, and sounds giddy as a teenager on the telephone. She's a two-time gold medalist in something called the Senior Olympics (badminton) and now going for a third gold. Met him (same age) at the (Games?) and now has more grands (her two and his one daughters') and interests in life than you can shake a stick at--and no complaints. She doesn't give a beep about hot-air balloons, or gliders, or astonomy, or even space travel. Can you beat that, living out there where it's all located practically next door to their (new) house?

*Congratulations to your sister! Sounds like she's having a wonderful time. That's marvelous; I'm happy for her.

As for interests...well, lots of folks in this area (NASA and White Sands) aren't interested in space exploration or NASA, etc., either. In fact, my next-door neighbor works for NASA. He never says a thing about it, has no bumpersticker or emblem on his vehicle.

Sad.

--Cindy

Trebuchet · 2005-05-04 00:24:25

I was playing a wonderful WWII grand strategy game, Hearts of Iron, as France, with the goal of seeing if I could clobber the Germans. I've just finished my quest, and it served as more unintentional humor than I could have possibly expected, such as:

1) Apparently the game designers did not anticipate the French Army defeating the Germans and freeing the Low Countries primarily on their own, because the French Army clearing the remnants of the German Army out of Belgium did not trigger the events to restore Belgium's independence, and trying to do it manually crashed the game (I reloaded from the last save and picked up)

2) The historical irony of the French and British trapping the German army at the Belgian shore. Except they didn't have a flotilla of every boat they could get on short notice to ferry the troops out, so Rommel and about 60 divisions of German troops got bagged. Ouch. That pretty much sealed Hitler's fate.

3) V-E Day, May 21, 1941. I discovered that the commanding general of the Allied army that took Berlin after a fierce battle against hastily-raised militia groups was De Gaulle. It wasn't intentional, but I've created a universe where he is even more arrogant than he was in real life. On the other hand, he probably deserves it there, too.

I'm going to continue the game to see how the US-Japanese war plays out, and to see if Stalin decides to try to wipe the floor with the beat-up French, but France is pretty much out of it. Gotta rebuild.

The game models political events as well as military, and I'm uncertain how well or deeply they program things, but it was amusing to watch the 'realistic' deviations from history - Romania defecting from the Axis shortly after the French crossed the Rhine, the US voting against a third term for Rooseveldt after the war in Europe reached its turning point (Rommel and those 60 divisions gone) and electing Wendell Wilkie instead, etc.

The key was building "Maginot Nord"... I'm wondering if that common-sense extension of the Line to the Channel would have made such a difference in real life.

Vive la Republique! :laugh:

Palomar · 2005-05-04 04:30:19

*A few hours ago I dreamed it was 1972 (I turned 7 that year). I was in what looked like a combination bar/truckstop; presumably my parents were somewhere nearby. Anyway, I noticed people sitting at a center table. One was a young man with his hair cut ala David Bowie's "Ziggy Stardust" fashion. I noticed the tableside coin-operated mini "juke boxes" at each table. And I was glad to note: NO CELLPHONES! Yay! :laugh:

-*-

Speaking of the 1970s, I'm in a John Denver sort of mood today:

Sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy...sunshine in my eyes can make me cry...

I am the eagle, I live in high country -- in rocky cathedrals that reach to the sky! I am the hawk and there's blood on my feathers, but time is still turning -- they soon will be dry!

And all those who see me, and all who believe in me, cherish the freedom I feel when I fly!

Coooooooome dance with the west wind and touch all the mountain tops

Sail o're the canyons and on to the stars

And reach for the heavens, and hope for the future; and all that we can be, not what we are!

Going by memory there; didn't Google for the lyrics. I especially like that last line.

Probably my favorite John Denver song is "Poems, Prayers & Promises." Ironically, he said it was his favorite also...but the LEAST fan requested. :-\

--Cindy

So you speak to me in sadness, and the coming of the winter. The fear that is within you now it seems to never end. And the dreams that have escaped you, and the hope that you'd forgotten; you tell me that you need me now, you want to be my friend. And you're wondering where we're going; where's the rhyme? where's the reason? And if you (cannot accept?) it is here we must begin to seek the wisdom of the children, and the graceful way of flowers in the wind...for the children and the flowers are my sisters and my brothers, their laughter and their loveliness would clear a cloudy day; like the music of the mountains and the colors of the rainbow, they're a promise of the future and a blessing for today.... I am SO keyed up, all night into this morning. Didn't get much sleep.

Cobra Commander · 2005-05-04 05:40:36

I am SO keyed up, all night into this morning. Didn't get much sleep.

What is this "sleep" you speak of? ???

On a related note, my wife and I adopted another cat this past weekend. A real hard-luck case, a little black cat with a broken tail that someone had left in an apartment when they moved.

He's adapting well, except for the whole "rest at night" thing. About the time I'm trying to get to sleep, he wants some attention.

But it gave me some time to check out the Vertical Empire site Grypd linked. Interesting stuff. Of course I didn't get as far as I'd like since Phobos and Deimos seem to have compared notes on what keys to step on. ???

Why must keyboards have a power-off switch built in? Useless feature... I'll blame Bill Gates. :angry:

Palomar · 2005-05-04 05:50:27

I am SO keyed up, all night into this morning. Didn't get much sleep.
What is this "sleep" you speak of? ???
On a related note, my wife and I adopted another cat this past weekend. A real hard-luck case, a little black cat with a broken tail that someone had left in an apartment when they moved.
He's adapting well, except for the whole "rest at night" thing. About the time I'm trying to get to sleep, he wants some attention.

*I'll answer your question tomorrow, when hopefully I've had some sleep. <weary grin>

Aw, how sweet -- another kitty. Can the tail be mended or perhaps will have to amputate? Yep, nocturnal critters. I hate it when people abandon their pets. Not yet decided on a name for him/her?

We're going to get another kitten if Radar doesn't return within another month (my husband is holding out, but I am convinced Radar is gone for good). We got him from a friend who has been keeping a family of cats, generational. Radar's sister might be pregnant.

--Cindy

Cobra Commander · 2005-05-04 08:14:43

Can the tail be mended or perhaps will have to amputate?

It was broken quite awhile ago and has since healed, but it was never set so now the tail has a significant kink in it. It doesn't seem to bother him.

Not yet decided on a name for him/her?

Since he not only has a similar appearance to one of the other cats, Phobos, but follows him around all the time; we named him Deimos. The two of them are always orbiting around.

We're going to get another kitten if Radar doesn't return within another month (my husband is holding out, but I am convinced Radar is gone for good).

Sadly, you're probably right.

Hopefully little Sonar will fare better.
Couldn't resist.

Cobra Commander · 2005-05-05 05:14:56

Had a Quatro de Mayo celebration last night.

Sure, it's really supposed to be today that we celebrate the defeat of a numerically superior French army by Mexican forces, but what better way to commemorate a decisive battle than to strike a day early and catch everyone off guard?

Everyone shows up to party and we're already there. "Took your land, have a taco."

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