My wife and I have been fortunate enough to be involved with NASATweetups.
Our first foray was with the last shuttle launch, STS 135, at Kennedy Space Center on July 7-8, 2011. You can read about our experiences on my wife’s blog. I wasn’t officially part of the Tweetup. Instead, I and her boys watched the launch from a boat.
The event was life changing for all (Julie’s blog entry). Julie and I had been dating for roughly about 8 years. The end of the shuttle era gave us a kick in the pants to contemplate our next step.
By the time I attended the Juno Mission NASA Tweetup on August 4-5, we had decided to combine our two households and get married.
We moved into our dream home in October. During one of the first days in our new house, I proposed by using a space shuttle Lego kit (the Shuttle Expedition kit 10231) The robot arm held the ring. We were married on 11/11/11.
Our passion for space — specifically the Farscape television series — originally brought us together many moons ago. Now it continues to strengthen our relationship.
This year, Julie attended the Tweetup even (read her blog entry) on the unveiling of the proposed budget for NASA. She had a good time at the conference and touring NASA HQ in Washington, D.C.
Our honeymoon — a very brief one — came in the form of attending the Glenn Research Center’s first Tweetup. Yes, we spent our honeymoon in Cleveland in March.
I’ll create separate pages about my NASA Tweetup experiences (Juno and Glenn) in the future. I have plenty of content and thoughts to share. Both experiences were deeply moving and helped me feel young and optimistic again. This was something much needed after the tragic death of my mother in a car accident in July 2009. In a way, NASA saved my soul.
In the meantime, Julie and I continue to look for ways to share the wonders of space with each other and our children.
It’s been a busy several months filled with life changes since I last posted. My soulmate and I bought a new house. Next, we got married in a ceremony in the backyard. I’ve been lax on the blogging, but will have much more to say, especially regarding the new house. Stay tuned.
By the way, say hello to my new weather widget on the left. I finally mounted my Davis Vantage Vue weather station on a tripod in the new backyard. It is sending weather data to Weather Underground via Davis Weatherlink. I’m very impressed with the Vantage Vue. The Weatherlink software was an add-on, but it allows me to publish detail weather observations to the web.
Whenever I post something for sale on Craigslist, I always get the usual scammer. A person — that can barely write — wants to send me a certified check and then have someone pick the item up. Sometimes, they even ask me to ship it. Of course, they are always out of the country.
Riiiiiiiight.
Well, here’s my latest ad:
2008 iMac, 20 inch. Apple Product number FA876LL/A Great condition.
Hard drive: 250 GB
Memory: 4 GB
Processor: Intel Core Duo 2 2 GHz
8x SuperDrive (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
$750 cash only. No shipping. Local deals only. You bring cash, we meet in person in Muncie, you get computer.
Note the italics. Well I’ll be darned if an asshat (aka Jackson Booker at jackbooker09@gmail.com but I doubt that is a real name) still didn’t try to scam me:
Thanks for your response, am happy that the listing is still available
and am okay with the price, but I will be unable to come with cash
because I’m presently out of state on a business trip, but I can
easily have a certified bank check on your name here and have it mail
out to you, so If you’re okay with the mode of payment, please get
back to me with your home address, payee name that will be on the
check and a valid phone number( not voice mail )… Once you received
your payment, I will then let my shipper come for the pick up , so you
don’t have to worry about the shipping . Thanks
No, I don’t think I am going to give you my home address and a valid phone number. I wasn’t born yesterday. If I had time, I would probably mess with the scammer, but I’m busy and have enough idiots in my life.
I woke up to an Ooma outage today. Ooma is a Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) service which I have had for years. It’s mostly been reliable, except a few glitches.
However, today’s outrage was major — across the country. Ooma suffered a similar outage in 2009, but apparently didn’t learn any lessons.
The company’s communication was poor. Even though it has a Twitter account (ooma_status), it did not communicate to customers that there was a problem. Worse, the entire system seemed to go wacky. One could not log into the website and forward numbers to cell phones. Voicemail was also not working.
Luckily, I was able to find out from others what was going on via the Ooma Facebook page. Ooma subscribers were reporting the failures. Ooma did not respond for four hours. Guess they weren’t awake on the left coast, eh? The outage last about four hours and Ooma finally communicated what was going on. However, their comments were even less than reassuring:
Network connectivity has been restored and affected boxes should be coming back online (Tweeted at 1 p.m. EDT)
Outages occur. I understand, but it seems Ooma doesn’t have a good backup plan and did not learn lessons from the 2009 outage. That is of concern. Further, the company was uncommunicative during the incident. That’s bad business. A company should communicate the status of its service because it is basic customer service. It is also good PR and brand protection.
I suggest Ooma look at separating data centers and implementing a better protocol for communicating outages.
Enough pounding on Ooma, though. What has really irked me are some of the stupid comments left on the Ooma Facebook page. The comments make me wonder if there should be a test before someones gets a computer. Here are the lowlights:
The problem was quite evident. Ooma was down. The cause, solution, and timeline are a completely different story. What did you want them to do? Post that the service was down? I think even the non-techies figured that out by themselves.
Huh? Yes, I do think they should post their service was down, especially if they have a Twitter account being used for that purpose.
Your all complaining about not having service or no response from the company on here and wanting something free. Just think of this, had it been a landline company they WOULDN’T have given you squat!
I’m not wanting something for free. I pay for Ooma. I disagree that a landline company wouldn’t have given me squat. AT&T would have answered the phone, tested the line, informed me of the problem, and, if needed, sent a repair crew out.
To the rest of you bitching about it, remember one thing, your paying less than $5/mo and you are using someone elses internet to deliver your phone service. If its “absolutely mission critical” then don’t blame ooma, blame yourself for being a cheap asshat. Otherwise shutup and be grateful for the money your saving.
Actually, I’m paying more than that. And since I am a paying customer, I believe I have a right to complain. Ooma is not mission critical for me, but the arrogance and ignorance of the above commenters just astounds me. So, Sean Andrade, James Huff, and Ray Dzek, y’all get the insightful comment awards today, my friends.
And let’s add a new one:
REALITY CHECK!!! Everyone who is complaining about a brief interruption of service needs to relax! Do you get this worked up when your high speed internet (that you pay for) is out, or when your online banking is unavailable, or when your expensive cable/satellite programming is messed up? Or how about when the electric service to your home goes out? Or when the water company has a main break? Or how about when your cell phone drops a call???
Yes. Also, I get worked up when people tell me not to get worked up, so don’t do it, Tom Stimson
And the hits just keep oncoming:
You get what you pay for Scott. If you want a service with 100% guaranteed no down time, you would pay a lot for it and probably wouldn’t even be able to find a company that could support that.
The problem yesterday is that paying customers were not getting what they paid for. Valerie Gary is also mistaken that I and others expect 100% guaranteed no down time.
We recently reviewed your account, and we need more information about your business to allow us to provide uninterrupted service. Until we can collect this information, your access to sensitive account features will be limited. We would like to restore your access as soon as possible. We apologize for the inconvenience.
Please verify your information! To do this, please click on the link below and follow the instructions on your screen.
“Exploration really is the essence of the human spirit, and to pause, to falter, to turn our back on the quest for knowledge, is to perish.” — Frank Borman, Apollo 8 commander.
“And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by.” — John Masefield from the poem Sea Fever, often quoted in Star Trek.
PADD application for the iPad features a clunky interface.
The official Star Trek PADD for iPad application has been released by CBS/Viacom. It’s available in the App store for $5. Essentially, it is an electronic encyclopedia featuring information from the Star Trek universe.
The Personal Access Display Device has evolved during the history of Trek television. Early episodes featured a black wedge-shaped clipboard. A yeoman would hand it to Captain Kirk to sign. The Next Generation PADDs were more sophisticated and shared the same computer user interface with the rest of the ship.
That style — LCARS (Library Computer Access/Retrieval System) – has been ported to many mobile programs. I remember playing with a LCARS tricorder on my Palm Pilot back in the 90s. Indeed, there is a whole effort to make the fictional user interface into something that actually works. LCARS has become a default standard for multimedia works based on the Trek universe. Many online games, websites and DVDs features great examples of the interface.
I can’t consider official Star Trek PADD for iPad is to be one. The app is a good start, but a few deficiencies are really annoying.
First, the app’s creators chose quantity over quality when adding entries. The Trek universe has a wealth of information. My closet can is stuffed with officially-produced books and blueprints on the ships, history, and characters of the franchise. And yet, very little of this made it into the app. Entries for seldom-seen ships contain grainy video captures, not rendered schematics. Look, this blur is the Akira-class transport. Get real, CBS, and look at the plan on page 44 of the TNG technical manual. Sheesh.
The LCARS interface was not ported well to the iPad. The sans serif skinny typeface (Swiss Condensed for you typenicks out there) makes entries hard to digest. It’s not an ideal type choice for displaying a large amount of text. Previous Trek efforts (such as blueprints and technical manuals) have remedied this situation by using Helvetica. The interface itself has been over-emphasized to the point of being busy and distracting (let’s make things go blinky-blinky for no reason!). The creators should have done a little more digging around the LCARS site.
I’m hoping CBS will put more time into evolving this application. It could be something really amazing for Trek fans.
Space Shuttle Atlantis awaiting final launch. Image by NASA.
My childhood was filled with dreams about space.
Two weeks ago I saw the last launch of NASA’s space shuttle program. Julie had won via Twitter an invitation to a NASA community outreach event. She saw the launch from the famous countdown clock area; her boys and I were on a boat in the middle of the Banana River with a great view.
I used my new image-stabilized Canon binoculars to watch the mighty bird rise on a pillar of fire and take to the sky. It was inspiring.
With the space shuttle program finally ending, I wonder about my childhood dreams and ponder the road not taken.
Did I give up to much of my dreams to have a more practical life? Should I have been involved with the shuttle program? What opportunities should I seek today?
My newspaper career took me many places and for the most part I enjoyed it. I hope it was about more than just about making profit for a company. But perhaps I should have been more in the space sciences orbit. Many journalists made a decent career covering the space beat. I’ve been inspired and entertained by the accounts of Cronkite and Barbee during the Apollo era. I remember being envious of the graphics artists of Florida Today when they developed complicated and detailed space diagrams for each mission. People now report on space and science with blogs and websites.
Perhaps my second act, though, is to be less of an observer and more of a participant. I certainly moved that way in 2008 when i ended my newspaper career for a web position at the Indiana Department of Natural Resources. Now that I am a government webmaster, I may have a better shot of one day being a participant in the space industry.
In the end, the last launch reminded me of my childhood dreams. It was a reminder that I need to pay more attention to exploration and science. Fortunately, I get to further this passion in August when I attend the launch of the Juno space probe. In the mean time, I’ll follow NASA and the industry online and pull out my telescopes and aim for the stars.
Hustle over to www.indianajulie.com for more about my girlfriend’s Tweetup adventure, including awesome photos and vids.
My goal for this summer has been to earn my motorcycle endorsement. Today, I graduated from the basic rider’s course sponsored by ABATE.
It was a great class and worth the $75. The instructors — Kim and Andy — were wonderful.
The class lasted three days. We met Friday night to cover the riding book. We were giving a list of study questions and has a group determined the best answers. We also then reviewed with a DVD. Unfortunately, a drum corps competition was also in town and decided to use the school parking lot for warmup. Thus, we study and discussed with drumlines practicing and musicians running scales. Ugh. We got through it.
We began riding on Saturday. It got a little warm, but there was a nice breeze. The bikes were small and I had no problems balancing and getting familiar with the equipment. The instructors would explain to us verbally the course exercise and then one of them would demonstrate the skill. I found that most helpful. After the demonstration was done, we took to the range and completed exercises. After every two exercises we would have a 10 minute break. The toughest exercise for everyone was the infamous box. This is where a rider must make two u-turns in a small area. I struggled. By the afternoon we were back in the ac-conditioned classroom finishing up the book. This kept us out of the parking lot heat.
Sunday brought rain, so we took our written test in the morning. I only missed two questions (both had been reviewed right before the test!). Our range skills on the bike for that day included swerving, changing lanes, and riding over obstacles.
Finally, it was time for the skills test. Challenges consisted of the infamous box, the swerve, sudden stop, and a 135-degree curve. I did not do well on the box and was a little slow on the curve. Still, I passed.
Now that I have my waiver, I am able to get my endorsement.
Some of the skills I have learned I won’t use as much because of my particular ride is a three-wheeled roadster. It rides much different than a motorcycle. Still, the knowledge and practice will be helpful in developing a better road sense.
RedBox is trumpeting their new service of video game rentals. I assume they rent for $1 a night. – cost is difficult to find in their public relations materials. Will this be successful addition? At surface value, it would seem so. An average video game costs $49.95 or more these days. One could rent a game from Redbox for 10 nights and still come out ahead in the pocket book. Few video games can be played in a typical 24 hour period. A better solution is a mail video game rental service such as GameFly.
I’ve used GameFly for a few years awhile ago and found the service to be great, even though manuals were not included with the video games. The service works much like Netflix. Different membership levels allow you to have one, two or three games out at a time for a monthly fee. To have one game out at a time, it is currently $17 a month. Bottom line, if you believe you will have a rented videogame out for more 17 days or more, it’s better to do GameFly than Redbox.
