No matter how many you've seen a launch in person, it's always a thrill.

It will be interesting to see a replay of all of the camera angles to detect launch damage.

In the Return to Flight after Challenger, viewers held their breath at 'Go at Throttle up' and 'SRB Separation'.

In lieu of Colombia, their will be just as much drama on the landing.

If we are to explore space, we have got to develop a better way to achieve escape velocity as well as a better method of re-entering the atmosphere.

Side affect such as extraordinary sunrise/set are promoted and negative affects such as respiratory or germ transport are being played down.

I have not heard any NASA Space Shuttle managers mention the sand blasting that the windshield and tiles will get during a launch, which coincidently is scheduled for tomorrow morning.

According to CNN, the storm the dust storm approaches an altitude of 15,000 feet. The shuttle will be beyond that within the first 30 seconds of flight.

I remember stories of commercial airlines flying through volcanic ash and experiencing flameouts and a condition known as St. Elmo's Fire.

The shuttle is not air breathing, nor is the dust cloud volcanic. So maybe there's no reason for concern.

I will have my camera ready at dusk tonight and dawn tomorrow in hopes of catching the extraordinary. Should either prove so, I may consider taking a vacation day tomorrow if all systems are go for launch and find a nice viewing spot.

What have they done? As an IHB resident, I noticed the signs a month ago on beach access crosswalks that have been rebuilt since last year's hurricanes Frances and Jeanne. The barrier island community isn't that big. The coastline is about a mile long. It doesn't even have its own postal zip code. It is serviced by the Satellite Beach post office.

They have a volunteer fire department. I imagine that the fire alarm horn will also be used as the tsunami alert. If the two events occur simultaneously, the tsunami will put out any fire while the volunteers haul butt for higher ground!

< sarcasm > In an effort to protect the general public, they have allowed the construction of six story beachfront condominiumns as a first line defense to the destructive tsunmai wave. < /sarcasm >

#1. About a month ago I started getting referrals from Google for Nick C, a star high school baseball pitcher. He was the starting pitcher at the regional and state championship games for Rockledge High last year. A few days later I heard a PSA on the local ESPN Radio Station announcing a fundraiser to help pay Nick's medical bills. The kid was in a wreck after a ballgame and was in a coma.

At the fundraiser someone made a montage of action shots of him using photos from my website. Here's Nick pitching in the District Championship last year..

BTW, He's doing better, but still in a coma.

#2. Today I started getting barraged from a surfers blog. I followed the referral link and found out that the home of Matt S, a local hotshot teenaged surfer, was burglarized while he and his family were out of town.

He had unique designs on his boards. In response to query for a description of his boards for a BOTL (Be On The Lookout), someone posted a link to one of my photos of Matt on his board back in a February contest. Here's Matt on board that was stolen recently..

It is obviously a well visited blog. I've had over 200 unique IP hits since it was posted around noon today. Not quite a /. effect, but I'm stoked!

Although I didn't personally know either kid or the families, I'm happy my photos were useful for both.

I'll keep you posted as real life continue.

Hmmm. Thats almost like a sexual climax lie detector.

The research studied 13 women and 11 men. Seems that the brain waves of women faking orgasms were easy to detect. Mens were less conclusive.

I wonder how they recruited volunteers? They used sexual partners. So I guess that eliminated most of the /.ers.

CNN has a story that the invasive ground cover vegetation Kudzu is being tested to curb binge alcohol drinking. In the health story here researchers at the Harvard affiliated McClean Hospital in Boston stated that volunteers who were given kudzu drank about 50% less beer in a 90 minute period than the group that was given a plecebo. The kudzu group got just as intoxicated.

I expect this story to die a fast death at the hands of the brewery/distillery industry. Just like the auto/petroleum industry squashed the engine that got 100 miles per gallon.

The article reports the victory of Adam Wickwire, a local surfer, at the Inaugural LOST Easter Junior Pro Am Contest at Cocoa Beach, Florida. It was his first win as a professional in an ASP rated competition.

I was a first for me too. It was the first time that one of my photographs has been published by ESM. The photo of Adam was taken during heat 2 of the quarter finals. The photo does not render too well as a one-inch monochrome print. It appears on page 54 attached to the article by Chris Towery.

Here is a copy of the image. Crop and Contrast adjustments performed with the GIMP.

Other photos of the day are here.

Irony never ceases. Today the Pope received a feeding tube as well as the last rites. (On CNN)

My mother, a devout Catholic and in failing health, leaves Saturday for a trip to Rome where she hangs onto a dream of being blessed by the Pope.

Another story on CNN regarding Cancer states that half of cancer deaths are preventable. Guess what, if you don't die of cancer, you'll just die of something else. (like starvation ;-)

BTW, April 1 marks my 18 year of being smoke free. I quit in 1987. So maybe I won't be a cancer stat but I'm not holding my breath.

Lost as in the new high energy caffine drink.

The temperature was in the mid 80's. A lot of people were shirtless for the first time this year. A lot of snow birds have not gone back up north yet (Baseball Spring Training is still here).

The eye candy on the beach gets younger every season. And the less pleasing to the eye seems to get more prevalant also.

If you want to look at bikinis, you also have to endure tatoos, piercings, obesity, and back hair, and blue hair.

I kept my camera focused on the competition, although my wandering eye wandered. Cocoa Beach now touts itself as a family orientated beach. Gone are the days of wild college spring break beer binges and wet t-shirt contests.

Photos of today's competition can be found here.

The 10 year old kid won with 3 year old Adidas, held together with duct tape. He was runner up last year. I guess the shoes just needed another year of aging.

I can't imaging being a judge for this contest.

So I pose the question: What is the worst smell you have ever encountered?

My encounter was with rotten chicken parts. I had a container in the freezer with chicken part for a future Cajun gumbo and dirty rice. (Read gizzards, livers and necks.)

The refrigerator died while I was on vacation. Upon my return 10 days later, I had to it clean out. When I popped the top on the recycled plastic margarine container which house the decomposing guts, I thought I had released satin from the gates of hell. I had the dry heaved for five minutes. It was worse than my experience with a pogie boat.

He was speaking of the breakroom microwave with a rotating platform. You put the cup in with your right hand. The microwave rotates and heats your beverage and voila, when you take your cup out, the handle is exactly where you put it. You don't have to reach to the rear and potentially burn your hand on a hot cup.

I had never thought about it. He was right. But why? It's easy to debunk. The platform rotates at 6 rpm. That a 10 second cycle. So unless you heat your coffee for an odd number of seconds, like 55 seconds, the handle will be in its starting position. No memory muscle, no intelligent life form here.

My next journal entry will debunk the myth of the intelligent thermos bottle. Hot or cold? How does it know?

In junior high science class, we "played" with mercury. I remember coating a dime with it by rubbing mercury into the dime using my thumb and forefinger. It was real shinny and slippery for a while then turned black overnight after oxidation.

Now a teacher would be arrested and charged with "abuse" or "endangerment" for allowing students to do such a thing.

Years ago, several Florida kids took the mercury from a home thermistat and played with it. I remember stories of EPA technicians in mylar suits "sanitizing" the home and school and spending an ungodly amount of taxpayers money in a massive cleanup for such a miniscule amount of mercury. They really made a federal case out of it!

OfficeMax advertized a Konika Minolta 2400W for $299. Reasonable. I researched it via Google. The 2400W is Windows only (supports W98/SE.). Another Konica Minolta model, 2430DL, is supported under Window Server 2003, RedHat 8.0, Mac or WinNT4. That model wasn't in the flyer. Both models come with 32M memory. The Dubya has only a USB connector, while the DL has USB and Ethernet. Only the 2430DL is upgradable to 544M.

I am planning to use it in my home office environment. I currently have a dual boot Win98SE/RedHat 7.3 system and several legacy systems that do not get booted often.

I went to Office Max and they had the 2430DL and it was on sale for $399! (but they were out of stock, so I got a rain check.)

Question 1: Has anyone used either model?

One of my other "older systems" is a WinNT on a Pentium 100. What are my chances of hosting it from NT and printing from Win98?

Is printer memory used for buffering or image rendering? Is 32M enough memory to print 8.5x11 borderless color photo.

Should I go for an initial memory upgrade?

At the end of the day, what are the odd of mehaving a $300-$400 paper weight that requires a new computer system to drive?

The menu included bear, alligator, moose, elk, venison, as well some not so exotic cow (hamburger), chicken and pork.

Everyone had their side joke regarding extinct or endangered animals (condor, manatee) and some not so endangered ones that normally don't find their way to the diner table (owl, muskrat, armadillo, possum, rattlesnake).

The night was rather cold, but it was warmed up with a bond fire using stumps and limbs from trees that fell during the fall hurricanes. Alcohol helped too.

I was surprised that squirrel, duck, and rabbit were not on the menu.

The evening raised over $5,000US for the local youth sports program. Fortunately there were no PETA demonstrations.

The only good thing is that the judges work 9-5. My normal hours are 7:45 to 5:30 (with alternating Fridays off). But I may be in court this Friday instead of being off.

No, it's not the Michael Jackson pedafile case.