Perseverance Gets You To Mars

If you don't know it, the Perseverance Rover (carrying the Ingenuity Drone) will be arriving to Mars at 2:55 pm CST.  You can find information about it HERE.  I never can get enough of this kind of stuff.

My understanding is that there is a microphone on the rover so we can hear the sound of it landing and the sound of Mars itself which will be a first.

The most exciting is the chance to get a aerial views from the drone.  This is also a first and I can't wait to see aerial footage of the Martian surface ... though that won't be for a while (2-3 months from landing I think).

Can't wait to see what the rover finds.

Good luck on the landing NASA!

A Not So Ordinary New Years

Usually the first post of the year is a story of a quiet and calm New Years eve.  I can't say how quiet and calm it was this year because we are in Iceland and this post is being drafted before we left.  This is what I do know.  On New Year's Eve day we did the "Golden Circle Classic Full Day Tour".  After the tour, if we were lucky, we celebrated the New Year with the Northern Lights (all depends on the weather gods).  Today, the Wife and I are doing our last tour in Iceland: "South Coast, Waterfalls, and Glacier Hike".  I will obviously post all the details about Iceland after we get home.

On the first of the year I also have the tradition of posting what I think is my best picture of the prior year.  Obviously I can't predict if my favorite picture of 2018 will be taken in Iceland so I will only consider pictures taken upto Christmas Day.  I will consider Iceland pictures when I select my best picture of 2019.

My best picture of 2018 was taken in Churchill, MB, Canada during our Canada-by-Rail trip.  It's a picture of a decrepit old cabin, in the late day sunshine, on the shore of the Churchill River which feeds into the Hudson Bay.

"July Light - Churchill"
by Bruce H.
(Taken on the 10^th of July, 2018)

I hope you all had a calm and quiet New Years full of happy memories, family, and friends.

P.S.  If you haven't yet, visit the NASA New Horizons' site to see the flyby past kuiper belt object MU69 (aka Ultima Thule) the most distant object ever visited by a man-made probe.  The flyby took place early this morning.

Entry, Descent, And Landing ... Successful!

Congratulations to the NASA/JPL team for a successful entry, descent, and landing of the Mars InSight!

Mars InSight
Photo Credit:  NASA/JPL

I watched it live on NASA TV.  It was fun to see how happy the scientists and engineers were after each milestone was reached.

Again, good job Mars InSight team!

Dark Skies Over Homestead

Safety First - Glasses for
observing solar eclipses

Yesterday I drove down to Beatrice, NE home of Homestead National Monument.  This was also one of the many official NASA observation points for the total Solar Eclipse of 2017.

I left home at 4:00am and drove to the Gage County fairgrounds where I parked my car and took a shuttle bus to Homestead.

I arrived before most of the concessions were open.  I sat down in one  the chairs that we set up around a main stage.  While I waited food and shopping concessions opened and I had the luck to watch Bill Nye (the Science Guy) answering questions on live TV.  I was sitting maybe ten feet from where he was standing.  I'm not a huge Bill Nye fan but I do respect what he is trying to do (educate the public in science) and I might have been a bit star struck.

Bill Nye, the Science Guy.

It was around 7:00am and nothing would really start astronomically speaking until 11:30am.  In the meantime, on the main stage, a folk singer performed (including playing "Moon River" on a handsaw), a NASA scientist gave an explanation of what to expect and what exactly was a solar eclipse, and a PBS band played songs from "Ready, Jet Go".  As you may have guessed, most of the events and entertainment were kid-centric.  Fortunately a guy from Texas struck up an adult conversation with me and we killed the hours talking.

The day's weather had started out relatively clear with only wispy clouds but as the events proceeded heavy clouds moved in and we experienced on and off showers.  While I was a bit disappointed I really felt sorry for all the people who drove many hours to get here.  There were even people from Britain and France.

As the eclipse started the clouds thinned a bit and we got our first view on the sun missing a chunk.  This peek didn't last long before the clouds thickened again.

When the sun disappeared behind the clouds everyone headed for the food trucks.  The lines were so long I decided just to eat the snacks I'd packed just in case.  I did have a Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cupcake at 9:00am before the lines formed and it felt wrong eating it so early in the morning but it was very tasty.  I bought a magnet for our collection and, from the US Post Office van, a cool sheet of color changing eclipse stamps.

As we approached totality, when the moon would completely cover the sun, I checked the National Weather Service kiosk where they had a live radar feed.  Weatherwise it wasn't looking good so I slowly made my way to the shuttle bus stop.  Right when totality occurred the clouds thinned again and gave us an awesome view of the ring of fire.  The sky darkened like a sunset on all horizons.  The crowds cheered and we all stared in awe of a total solar eclipse.

Totality.
(A slightly zoomed version can be seen here)

When totality ended I jumped on the shuttle bus and headed for the car.  Despite being on that first bus it still took over four hours (normally an hour and a half drive) to get back home via the clogged back roads of Nebraska.  There had been 8,000 - 12,000 people at Homestead and they said there were over 400,000 people along the area of totality in Nebraska.  They all seemed to return home at the same time.

All it all it was a pretty cool day.

Learning How To Take The Plunge Right

My scuba certification classes start tomorrow evening.  I will have a total of five four hour sessions (Monday and Wednesday nights).  How much of each session is class work and how much is pool work I do not know.  I spent the last week doing a six section online class in preparation.  There was a lot of info in the online course but not overwhelmingly so.

Last week I went in and purchased my mask, snorkel, booties, and fins.  The tanks and buoyancy system is provided as part of the class which is good since that part costs the most.  After the class fees, equipment, and the equipment rental for the certification dives I will do in May, all I have to say is this is not a cheap hobby.

Now that I had a chance to try it out a couple of weeks ago, I am no longer nervous that I will have issues breathing underwater.  Having said this, things didn't go entirely smoothly since my Try Scuba class.  Soon after I got home after the class I developed a toothache.  It was a type that is cold sensitive with a good measure of pressure sensitivity thrown in.  The pain would radiate up the side of my face all the way to my right ear and ended with a slowly fading 'ice cream' headache.  This persisted for a couple weeks (including our Cuba trip) and naturally got better when I went to the dentist.

Turns out my dentist was familiar with my issue.  He was an Air Force pilot and they sometimes suffer from a similar condition.  There are sometimes small pockets of air in filled cavities or between crowns and the nerve.  As you go up and down in pressure (like when you are scuba diving or flying in an airplane) the air expands and contracts causing irritation of the nerve.  The prescription ... root canal work.  I will have to see how my pool work on Monday affects the tooth.  I have a dental appointment set for Thursday (after my second class).

The tooth doesn't worry me too much since acetaminophen does a good job killing the pain.  I'm more worried about dozing off.  I'm an early to bed type and having the classes be between 6:00pm and 10:00pm hits right when my body and brain start shutting down for the evening.  I guess I know what I'll be doing tomorrow afternoon - Nap Time!

The Smell Of Semi-Retirement

After over four months of research, I have come to a conclusion:
Since semi-retiring and exiting the workforce, my farts do not smell.