Almost spring

Don't ever let me catch you saying there is nothing to do. In fact, there's so much going on I can't realistically keep track of it all. There was a festival of sorts going on down town in the Blue Star art district. I found out about it an hour after it had started. The family was already committed to running around on errands and commitments. I only wish I knew about it a few hours earlier. I could have rearranged schedules and enjoyed an afternoon with the family outdoors.

If I have enough notice, I can move mountains. That's another one of my rules. I can think on my feet well enough, but I can't be in  three places at once. I once managed to be in two places on a single day. I spent Thanksgiving with my grandparents in Orlando, then rushed over to Tampa to pay my respects to the other side of the family. Awkward? Perhaps. These are people I like and love, but I'm pretty sure I blew through a couple of speed traps in trying to please as many people as possible. Lesson learned: I don't do that any more. It's too much of a strain. Perhaps if they were closer or lived in the same town, it would be a different story.

Up until a few years ago, I was spending over 100 dollars in postage alone to send out Christmas cards. It reached a point where I put my foot down and limited the cards to close family and friends. Even there I had to do some trimming.

Over the years my list has evolved. Generally speaking, those who send me cards get one in return. We would always like to do more than our wallet will allow.

We are due for one more cold snap here in Texas. It's been unseasonably warm and I haven't had to scrape frost off my windshield yet this year. Oh, and for those counting, the first hurricane of the year formed in the mid Atlantic. Hurricane Alex was one a class one hurricane for a brief time and only posed a problem for the Azores islands. Sigh, I remember when hurricane season started in June.

Tyson said it best: The planet will survive climate change, we won't.

I'm not losing sleep over that one, but I am trying to cut down my contribution to it.

science update

Remember when I said the Chinese are ramping up their lunar space missions?
Here's the latest.
At the rate the Chinese are going, they will have an established base on the lunar surface by the time we get there.

Called it.

This is a good time to be alive

I get a lot of science stuff in my news feeds. There's been a lot going on and I'm not sure everyone is as excited as I am about what is right around the corner.

• The impossible drive I posted on this subject a while ago, but it bears repeating. NASA has tested the propellantless drive and even made a few improvements. They added magnetic dampeners and cut outside interference to almost nil, and they still got some thrust out of it. They don't know why it works, but it does. The EM drive still needs to be peer reviewed, but Get this: It works by breaking Newton's laws. You know, for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction? This has the potential to cut down our flight time to other planets in our system. This article explains how it can be done. Imagine: Mars in 70 days. A 90 day stay. A 70 day return.  Two hundred and thirty days round trip. Astronauts could fly to Mars and be home for Christmas. 
• Speaking of rockets, a private space company called Space X had a Falcon 9 rocket land. Rockets are at the most basic level, inverted pendulums. Having one launch and land successfully? First time ever. Oh, and they're going to do it again.
• We're going to Europa! We're going to Europa! This is the only time I want to hear; 'Drill, baby, drill!'
• From time to time you hear about Cassini, the spacecraft floating around Saturn, taking lots of pictures and doing science stuff. Now Jupiter is getting it's turn in the spotlight. In six months the Juno spacecraft and it's color camera will arrive in the Jovian system.

There's more, but I can't find it right away. I'm also fighting a serious desire to pass out. Tomorrow I'll be driving to the south side of town. 4:30 comes pretty early in these parts.

 

Giants among us

This morning I awoke to the news that one of my favorite performers passed away. I'll miss you David Bowie. Always experimental and on the cutting edge. There's one quote from you that I unintentionally stole. Yours went something like: I don't know where I'm going in life, but it won't be boring.
My observation on life went along these lines: My life is never boring. Later on I'm going to download a few of my favorite tracks from his illustrative career to my phone, because 'Under Pressure' rocks. Just saw a twitter quote while creating the above link. 'The earth is 4.543 billion years old and you somehow managed to exist at the same time as David Bowie.'
Yeah, that about sums it up.

Now that I've got nearly 30 gallons of mead brewing next to my desk, my wife has declared I must get back to writing as I wait for the mead to develop. She's right, of course. I need to stay busy and keep my mind occupied. We won't start anything else, there's no place to put it.
Another rock icon passed away recently, Ian 'Lemmy' Kilmister. I'm putting that Wikipedia link in so I can put something poignant I read from Henry Rollins.  
I bring this up because scientists have created four new elements to fill in the holes on the periodic table. (In a side note: your science books are now out of date.) You'll see where I'm going with this in a second. There is a petition to name one of the heavy metal elements after Lemmy.
That's cool. There's also a petition to name an element in honor of Terry Pratchett. Both of these are worthy causes. I already added my name to both petitions.

Schedule disruptions

Sorry for being so quiet lately, things were a little busy. Last week I got started on 18 gallons of various flavors of mead. The wife and I are heading out in a bit to get 20 more pounds of honey. We want to make ten more gallons and to make that happen I should really get 22 to 24 pounds.
I started a go fund me page for Centaur Meadery. Here's the link: 

https://www.gofundme.com/hbfvmusk 

For this blog I write about anything and everything that comes to mind, sort of a clearing house for my musings. I'll try and keep the mead related stuff over on the go fund me page.

Next week I'll be heading to New Braunfels to clean up another store. This involves arriving before the sun comes up. Luckily the drive isn't as far as the round trip to Kyle, Texas.
Right before we left work yesterday, there was a small accident. A box full of glass sheets fell on my foot. The worn box they were in ripped open, landing on my foot. No blood, no cuts. Yes, it did hurt and I have a beautiful bruise under the nail of my big toe. Basically it amounted to a stubbed toe. Nothing broken. No cuts/lacerations. Not even a drop of blood. I'm more embarrassed by it than anything else. Several people have pointed out that I walk faster than the general population. Perhaps this is a way to hobble me down to their level.
So we've begun taking down the Christmas decorations. The girls have taken it upon themselves to redecorate the house and throw out the clutter. Last night I got a little nervous when they said we needed a new dining room table. It was suggested we get new lights as well. I never liked the foyer lamp and my eldest pointed out nothing matched. The chandelier over my head needs to go as well. This would be a simpler decision if it actually worked. It could be replaced, but the new one wouldn't work because of the faulty wiring. Another reminder to get the house rewired. 
All of the renovation projects are related. I got to get on building that porch I always keep talking about. This in turn leads to a discussion about the siding and how the house is badly wired. Half of it is copper wiring, the other half is aluminum. (My DIY inclined friends just shook their collective heads upon reading that sentence.)
The list of projects keeps growing. Kitchen, stove, garage, porch, siding, wiring. Do you see why sometimes I think it would be better to bulldoze the place and start from scratch?
It's a never ending cycle.