Alive? Yes!

OK, this blog has been neglected. Poor little withered thing!

I've been busy arguing with climate change denialists, and boy does that drain a fellow...

Here's a martian image to appease, this is an overhead view (naturally) of a landslide caught in mid-flow by the HiRISE camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Amazing.

I found it on Phil Plait's Bad Astronomy blog. Click on it to see Phil's post and see another link to the hi-rez version.

Listening to: A Little Bit of Love by Joy Williams from More Than I Asked For. (This was a song I heard a fragment of on, of all things, a Walmart TV commercial.)

Sickening...

I went for my longest run this morning, 23K in 2:06, even though I had a bit of a scratchy throat. The run time was a bit slow because I ran into a friend, out for a walk with one of her friends, twice. The second time I slowed to a walking pace for three blocks so we could catch up. My running gloves were soaked with sweat and when I started running again the breeze chilled my fingers almost to the point of frost bite! This photo is the bark of a Plane tree I passed in the Mount Pleasant cemetery on my run. The texture caught my eye.

Well I'm watching the Oscars right now, getting into and out of bed depending on my temperature. I know I'm sick when I wear socks to bed and put ketchup on food. Watching the Oscars also counts a sign of physical malady...

Time to get back to bed, as I'm getting chilly again... Here's a new photo of Mars though, taken by the European space probe Rosetta as it swept past Mars. It's going to get four gravity boosts, one from Mars and three from Earth, to accelerate it fast enough to catch the comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko in 2014. Might as well take some photos along the way!

One last gasp; I see that The Lives of Others has just won for Best Foreign Language Film. I saw it last night, it's a great film, about the brutality of an authoritarian state (East Germany), personal weakness and redemption.

Listening to: Shiver by Natalie Imbruglia from Counting Down The Days.

This Just In

News flash: America is not winning the war in Iraq! This is straight from George Bush's lips. According to George though "not winning" is not the same as "losing", so don't get too worried. Heh. Looks like someone in the White House has stopped focusing on nicknames and realised he can't just make it up as he goes along. Time to fish out the old thinkin' cap!

Speaking of foul-smelling things that need to be tossed out, I've been much more aware of my kitchen wash cloth, which has a tendency to lie beside my sink for weeks at a time, since my father's recent visit. He mentioned (in a non-critical way) that he'd learned that dish rags are actually the biggest source of bacteria in the home. I now try to change cloths every few days, but I had always thought the kitchen sink was the worst spot. The expert advice is to hang your dish cloths over your faucet to ensure that they dry, which prevents bacteria buildup and to microwave them(!) for a minute before use.

Turning to "local" news I read that NASA has teamed up with Google to make their satellite imagery of the Earth, Moon and Mars available, including some real-time content. This is good news for me here on Mars, because even to us locals one damn sand dune looks like another. Perhaps with Google Mars I'll eventually be able to find my way around...

Listening to: This Could Be Anywhere In The World by Alexisonfire from Crisis.

Shine on, Harvest Moon

I'm just back from an evening run, along "the Beltline", an old rail line nearby that has been converted to a walking path. It was pitch dark most of the way... Good thing I knew the route well. The harvest moon was in my eyes all the way back, which made it even harder to see my way. it's interesting to note that the Moon is moving 4 cm away from Earth every year as it slows down...

Another celestial body was in the news today, NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has started sending back unprecedented images of the Mars surface and today a high resolution image of Victoria Crater, where the Opportunity Rover is currently operating, was released. What an amazing image! Opportunity, even it's shadow, can be seen in the magnified view. This area will probably be the final resting place for the Opportunity Rover, as it is so far past it expected failure point and there is so much to be investigated here.

Sheryl and I saw The Last Kiss on Tuesday night, one of those 'man-child realises it's time to grow up' films. Well done, but the characters seemed pretty short-sighted. Maybe I'm just getting old... Tom Wilkinson and Blythe Danner played the parents of Jacinda Barrett's character Jenna well, showing their struggle to stay together. I have to admit that enjoyed Rachel Bilson performance as the tempting and possibly unstable Kim. Sheryl kept poking me in the ribs each time she appeared on screen, so it must have been obvious!

Listening to: Shed A Little Light by James Taylor from Greatest Hits, Vol. 2.

Maybe there is a God

Sometimes I think that our space and astronomy programs are just there to provide pretty pictures. Money well spent if you ask me... Check out NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day for today below and click on it to see a larger version with explanation.

Listening to: Spaceman by Bif Naked from I Bificus.

Made it!

NASA's latest and greatest Mars probe, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, began circling Mars today. This is a tricky process, requiring great precision to execute successfully. About one in three Mars probes have been lost, usually during this stage. Click on the image at right to see a 10 MB QuickTime animation of the process.

Moving along, I finally saw Capote this week with Sheryl. I found it a bit slow but thought it was a great insight into Truman Capote's personality and talent, especially through Philip Seymour Hoffman's portrayal. The film focused on the time he spent writing In Cold Blood and didn't mention the loss of his friends later in life because of his continuing literary betrayals.

I also have to mention my son's recent scheme. A few weeks ago Chris found an old Christmas Latte coupon from Starbucks in his mother's car. I think it was from 1998. He wanted to try to cash it in, so when we went to see Date Movie (his choice, you may want to avoid this movie) he brought it along. Sure enough, the baristas honoured it with a laugh. But they ran out of whipped cream and had to change canisters before they could finish. So they gave him another free drink coupon! He cashed that one in a lot faster, getting himself a Venti-size Caramel Macchiato a few days later.

Last thought before signing off. At the pool today one of the regulars was wearing a wet-suit! We struck up a conversation and it turns out he's going to race in a half-ironman triathlon in San Diego next week. He was actually wearing his girlfriend's wet-suit, as he'd picked up the wrong one by accident on the way out the door (she was swimming too, but in the usual bathing costume). I'm looking forward to getting into my new wet-suit sometime soon.

Listening to: The Long and Winding Road by The Beatles from Let It Be... Naked. Not in the iTunes Store...