To toast or not to toast..........

Ok, so we are out to dinner a couple of weeks ago with our youngest son Glenn and his wife, our daughter-in-law, Janet, and after we sit down and everyone pulls out their I-phones and Blackberries, and checks emails, text messages, instant messages, and facebook status updates, we start a conversation. Naturally, one of the first subjects to come up was toasters, and toaster slots. What? You don’t talk about toaster slots at the dinner table? How boring! Anyway, the conversation centered on four slot toasters and the ubiquitous slot label, “single slice”, and the associated arrow designating that particular slot to be used for toasting a single slice. Now, this subject begs at least two questions: first, why do you have to use a particular slot for cooking or toasting a single slice, and what would happen if you fail to follow these very explicit instructions?

Second, since there is a particular slot labeled for a single slice, one would first assume that is where the first slice would be inserted if you are actually toasting more than one slice, but where do you insert the second slice? Now, there is a real question!!

Let’s talk about the ramifications of inserting a single slice into a slot other than the one labeled “single slice”. I mean, will the toaster just stop working? Or even worse, will it explode? Being a conformist, I have always used the labeled slot, but now I am questioning that procedure. Does that make me a wimp? Should I just close my eyes, and insert that single slice of Wonder Bread into any random slot? Should I just step off that cliff without knowing what lies below? This is a major, major consideration that quite frankly, I am not ready to make.

Now let’s talk about the order of insertion. If you look at the top of your multi-slice toaster, and locate the “single slice” slot, it is typically in located towards the center. If the slots are numbered (left to right while facing the darkness dial), from 1 to 4 (assuming you have a 4 slot toaster), then the single slot is usually the second slot in from the left. My procedure has always been to insert the first slice into the single slice slot, and then the second slice into slot number 3 which is the slot to the right of the single slice slot. Personally, I don’t see anything wrong with this. Actually, I originally assumed that it was pretty much standard procedure and that everyone did it that way. Boy was I wrong as I was duly informed by my family. At the very least, I was advised that there are several ways to insert the slices including the first slice into slot 2 (i.e. single slice slot), and then the second slice into slot 4!! To me that is just amazing. I have never tried that procedure, but in my mind it would lead to total failure with the toasting being totally unacceptable, with toast being either too dark, too light, or unevenly toasted. You ask me why I believe this and I tell you that it falls into the same category as believing that you HAVE to use the single slice slot for a single slice.

The real question moving forward is whether I will plow new ground by trying a single slice in other than the single slice slot, or even more daring, will I try multiple slices in some random order of insertion. This is going to require a lot of thought.

Speaking of thought, have you ever wondered why there are even toasters that have more than two slots? I mean, how do you even butter up more than two slices after they are toasted, without the slices getting too cold to melt the butter!

An interesting new product

Anytime I travel in the motorhome I take an LCD projector with me. I do this for several reasons. First, I use the projector in my work to give seminars on electrical safety. Second, I use the projector for viewing my photos. Third I like to project movies on the side of my motorhome for friends and family to enjoy, and finally, once a year the group I camp with gets together to watch the Ohio State Buckeyes play the Penn State Nittany Lions and we use the projector to view the football game on a large screen.

I recently became aware of a new product on the market that attracted my interest. The Benq Joybee GP1 Mini Projector. On the surface this is a very clever tool, weighing in at 1.4 lbs. and fitting in the palm of your hand.



Anytime you can reduce the size and weight of the equipment you carry in your RV it is an advantage and this device showed a lot of promise in those areas so I got hold of one to see if it lives up to its promise and if it also provided an image suitable for the above uses.

Being a typical male, when I received my projector, I took it out of the box, plugged it in and fired it up without looking at any of the instructions. At first I was puzzled by the lack of tactile feedback from the control buttons on the top of the projector until I realized that the buttons are sensor type and there is an audible click when you "press" the button. Once I realized this, the control interface was very pleasant. The first thing I did was connect the projector to my computer to verify that I could use my powerpoint presentations. Benq provides a cable that plugs into the back of the projector an terminates at the other end with a USB plug and a set of RCA jacks. I plugged the USB connector into my computer and it quickly recognized the projector and my desktop screen appeared on the projected image. One thing I noticed very quickly was that there is no zoom adjustment and what you see is what you get as far as size is concerned. You do have a focus adjustment and there is a software keystone setting, but if the picture size is not right, you have to move the projector or the viewing screen.



Before I continue with my observations on the operation of the projector, it became obvious that one way they made the projector smaller is by moving the DC power supply out of the projector and putting it inline in the power cord. On my regular projector the power cord is just a power cord. On the Joybee, the cord has a fairly large "block" halfway up which is the DC power supply for the projector. You can see these differences in the photo above, and please don't misunderstand, I'm not complaining about this necessary component, just commenting about where it got put.

All in all, this device is a nice piece of equipment. I found it is necessary to use the included remote control in order to take advantage of features I need or want to use, particularly the direct reading USB port, but that is not a major problem.

When I was doing side by side comparisons with my original projector I noticed that the Benq device did not get very hot while my Optima was very hot. The side by side brightness on the screen was comparable.

I like this device and will be using it in my work. I would like to see them provide a carrying case for all the parts I need including the cords and cables. That would make use much more convenient. I'm thinking the ideal use for this projector is going to be when I make sales calls in a customer's office because it can be used with no other equipment and a USB jump drive loaded. I will also be using the projector in the motorhome to watch movies projected on a screen. This seems to be an ideal way to get large screen video without the investment in a big screen TV. Admittedly at about five hundred bucks the projector is pricey, but considering the life expectancy of the lamp is 20000 hrs. much of this might be made up in bulb replacement cost alone.

Black Licorice

Hey, let's face it, I like black licorice! I'm not going to make any excuses because it is my favorite. Actually, I like all kinds of soft chewy candy including gummy bears, gummy worms, coke bottles, sour gummy worms, good and plenty, and even laffy taffy. My candy preference is really very limited when it comes to hard candy. I remember at Christmas time, at our house, we had some of both and when Christmas time was over, we always had to throw out those red and white minty things that stuck to the bottom of the serving dish because no one ever ate all of them, including me. Somehow there is a satisfaction associated with chewing candy that just isn't there with hard candy. Maybe it's because you can eat soft candy while hard candy you must crunch it or some other sort of barbaric activity. Yes, soft candy is the way to go, no doubt.

However, there is one very special soft candy that just can't be beat and that is chewy black licorice. Left on my own, with no restrictions, I can probably put away as much black licorice as anybody, probably more than is really good for me.

Actually, twizzlers (which is a brand name) don't contain true licorice, but are made to taste like licorice and are much less intense. Real licorice can actually work to raise your blood pressure while twizzlers won't have that effect. I prefer the taste of the real licorice but can pound down a bunch of twizzlers just as quickly.

I like eating gummy bears and all the rest, but for real pleasure, give me a bag of fresh, soft, chewy, real black licorice.

Swimming pool project

Midnight on the intercoastal waterway!

It was a busy week, last week. Jr. had company and we spent a lot of time visiting with them, eating out and also taking a ride on the boat one night to dock at a really neat waterfront cabana with live entertainment.

Saturday Linda and I started repainting her parent's swimming pool. Neither of us had ever done anything like this so we relied on a local supply house for material and also the gentleman there gave us suggestions on how to apply the urethane based paint. Linda managed to actually get some paint on the pool in between painting her legs, her feet, her arms, her hands, her eyes, and other body parts. We think it turned out very nice and hope it will hold up when the water goes in.

Today is our last day here in Fl. We are packing up today and will leave here early tomorrow morning for N.C. I am hoping the motorhome remembers how to move and I hope I remember how to drive it. Time will tell.

We are encouraged in this move by the weather reports from home which were 85 and sunny over the weekend. Talking with Glenn and Janet over the weekend and apparently they are taking advantage of the nice weather to get work done on their motorhome. It sounds like things are progressing and we are hoping they will take their maiden voyage over Memorial Day weekend.

Last night was bath night for the pups and today is packing day for the motorhome. Somehow we got all this stuff in when we left Ohio and hopefully it won't be like Christmas morning where you can never get the stuff back into the box it came out of.

An old adventure......

I'm kinda "dredging up" this old adventure due to "popular" demand. Sometimes it's the oldies that are the best. I kinda doubt that will be the case here but I will give it a try. Was that too negative? I'm sorry, I'll try to do better. :)

A couple of years ago, while planning a trip to Disney World in Florida, and while talking with my friend Jim, he mentioned that he would be at Disney before we left from Ohio, and during his stay in Florida, he was planning to drive to Blacksburg Va. for a Virginia Tech/Florida State football game. Further, Jim actually had an extra ticket. One thing led to another and we (Jim and I) ended up planning to meet in Blacksburg to attend the game. This was an interesting situation for several reasons and very complex arrangements went into the event. In addition, the way it played out, there was and interesting and humorous twist along the way.

Here is a little bit of the planning: Jim and his family traveled down to Disney in their motorhome, or actually Jim traveled and the family flew down to meet him when he arrived. Jim also towed his Jeep Liberty behind his motorhome. Meanwhile, Linda and her sister Rene' drove down to Florida in our Jeep, to visit with their Mom and Dad for a week. So, we have Jim, Donna, and Maddie at Disney world and Linda and Rene in Sarasota.

The day before the football game, I left Youngstown in the motorhome and drove to Blacksburg and Jim left Orlando in his Liberty to drive north to Blacksburg to meet me at the "Interstate Overnight RV Park" in Christiansburg Va. Planning ahead, Jim also brought his towbar with him in the Liberty so that we could tow it back to Orlando after the game. Jim and I met at the RV park Friday evening to spend the night, and then planned to attend the game on Saturday morning.

For those of you who don't know Jim, NO adventure with Jim is calm or normal. I'm sure I'll leave things out, but there was the issue with the tow bar in the parking lot where we had to literally hammer the tow bar into the hitch to get it properly attached. I was attending to this (in the dark) while Jim attended to Punky's needs. This, for Jim, took a GREAT deal of discipline as Jim is NOT a dog lover at all, preferring the feline over the canine. Of course that is a whole 'nuther story which we will leave for another time.

Then there was the thing with the shower room. Mind you, we are staying in my motorhome which has all the conveniences of home including a hot shower. For whatever reason, Jim chose to use the mostly inadequate campground shower room. Unfortunately for Jim he did not remember to take his shampoo with him and ended up washing his hair with bath soap. I won't even get into the "where I used it last and where he used it first" thing. Suffice to say that I have used bath soap on my hair and the results are less than wonderful.

Somehow we made it through the night and woke up on Saturday morning full of expectation for a great game. One minor problem, yes, it is Virginia, but it is also November and it is also COLD! Keeping in mind that we are on the way to a week in Florida and you can only imagine how poorly prepared we were for a cold football game. So, off to the RVers friend, Wally World, known to civilians as Wal*Mart, to acquire suitable attire for the frozen tundra. Remember that think about this being Virginia? Well apparently the local WM didn't realize it was November and had failed, for the most part, to anticipate the temperature, and their stock of winter garments showed that. Being desperate, we bought up two sets of insulated long johns, ear muffs and gloves, and hoped for the best. Personally I thought a down insulated parka was in order, but there wasn't a single one on the rack.

After this, Jim and I went to breakfast at the local Cracker Barrel, over Jim's protestations. I'm still not sure why Jim is averse to eating at CB, but I like it and that was that! We met up with my nephew Matt, who is my brother-in-law's wife's second son, and had a pleasant time getting caught up on things. Jim of course, was his usual effusive self, offending Matt withing 5 minutes after meeting him. But that is Jim and we love him despite his failings.

Well, time was fleeting and there was a game on the horizon so we made our way back to the campground to walk Punky and then don our newly acquired garments. Then we jumped into the Jeep and started down the road.

To understand what happened next, you almost have to know Jim a little better. I am fond of describing Jim this way, "he never lets the truth get in the way of a good story!" Meaning Jim is at his best, and seems most comfortable weaving a tall tale which he presents, with a straight face and sincere look, as being close to gospel truth. Most of the time it is harmless fun, but it is always a good idea to be on your toes when around Jim. Word to the wise, "be prepared!" Well, we jump into the car and head out to the game, and suddenly Jim shouts an expletive and announces, "I forgot the tickets!!!" I refer you to the above explanation to understand my response which was less than excited. Unfortunately, this was one of the few times I have known Jim to actually tell the truth. He had left the tickets back at the motorhome. So, we turned around and backtracked to Interstate Overnight RV park to fetch the necessary documents.

This we did and then drove to Pine Grove Elementary School where we picked up a shuttle bus to the game. Jim had done this before and assured me it was the best way to go. Unfortunately most of the folks on the shuttle were Hokie fans and our Florida State hats were a dead giveaway as to our leanings. Did I just use the word "dead"??? Yikes. Fortunately, most of the folks on the bus had not yet had a chance to become inebriated so the trip to the stadium was uneventful.

After arriving safely at the stadium we made our way passed the numerous turkey leg vendors and to our seats which were about 2 miles up in the stadium. The view was spectacular and a fresh breeze was blowing. Fortunately we were dressed in our newly acquired duds. Unfortunately, the wind took that as a challenge and even more unfortunately, the wind appeared to be winning the battle. Standing around corners or next to a wall didn't help and I gradually lost the feeling in my fingers and toes. Luckily the game started and there was a distraction from our pain.

On a more positive note, the spectacle of the game and all it's trapping was well worth the suffering. Unfortunately for Jim, FSU lost big time and the Hokies went on to win for old alma mater. We managed to stiffly limp down the steps to the bus and returned to the school where we climbed into our car and drove to the campground. We disconnected the camper umbilicals, connected the car and headed south to Florida.

There was more, but I will leave that for another time. Till then, thanks Jim for a good time.

Our family, Florida, golf outing.

Trying to catch up here. Monday this week dawned as a beautiful day with blue skies and a warm breeze. During dinner on Sunday we had discussed going golfing to take advantage of the weather and thus we did. We first went to grandma and grandpa's house to pick up grandpa, then off to Larry Jr.'s house to get him. Then to the golf course for our 1:07 tee time. Grandpa was driving Larry's cart and Linda was driving mine. About half way through the game Larry had convinced grandpa to try his hand at the game. What you need to know is that grandpa, in his prime, was a scratch golfer, meaning he would play a game and finish right at par for the course. Grandpa has not been on a golf course for about 38 years so it took some convincing just to get him out of his easy chair, but when he had the club in his hand, it was just like old times.















After selecting his club, Grandpa stepped up to the tee and clobbered the ball about 250 yards down the fairway. Ok, maybe that was an exageration, but still not bad for an 86year old who hadn't golfed in 38 years.
















All in all, the outing was a success and we had a great time. Just a word of caution: when playing on a course in Florida, it is probably a good idea to avoid water. While this is true for most golf courses, it is particularly true in Florida. Further, if you happen to hit your ball into the water, my advice, leave it there and let Al the Alligator have it!!

What has happened to all the good professions?

For just a brief minute, I am going to get on my soapbox and do a little preaching here. Please forgive me this moment of self-indulgence and then I will return shortly to my normal, cheerful self!

Many years ago, when I was young, I was taught to respect certain people because of their position. These people included our family doctor, the local policeman, the minister at our church, and of course, our school teacher. These people were looked up to in our community. They held positions of responsibility and in some cases, authority and when you encountered one of them, you greeted them in a respectful manner and treated them as you had been taught to by your parents.

The family doctor’s opinion was always listened to and his advice was followed, even if it had nothing to do with medicine. Policemen were addressed as “yes sir” and their instructions were followed without question. If they made suggestions, you listened and reacted accordingly. Our minister was respected for his position and his word carried a great deal of importance to our lives. Teachers! What can I say about teachers? Teachers were looked up to and in some cases revered. Their word was law and they commanded respect in and out of the classroom. Woe to the poor student who foolishly chose to transgress a teacher’s path for a swift trip to the office would result, along with a similar fate when arriving home from school.

This brings up another disrespected profession, that of parenting. We were raised in an environment where we simultaneously loved, respected and feared our parents and what they said commanded immediate action.

Fast forward 20-30-40 years to the present and ask yourself where is that respect of long ago and is it still deserved? Visit a doctor’s office and you will probably encounter a receptionist who does everything in her power to shield you from seeing the doctor. Instead you will be handled by a series of supposed medical professionals, none of which went to medical school, and most of which are aloof and detached from your personal situation. If you are fortunate enough to actually see the doctor, it is in your status as a number and certainly not for more than 5 minutes.

I will concede that there are probably a great number of policemen in uniform who perform their duties in a professional manner however, there is a malaise of corruption which pervades police departments and which is splashed across our TV screens seemingly on a daily basis with stories of dishonest cops. There is no personal relationship with police and very little if any respect.

There is so much negative news about churches and religion that it is difficult to find any respect left in our society for ministers. Churches have generally failed to provide the necessary moral leadership for our society and as a result we see a general decline in morality among our citizens, particularly young people who have been raised in this era of no respect. Add to this the frequent stories about ministers who have affairs with members of the congregation, or run off with the offering and this guiding light of our society has gone dim.

The sad situation that exists in our schools today is well documented in the news media. Witness how they grab onto every new story about yet another teacher who has a sordid love affair with a student and the resulting loss of respect throughout the country for the entire teaching profession.

Finally we have to look at parents and adults in general, and what we see is a sad picture. All too often the sad truth is that adults are far more concerned about their own well being at the expense of their children. There is little or no discipline exercised, and many parents believe the best way to raise their children is to give them everything they want and the children will somehow find their own way to adulthood. Just don’t bother mom and dad as they are busy enjoying life.

Life seemed to be a lot simpler back in “the good old days”. I liked doctors you could see, talk with, and trust. I respected policemen who were honest. I honored ministers whose lives you could follow and whose word presented truth. I learned from teachers whose presence in the classroom commanded respect and attention. And I loved and honored my parents for the lives and examples they lived.

We need to return to those lost values and resurrect professions and professionals with whom we can invest our trust.

A little bit more Webster

Webster has been working on his soccer dribbling skills and he can now block out his sister Kassy and dribble around her. We're thinking a contract with some european club may be in the offing soon!!

You have to look closely at this one. I took this about a mile from where we are staying and was fascinated that the state of Florida would be this elaborate with traffic controls leading from a dumpster. Notice the stop sign at the "end" of the road. I wonder if they get a lot of traffic coming from that particular dumpster?? But....at least after you drop off your trash, you have the choice of turning right or going straight ahead!

You may have to use your imagination on this one and I actually had several people say, "is that how you spell it?" Suffice to say that I no longer have to ask, "can you show me how to get, how to get to...........", because I have actually been there, and now I know the way, and I can show you.........."how to get to Sesame St."

By the way, if you are interested, it is in North Port Florida.

Attention span, Kassy

We have been spending time with Linda's mom and dad while we are here in sunny Florida and some of those times we take our pups with us because it gives them the opportunity to run free in the the fenced in back yard. During these times, Kassy has discovered the little lizards that are everywhere here in Florida.

They crawl on the window screens and they crawl on the fence and on the trees. I'm told they are harmless and they are fun to watch as they skitter up and down.

Anyway, Kassy has become aware of these little guys and is fascinated by them to almost to the point obsession and her attention span while observing them is close to amazing. She has discovered that by sitting on a wicker box located on the back porch of mom and dad's house that she has a strategiv view of the entire back yard, including the fence and the grapefruit trees. Naturally her perch includes an excellent view of the screens that enclose the back porch. All of these are target rich environments for lizard viewing and Kassy has taken to sitting for what seems like hours, watching for her buddies to appear. When that happens, she gleefully announces to all the world that the lizards have arrived by yelping excitedly. This, of course, is time for dad or mom to step in and quiet her down. This goes on pretty much for the entire time we are visiting with grandma and grandpa.





















There is, however, at least one lizard we strongly encourage Kassy to avoid irritating and that would be the 6 ft. alligator who recently went gliding by our campsite in the lake. I spoke softly to Mr. Alligator and encouraged him to just keep going. Hopefully he did as I asked. I've heard the attention span of alligators is fairly short.

Our family

One of the great things about this trip to Florida is being able to spend time with family, including my brother-in-law, Rik, and sister-in-law, Rene, and their family. We were fortunate to have them all here last week and we had some excellent events including a couple of really good meals at Larry and Krista's house, Linda's chicken paprikash at Mom and Dad's, a really good tenderloin at Larry's that was grilled by Chef Rik, and some good times at various restaurants. Of course there were the usual projects including new carpeting, an outlet repair, and several odds and ends to deal with. All in all, you can't beat this group for fun, pleasant conversation, and genuine caring and affection. Thank you Lord for my family.

high flight

Came across this while surfing the web and thought I would share it with you all. This is an old TV station signoff video, before they were called videos! :) By the way, turn up the sound.

Perspective and proportion

Now double that. And add $170 Billion. That's the price tag of the bailout...

Sometimes we just have to put things into the proper perspective in order to view them properly.

Is this just my problem??

There is something I don’t understand and I’m hoping someone can explain it to me. I guess you could call this complaining, or maybe it is just this compulsion I have to make the world a perfect place when it comes to all the little things in life. I recognize I don’t have any influence on the big things and have relegated myself to working on the small stuff and letting the important people take care of the big stuff.

But I digress. I had started to talk about one of those little, annoying things we seem to run into in this world that defy reason, briefly annoy us, and then we move on with absolutely no progress being made to correct the offending action.

Ok, so what am I talking about? It’s magazines, or more specifically magazine page numbers. What could possibly be wrong with magazine page numbers you ask? Ok, take a typical magazine, just about any magazine, and look at the contents in the front of the magazine. Wait, let me digress for just a brief moment here to talk about something else that bothers me. Question: were you actually able to locate the contents of the magazine? In a great number of magazines I read, the contents are cleverly hidden after several pages of ads in the front and then the contents are spread out in such a way as to allow even more ads to intersperse into the contents. It becomes a chore just to find and read the contents.

Ok, that digression is over and we will move on. Let’s say you have succeeded in locating the contents with all the promise of fascinating articles with Pulitzer Prize level of journalism. You wade through the contents and actually locate the article you want to read and, sure enough, the table of contents dutifully lists the page number in the magazine where the article appears.

But wait, before we proceed, there is one other thing we need to discuss. One other minor item regarding magazines and the table of contents. Have you ever picked up a magazine, looked at the cover, and became interested in the cover article, only to turn to the table of contents to locate the article in the magazine, only to find the article was missing, or cleverly hidden under a totally different or unrelated name than the one listed on the cover? I would like that one explained to me also.

Ok, let’s get back to the original rant if we can only remember where we were. (Actually, I’m the one who has to remember. If you are reading this, all you have to do is start at the beginning and refresh your memory. If you get to this point in the article a second time, just skip this section and move on because you are caught in an endless “writer’s” loop.) We had located the article we were interested in reading in the table of contents and checked the contents listing for the page number of the article. Then we turn to the listed page and read the article. But…….where is the page? I mean the article is supposed to begin on page 37, and we try to turn to page 37, but there doesn’t seem to be a “page number 37”!! Oh, there is probably a 37th page no doubt and it is physically located after the 36th page in the magazine, but there is no actual page number on the 37th page nor is there an actual page number 36 to help guide us. In fact, better than half the pages don’t have page numbers on them so we are left to find a page number somewhere in the magazine, totally unrelated to our chosen article, and then begin the arduous process of counting the subsequent pages until we reach our destination. Why can’t they simply number ALL the pages? Is ink that expensive that they can’t afford to print the page numbers? I don’t think so. It is just simple laziness on the part of whoever does the page layout. I realize it has to get really boring typing in all those consecutive numbers. Either that or there is a more personal aim here and the guy just wants to annoy all of the readers of the magazine.

My problems are two: first, am I the only one who notices this or is bothered by it? I certainly hope not or I’m going to feel really lonely out here, blathering endlessly about what every other person in the world either doesn’t notice, or doesn’t consider to be a problem. And second: what can be done about it? Are there enough of you OCD types out there who really care about problems like this or am I left standing here, all alone to fight the good fight, to right all the wrongs of the world, at least all the ones small enough for me to be concerned with.

Don't you all even try and act like you already knew this!!

I can’t take credit for this one, it was forwarded to me by my sister-in-law. However, I do appreciate the new awareness.


Don't you all even try and act like you all ready knew this either.I had to go into the kitchen and check this out for myself. Whoever looks at the end of your aluminum foil box? You know when you try to pull some foil out and the roll comes out of the box. Then you have to put the roll back in the box and start over. The darn roll always comes out at the wrong time.Well, I would like to share this with you. Yesterday I went to throw out an empty Reynolds foil box and for some reason I turned it and looked at the end of the box. And written on the end it said, Press here to lock end. Right there on the end of the box is a tab to lock the roll in place. How long has this little locking tab been there? I then looked at a generic brand of aluminum foil and it had one, too. I then looked at a box of Saran wrap and it had one too! I can't count the number of times the Saran wrap roll has jumped out when I was trying to cover something up.I'm sharing this with my friends. I hope I'm not the only person that didn't know about this.

A couple more photos

Today I have uploaded a couple more photos of the shuttle launch showing the smoke trail left by the shuttle and the solid rocket boosters, including right after separation of the boosters. Sinc e the launch took place shortly after sunset and since we were looking towards the east, the setting sun, reflecting off the smoke trail, lent a particularly spectacular glow to the trail. The people in this photo are my SIL and BIL, gazing at the smoke trail, while a palm tree waves in the breeze.

As I am writing this I am watching NASA TV and their coverage of the deployment of the new solar panel on the ISS. Thus far everything seems to be going well.

I am still trying to find time to transfer my videos over to the computer and hope to have that done shortly. It has been a busy week, what with supervising the install of carpet over at Mom and Dad's house, and then taking Linda to the Dr. office yesterday. I think all the pressing issues have been cleared up and hopefully we can get back to a normal schedule soon. This retirement thing is hectic and I need a lot of rest to keep up with all the demands! :)

Today is Friday and it is the first day of spring. Believe it or not, this isn't a major event here in Florida! Up north we live for this day, and it's promise of warmth and flowers. In Florida, it is just another warm, sunny day. Hohum!! :)

We have several potential pastimes this coming weekend and don't know which of them will actually happen but stay tuned for an update. You never know what excitement we will be involved in.

Later

Spectacular launch STS 119

I'm not going to make a long post today, simply because my brain is fried and still recovering from yesterday's events. The trip to the shuttle launch was great and the actual launch was spectacular. If there is any chance at all that any of you can make a personal trip to Kennedy Space Center to witness a launch, I highly recommend it. However, do NOT try to leave the area around there the same day, it is a disaster!

Above are three photos I took as the shuttle engines ignited and the orbiter began to lift off. We are able to see the shuttle even after it was over 400 miles down range! What an amazing experience. I have more photos and some video which I will get to as soon as possible.

By the way, here is a list of the remaining shuttle launches, scheduled into 2010. Get busy making your travel plans soon!!

Feb. 12, 2009 — Discovery (STS-119/15A) will kick off a five-flight 2009 by delivering the final pair of U.S. solar arrays to the space station.

May 15, 2009 — Endeavour (STS-127/2JA) will set sail with the final permanent components for the Japanese Kibo Laboratory on the space station.

July 30, 2009 — Atlantis (STS-128/17A) will launch carrying science and storage racks to the space station.

Oct. 15, 2009 — Discovery (STS-129/ULF-3) will place spare components outside the space station.

Dec. 10, 2009 — Endeavour (STS-130/20A) will close 2009 by delivering the final connecting node, Node 3, and the Cupola, a robotic control station that provides a 360-degree view around the station.

Feb. 11, 2010 — Atlantis (STS-131/19A) begins the first flight in 2010, carrying a Multi-Purpose Logistics Module filled with science racks for the laboratories of the station.

April 8, 2010 — Discovery (STS-132/ULF-4) will carry an integrated cargo carrier to deliver maintenance and assembly hardware, including spare parts for space station systems.

May 31, 2010 — Endeavour (STS-133/ULF-5) will carry critical spare components that will be placed on the outside of the station.