The Omnivore's Dilemma

My brother sent me a book for Christmas.
It's called "The Omnivore's Dilemma", by Michael Pollan.
I'm not sure that I'll get all the way through it but I find this paragraph most interesting:

"Venture farther, though, and you come to regions of the supermarket where the very notion of species seems increasingly obsucure:  the canyons of breakfast cereals and condiments; the freezer cases stacked with "home meal replacements" and bagged platonic peas; the broad expanses of soft drinks and towering cliffs of snacks; the unclassifiable Pop-Tarts and Lunchables; the frankly synthetic coffee whiteners and the Linnaeus-defying Twinkie.  Plants?  Animals?!  Though it might not always seem that way, even the deathless Twinkie is constructed out of...  well, precisely what I don't know offhand, but ultimately some sort of formerly living creature, i.e., a species.  We haven't yet begun to synthesize our foods from petroleum, at least not directly."

With Twinkies and Pop-Tarts being du jour menu items for Boy Scout camping trips, this is very relevant.  He hasn't mentioned "Uncrustables" yet, but maybe they are not as common cultural items as Twinkies yet!

Camping at Seminole Ranch

A relaxing weekend at Seminole Ranch back in November.  The pavilion in front was built by the St. Johns River Water Management District.  The pavilion in the back was built by Alex Clark, Eagle Scout, Troop 720, Faith-Viera Lutheran Church.  The campsite is on a small hill right on the St. Johns River.

What are you people looking at?

I-X Marks the Start

Excitement was in the air. It was a little hard to tell after about 15 trips out the door to peer at the lightning towers in the distance, but it was there. Then, on a beautiful Wednesday morning, a new start took off.

Florida Today sometimes annoys me with the corny puns on the front page (and I'm a punny guy) but this was an historic headline. The Shuttle, wonderful flyer that she is, has just about flown her last. She was a grand science project, and truly marvelous, but it's time to move on. Whether she flies until 2010, 2011, or 2014, her days are numbered.

As the Ares I-X engine burned out and she began drifting to a certain splash down in the Atlantic Ocean, the crowd outside the Headquarters Building broke into spontaneous applause. I haven't seen that since Challenger return to flight. There was something new and fresh in the air. Those of us that never get near a pad or launch control room don't often feel the excitement that the controller and hands on people feel, but this launch was something special and everyone knew it.

I've seen it in the halls, in the lunchroom, and around the center. The engineers are getting excited. Someone that doesn't work at KSC, taking a walk down the hall at headquarters, might not discern it. I've been there 22 years and I can tell the difference between excitement and the same old thing. People are excited. It's a good thing.

We've got a new pad, new rocket, new firing room, new firing room windows, new O&C, new Base Operations Contractor, and soon a new launch contractor, and a bunch of new, young engineers.

We don't know what Congress and Obama are going to do, but it's now a sure thing that something new is coming. Bring it on. GO ORION!!

Legacy Floppy Data

Did you ever forget to copy forward your legacy data? From a post at www.forum.manifold.net...

Found my backup floppies from 1994. Discovered that no recent Microsoft backup software will recover files from Microsoft’s backup program circa 1994. Found an old copy of MS-DOS 6.2. Found an old laptop with no operating system on it and installed DOS. Ran MSBACKUP to recover the files. Copied them to more floppies. Found another old laptop running Windows XP that has a floppy drive. Used it to copy the files from floppies to a stick. Used the stick to get the files onto my working machine, which has no floppy drive. Discovered that no modern version of Access will open v 1.x files. Found that Open Office Base will open Access 1.x files. Copied data from Open Office Base to Open Office Spreadsheet and then exported from OOS to Excel. I love Microsoft.

Saturday September 19

Wake up for the last time in a Comfort Inn, eat waffles, and head for Florida. It was a great two weeks. We arrived home safe, and sound, praise the Lord!

Friday September 18

We continued down the peninsula through Delaware, Maryland, and then Virginia. South of Salisbury we got off the main highway and drove a few miles east to NASA Wallops Island base and then out to Chincoteague Island. We stopped at the visitor's center and looked at the Chincoteague Ponies, made famous by Marguerite Henry in her book "Misty".
At the end of the peninsula is the Cheasapeake Bridge/Tunnel. The whole thing is about 15 miles with two tunnels underneath the ocean (instead of bridges). In the middle its as though you are out in the ocean in your car. Pretty cool.

We continued across the bay, into Norfolk, north across another bridge/tunnel and into Hampton. We went to the Mariner's Museum there and visited for several hours. It was my second visit and I really like that place. I think that I still have a couple of days worth of visits to go to say that I've really visited. We ended our day in Smithfield, NC. Our vacationing was over. Tomorrow we would drive all day to get home!