There was a big, big cicada-killer bee-thing on the window in the stairwell at work. It was confused, but awesome. As per usual, the University of Kentucky has come through with information about the cicada killer wasp. “ The wasp stings its prey, turns the victim on its back, straddles It, and drags it or glides with it to the burrow.”. My father claims to have seen this actually happen in mid-air!

Recently rescued from Target where it was on clearance, this bonsai is being called “Bunny” and the other one “Mr. Peapod” (though the latter prefers “Young Master Peapod”).

Both of these things have their own galleries. Make with clicky on photos.

Normally, I don’t post stuff about my model sailplane hobby, but I thought that this neat idea was worth it. One of the ingenius guys at the Charles River RC club had the neat idea to fix a GPS to his plane and then take the information it gave him and plot it in 3-D space. The result was this image. He then later mixed that in with some satellite photography and came up with this image. Pretty neat! You’ll be able to read about it next month in an article he is preparing here next month.

update: for those interested, the original thread I found this on is here on LiftZone‘s forums: Show Me Your Launches!

Today is the 35th anniversary of the successful Apollo 11 moon landing. In honor, I suggest you check out this kick-ass full-screen Quicktime panorama of the moon and the Apollo landing craft.

There are still some conspiracy folks questioning “Was it faked?” but there are heaps of evidence that say “it was it real!” I think I’d have to side with the “NOT FAKED” camp on this one. Mostly because the science is there, and maybe just a bit because Buzz Aldrin throws a mean left-hook.

NASA has a nice gallery of Apollo 11 photos, and you should check them out. After that, why don’t you take a look to the heavens this evening (link to Louisville-specific data at Heavens-Above.com), and wonder what it must have been like to be there on the moon.

For Kelly’s birthday she wanted only one thing — to go to the Newport Aquarium and see the otters. And to go to the Gap Discount outlet on the way. Oh, and she wanted some shoes. Oh, and some new running shoes. But mainly, really, just the otters. So, last weekend (Saturday June 26th), we headed up I-71 to beautiful Newport, Kentucky.

I must say the aquarium was quite awesome. Well designed and with some really great attractions. The centerpiece being the HUGE saltwater tank in the center of the circular aquarium. There are tunnels that zig-zag through the aquarium, providing you with 270 degree views at times. Really quite amazing. The otters were, in fact, just like wet kitties and just as playful and cute (and apparently do eat cat food). Right behind the otters were the lorikeets, which are (near as I can tell) somewhere in between a parrot and parakeet. Smaller than a parrot, but just as colorful. They are in an open-air exhibit in which you can feed them with little cups of nectar as they sit on your finger. Awesome! (You might also be pooped on). Otters and birdies are fine, but my personal favorite HAD to be the Gentoo penguins in their really awesome penguin tank! Those little buddies are fast!
Kelly bought a little beany otter and I got a little plushie Gentoo penguin. Oh — and I took plenty of pictures which you can view in the Newport Aquarium gallery.

I’ve always had a thing for strange things — ghosts and UFO’s and all sorts of odd things. Early memories of Halley’s Comet and space shuttles and stuff soon gave way to Close Encounters of the Third Kind, V, and the paperback cover of Whitley Strieber‘s Communion
that used to freak me out. Recently, it’s been more “realistic” interests such as cryptography, ciphers, The DaVinci Code or The Rule of Four. All of this stuff has always just been there — like some subcurrent.

Recently, Charlie at work piqued my interests in such things again, as he is also an observer of these mysterious, wonderful and fun conspiratorial ramblings and skeptical science. It would seem that all of our conversations, whether they involve Neal Stephenson‘s Cryptonomicon, or perhaps the Masons (which bring into light Alan Moore‘s From Hell and Gary Spencer Millidge’s Strangehaven), or perhaps the edges of science itself in the form of Nikola Tesla, are connected in one manner or another with some facet of our lives in very odd and conspiratorial subcurrenty sort of ways. Jack White, of The White Stripes (a favoured band of us both) has a bit of a thing for Nikola Tesla and his brand of high-voltage fruitcake science. We both in one manner or another have family or friend connections to the Masons or the Ordo Templi Orientis — both of which are real, actual, secretive organizations filled with tantalizing mythology and years of history. I could go on and on – and if I was a conspiratorial theorist worth my salt, I certainly would! But, alas, I am not — I’m just making a point that this stuff is terribly interesting.

So, just recently, on This American Life specifically Episode 265 titled “Fake Science”, they did a piece on Art Bell, the proprietor and host of Coast to Coast AM. I played a bit of it for Charlie and my surrounding office-mates (specifically the part where a man claiming to be “the Anti-Christ” calls into Art), and this morning, Charlie introduces me to Mel’s Hole. Mel is a man who discovered a hole in Ellensburg, Washington that he claims is at least 80,000 feet deep and might be a portal to another dimension. I cannot and will not attempt to explain further here, but suffice it to say you can listen to the saga by checking out the Mel’s Hole Audio site which has a number of Art Bell broadcasts with our man Mel Waters.

Art Bell and Mel’s Hole is just terribly entertaining to me, and I don’t claim to believe much of any of it. But, some unexplained mysteries of this world, some odd correlations or connections are just too interesting not to explore! I love it, and I can’t get enough of it. I’d suggest if you’ve got a little time, just poke around, you’ll find something.

Week before last, Geoff mentioned that the local Amateur Radio league (ARTS) was holding a testing session the following Friday at the local Red Cross. He figured I was a quick study, and let me borrow his somewhat-dated copy of Now You’re Talking: All You Need to Get Your First Ham Radio License, and I went about studying for my Technician license (the first rung of the ladder).

The old-timers will tell you (quite rightly) that the new HAM licensing is far easier than it was in the olden-days. Now, the entire question pool for the 35 question test is open to the public, and to you only have to pass a single 5 words-per-minute Morse code test. Youth wasted on the young! Well, I took many an online practice test, and even started learning CW (HAM shorthand for Morse code).

Friday (Good Friday) rolled around, and I took the Technician class exam at the Red Cross and passed! Geoff suggested I attempt the General class exam and the Morse Code while I was there, since I paid my $10. I missed 16 our of 35 on the General exam (not bad, considering I had only taken one practice exam for the General class license). Then I decided to attempt the 5 WPM Morse code test. The play you 5 minutes of a Morse code QSO (HAM-speak for a conversation), and you have to transcribe a least a solid minute. Oh lordy, that was tough. It was quite the embarassment, but at least I know more now about my enemy than before. Woo-hoo.

So that was Friday. They told me I’d have my callsign by Monday (today), and that it would be posted on the FCC’s website. Well, Monday is here, and who says the government is slow! I am now the proud owner of the call KI4EZO.

In the next couple of weeks, I’ll be studying for my Morse code, General and Extra class licenses.

Geoff, Dan and I went to eat lunch over in the park by Crosby Middle School today.

I had just finished my tasty cheese sandwich and my Dr. Brown’s Cel-Ray Soda when I peeked over to my left shoulder to notice something like a dried leaf. Upon further inspection, I notice it’s some HUGE BUG. Naturally, I retain my calm and gently brush the thing off my shoulder. At least, that’s what happened in the version of the story that doesn’t make me seem like a big weenie. I batted at my shoulder and stood up, screaming like a little girl. Summing the courage to turn my head in the general direction of my shoulder again — I did, slowly. IT WAS STILL THERE!!! AHHHH!!! Finally, I dislodged the damned thing and it flew onto our picnic table, where it sat for a little while, but then finally took wing, in a slow, lumbering manner.

I took note of it’s odd spiny protuberance on its back, it’s nearly 1.5″ length, and its “headless mantis” sort of look, and went back to work determined to identify this thing. My initial searches for “insect identification” and “insect database” were inconclusive. Finally, I decided to check for “Kentucky insects”, and found a site at the University of Kentucky Department of Entymology called “The Critter Case Files” (an excellent resource for Kentucky insects). Having never seen anything of it’s sort in Kentucky before, I wasn’t sure if I’d find it. However, after a short search I determined that this was in fact an “Assassin Bug“. A “wheel bug“, to be exact. My estimation of 1.5″ was right on target — and it’s slow flight characteristics seemed to be right on (though the clincher was that spiny ridge on its back).

Despite my harrowing encounter, and subsequent taunting, I’m glad that I had my near assassination attempt.

A buddy of mine at work and I were talking about whether or not we were still in a recession… and he linked me to this MSNBC article: Recession declared officially over. Hmm. Average recession: 11 months (roughly). Average span between recessions: 11 years. Sunspot cycle? 11 years. That’s damned creepy. Peep the NASA chart. I don’t make this stuff up. I’ve got corroborators.

Yeah, that title isn’t dirty, is it? well, i happened to be watching a highlight from the Red Sox last night featuring Tim Wakefield, and I got to thinking: I should research Wakefield’s primary pitch, the knuckleball.

Google finds a trove of information, but the first link is the best — Knuckleball H.Q.. A bunch of info on throwing, hitting, and knuckleball lore. My personal fave: “You need the fingers of a safecracker and the mind of a Zen Bhuddist to throw it.” – Jim Bouton, Ball Four, and this anecdote — “Floyd Robinson actually swung at one that went BEHIND him…”

So, yeah, knuckleballers are an interesting lot. No one has become extremely successful with a knuckleball, but they certainly hold an interesting place in the baseball world. Many of them have had extremely long careers — Charlie Hough, Wilhelm Hoyt, and Phil Niekro all had 20 year-plus careers. However, along with the longevity that the knuckleball affords — there is the problem that the pitch is hard as hell to catch. A list of passed ball records (note the run-causing, game-winning passed ball list) shows that many of the catchers and lost games were from famous knuckleballers. As Bob Uecker explains, the best way to catch it is “wait’ll it stops rolling, then go pick it up.”

Finally, what happens when you put Boston’s Tim Wakefield up against Toronto’s Frank Castillo? (Keeping in mind that Toronto is an American League team, and they have the Designated Hitter rule, and Castillo is a pitcher with a .110 lifetime batting average) Here’s the punchline in video format.

i saw an article in today’s Courier-Journal about an interesting project at the University of Kentucky College of Engineering called BIG BLUE (Baseline Inflatable Glider Balloon Launched Unmanned Experiment). Essentially, it’s a balloon-launched glider designed for atmospheres like Mars. Mars has an atmosphere that is 1% as dense as the Earth, so flying is MUCH harder. The cool thing about this plane is that the wings are deployed at an altitude of 100,000 feet. And they are just unfolded — they are inflated! But you can’t fly with non-rigid wings, right? Right. Well, those crafty sons-of-guns came up with the idea for a ultraviolet-hardening epoxy to harden the wings at altitude! Crazy stuff.

Anyway, NASA is partially funding this project, and they have an article about it’s test flight.

The official site (fairly crude) is linked above, but if you want to see some cool wind-tunnel footage of these wings, you can go here and some documentary footage of the launch can be viewed here.