Today, NASA crashed two parts of the sattelite LCROSS into a crater on the Moon. By studying the dust and other material from the explosions, NASA hopes to find out if the Moon has ice water, and might thus be suitable as a way station to the stars. NASA just held a conference about their findings, according to their schedule, but there isn't anything specific out about it yet on the interwebs.

There was some controversy about the planned lunar "bombing", but most naysayings were from those who wondered what aliens would think of such violent behavior in space.

Please.

As if our puny Earth bombs could scare them.

Which one is still around after 40 years?

Now, I'll admit the moon landing was far more exciting an event, but there's nothing uncool about these huge MoonPies, created by Chattanooga Bakery to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the first moon landing. With 14 pounds of marshmallow and 6 pounds of chocolate, each one is 6 inches tall, weighs in at 55 pounds, and can feed 300 people. The bakery has been making much smaller MoonPies since before World War I, and is still making them today.

Mmm, mmm, good.

On the other hand, no one's set foot on the moon since 1972.

On the other other hand, now that Google Earth includes the moon, our nearest celestial neighbor is closer than ever before. Anyone up for a trip?

...with repeats of "Dukes of Hazzard" and "The Golden Girls."

No, really. Okay, maybe the last half of that headline is pulled from the dark recesses of my . . . mind, but the first part is true. At least, that's what NASA officials are saying about why they haven't been able to produce the originals. But since a Hollywood company -- the same one that touched up "Casablanca" -- has apparently refurbished the moon landing tapes from four other sources ("...CBS News originals; kinescopes from the National Archives; a video from Australia that received the transmission of the original moon video; and camera shots looking at a TV monitor,") we don't need no stinkin' originals. Right? Right?

Yeah. Don't let the nut jobs conspiracists hit you on the way out.

But jeesh, when I ran out of blank tapes in the 80s and couldn't record new eps of "A-Team" or "21 Jump Street," I just shelled out a coupla bucks for another three-pack. You'd think NASA was underfunded or something. Regardless, here are those refurbished videos.

They're awful pretty.

This article in the Wall Street Journal is about a cryptologist who recently solved a coded message sent to President Thomas Jefferson 200 years ago, a message no one had solved until now.

Coolness.

I've always found cryptology fascinating, but I've never been enough of a math geek to solve (or develop) such codes myself. Oh, I paid my dues as a kid, getting one of those special "Detective Kits" available in the backs of comic books, where for only $1.99, I could become a Super Sekrit Detective! And Solve Crimes! And Decode Codes! The super decoder thingy was a piece of plastic, of course, a wheel with the alphabet inscribed on two concentric circles. It was made for "substitution" ciphers, where each letter in a message is replaced with the one it lined up with on the circles . . . like the "Little Orphan Annie" decoder, in the movie "A Christmas Story." After all his anticipation, the thing just translated an Ovaltine advertisement for poor Ralphie.

Those are the easiest ciphers to use, and the easiest to decode, too. The cipher in the message sent to Jefferson was so complicated, though, I'm not even sure I understand the solution. No Geek prize for me.

On Thursday, an Iowa woman took a photo of what might possibly be a new category of clouds. Since forever (or 1951, if you'd rather), there's been three types: cumulous, cirrus, and stratus. Cirrus clouds are high, icy clouds. Stratus are layered, low-lying, rainy-day clouds. Cumulous are those with upward development and are the dark, thunderstorm type of cloud. Each of these categories has its own sub-classifications based on the specifics of formation.

The clouds in Jane Wiggins' photo look kind of like stratus clouds, but also have characteristics of the cumulous variety. According to Wiggins, the clouds were undulating, with lights and shadows and a greenish-yellow backdrop. A debate is raging now in meteorological circles, fueled by Gavin Pretor-Pinney, author of "The Cloudspotter's Guide," and his England-based Cloud Appreciation Society, who are determined to establish a new variety of cloud based on this photo. But Brant Foote, a longtime scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, CO, said the clouds in the photo fit into the existing cumulous classification.

Honestly, I don't care who wins, but it's just pure fun geekery that a debate about cloud formations is happening at all.

The Husband and I recently got back from visiting Ireland. We were there for two weeks and traveled around via rental car, staying in B&Bs, eating humungous breakfasts, looking at Stone Circles and touring castles, et al. And we took a bajillion pictures to remember it all by. Well, maybe not a bajillion.

Coupla hundred, though.

The digital camera is handy at the point of picture taking, 'cause you can see the pic right then and take another if it didn't come out like you wanted, but as for traditional photo having . . . Well, printing photos out and putting them in an album doesn't really happen anymore, not for us. I've got hundreds of photos on my laptop, and so does the Husband, but not one has been printed, not in three years. And now we send emails with pics to the Parental Units instead of sending duplicates of photos themselves. Makes it hard to put nice pictures in frames and hang them on the wall, too.

On the other hand, I can upload a few pictures to my journal or facebook or whatever, so other people who know us can see the proof of our vacation, without having to be in the same room, paging through an album.

Bit of give requires a bit of take, I guess.

( Pictures below the fold. (Heh.) )
Update: More photos located at both my Photobucket account and my Facebook account. How cool is that?

The Long Night full moon on Friday, Dec. 12th will be the biggest and brightest full moon of the year. And the January 2009 full moon will be the biggest and brightest of 2009. Both are Perigee moons, as opposed to Apogee moons, and if those words mean as little to you as they did to me before I read this article, then think of Perigee as being a partying moon, and the Apogee as the apologizing-for-being-unable-to-make-it-to-your-party moon, because the Apogee is actually 50K kilometers farther away from earth than the Perigee.

Which is a helluva distance to go to get out of being at a party, but whatever. Mnemonics are fun.

I love full moons. Always have. Mebbe I'm part werewolf or something. I once saw an enormous and very red full moon, which I have since learned was likely due to pollution (though they can also happen during eclipses), but all I thought at the time was "Oooooh, pretty!" while a friend and I gazed upwards for over an hour, transfixed by that moon, which was so close it seemed nearly touchable.

Here's a couple pictures of red moons, so you can 'Ooooh, pretty' along with me.

For the Long Night Moon, the best viewing will be at midnight this Friday, when the moon will be almost directly overhead and acting like a big ol' spotlight on the earth below. Especially if there's snow, as they're predicting for my region.

Snow: yum! Shiny, ginormous moon on snow: one of the seven wonders, baby!

According to this recent post by J. Steven York, Astronaut Buzz Aldren recently had this to say about why no one cares about the space program anymore:

"I blame the fantastic and unbelievable shows about space flight and rocket ships that are on today. All the shows where they beam people around and things like that have made young people think that that is what the space program should be doing. It's not realistic. . . . Why do they get bored with the space program? That's why."

Of course, as York points out, Aldren has it all wrong. Rocket science and space exploration didn't become boring because people enjoyed watching shows and reading books about even more super-kewl and spectacular possibilities in space. Instead, it's that sensawonder in science fiction (from Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, Bradbury, Burroughs, Heinlein, and many others) that got people excited about space exploration in the first place. But then, once funding for NASA and exploration started drying up, and many of the missions were no longer televised, so people couldn't feel like they were along for the ride anymore, those who still wanted to see the stars had to find alternate methods of getting there -- via books, movies and tv shows.

As recent excitement over the newest Mars probe shows, we, the people, aren't bored with the space program. But by not keeping the public involved, not following through on promised projects, and by presenting both the astronauts and their missions as bland and unexciting to the public, it's clear the space program got bored with us.

Norwegian Eagles flung into Irish airspace.

Film at 11.

So, I had my first IV infusion of iron today. Let me just say this: if a nurse admits to you within minutes of bringing you into the room in which you'll be getting an IV drip that she is "new here," don't, repeat don't let her touch you with a needle. Especially if she spends almost ten minutes searching your arms for a viable vein, ignoring your helpful pointers to the one that "always works" and then pokes around in the other arm long enough and haphazzardly enough that your fingers (yes, the ones several inches away from the needle) begin to burn. A lot. To the point where you're jerking your hand away from the incompetent fool you were fool enough to entrust with your care.

Just don't.

Ask for someone who's had a bit of phlebotomist training, or better yet, someone who isn't new, and who won't make you pass out by stabbing your nerves with sharp pieces of metal.

Other than that? 'Twas swell.

The results are in, and apparently the nice Internist is amazed I'm walking around and can hold actual conversations with people, despite my severe iron, B12 and vitamin D deficiencies--each of them scoring at about 1/10 of normal. My body just isn't absorbing any of these on its own, so I'm to take daily injections of B12 for the next month, at least, plus giant doses of vitamin D, as well as weekly IV infusions of iron, which I'll likely need the rest of my life.

But I should feel much, much better in the next two months, with the elimination of most of my current swath of symptoms, such as fatigue, muscle aches and soreness, sleep difficulties, fatigue, migraines, tinnitus, light sensitivity, fatigue, weakness in extremities, gastric reflux, low body temperature, frequent fevers, and fatigue.

The Doc said it could go one of three ways. In one, I love him forever and sing his praises to the heavens because all (or at least many) of my symptoms have disappeared, or have been sent to the point of negligibility, once the iron and vitamin levels are in normal range. Two, some of the symptoms are much better, but others only marginally so, and we have to look for other problems, but at least I'm feeling better. Three, nothing really gets better, despite getting the vitamin and iron counts up there, and we have to do bunches more tests to figure out what's wrong.

He wants the love.

I want to give it to him.

Wish us luck.

No, sorry, just kidding about the can business. But according to this wiki, and this article, the planet HD 209458 b (They have got to think of a better name for that thing. How 'bout Molten Blue?) is the first extrasolar planet found to have water vapor in its atmosphere.

Yay, rain*!


*Hm. I may have been in Central Oregon too long . . .