Posted by Richard on December 25, 2010
Some of you no doubt traveled somewhere in the last couple of days, and if it involved an airport, it probably wasn't a particularly pleasant experience. For your Christmas Eve entertainment, here are some ditties that hopefully will evoke a smile — if perhaps a somewhat rueful one. Enjoy, and have a very Merry Christmas!
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: air travel, airport security, christmas, humor, music | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Richard on December 22, 2010
Last week, I mentioned that this year's La Niña was bringing lots of snow to the mountains, while leaving Denver and the eastern plains mild and dry. Since then, it's been doing that in spades. The weather reports have switched from forecasting snow totals in inches to feet.
Colorado's ski resorts have received 1-3 feet or more of new snow since the weekend. And it's just getting started. The jet-stream pattern they call the "Pineapple Express" continues to funnel Pacific moisture into the Colorado mountains at a prodigious rate.
The southwestern part of the state, which had been neglected by earlier storms, has been especially favored by this one. Silverton Mountain (a.k.a. Purgatory) got almost 3 feet in a 24-hour period. In one week, the region went from a snowpack of less than 50% of normal to well over 100%.
By Christmas Eve, many locations above 9,000 ft. will have gotten 7-8 feet of new snow. Everyone's using the phrase "epic snowfall" to describe what's happening.
I don't mean to sound like the Colorado Tourism Office, but if you're a skier or boarder, you need to get your ass up there. 🙂
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: colorado, skiing, snow, weather | 3 Comments »
Posted by Richard on December 21, 2010
The winter solstice lunar eclipse Monday night or Tuesday morning (depending on your time zone) lived up to the hype. Here in Denver, high clouds cleared right on time, and even in the light-polluted city, the view was spectacular. The moon was positioned right above Orion, and to the left of that was a very bright Jupiter. Quite a sight.
No, I didn't take pictures. I just stared. I figured that plenty of better equipped and more skilled people would do the photographic honors. And I was right. SpaceWeather.com has a nice gallery of photos. Unfortunately, they've messed up some of their links. So here's Page 1, and here's Page 2. I especially liked the shots by Jeff Berkes (on Page 2), in particular this one.
CBSDenver showed a really nice one as their "picture of the day" on tonight's newscast. It showed multiple shots of the moon at various stages from the beginning through totality to the end of the eclipse. But as of now, it's not on the website yet.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: astronomy, eclipse, moon, photos | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Richard on December 16, 2010
For the benefit (?) of those of you back east suffering under some of the worst winter weather in ages, the low in Denver on Tuesday morning was 35°. That's 2° above Atlanta's high for the day. We reached a record high of 70°. Lest you blame my SUV, the previous record of 69° was set in the 1920s before there were SUVs.
Denver has had an extremely mild and dry winter so far, with lots of days in the 60s recently. Atlanta has had more snow so far this December than Denver. The reason isn't global warming, it's a strong La Niña. But before you Easterners get too jealous, we're about to get a change. A cold front moving in Wednesday afternoon should bring 3-6" of snow to the Denver area by Thursday morning, along with highs in the 30s.
If news of our mild weather is causing you to reconsider that ski trip, don't. The La Niña pattern, as usual, has been sending Pacific storms out of the northwest into the Rockies every few days for many weeks, and the mountain snowfalls have been epic. Steamboat had a record November, with over 90" of snow. Most of the other big destination resorts aren't far behind. The northern and central mountain resorts have been getting about a foot or so of new snow every 3 or 4 days for weeks now.
It's the best of both worlds — awesome snow in the mountains and golfing or biking weather down here in the city. The only problem for skiers has been getting to the mountains. They have to time their drive in between I-70 closures. 🙂
UPDATE (12/16): The winter storm for Denver fizzled. No snow, just cold — so I think Atlanta's still ahead of us in December snowfall. 🙂 But the mountains got a decent dumping, and I-70 was closed for several hours.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: colorado, denver, skiing, snow, weather | 3 Comments »
Posted by Richard on December 11, 2010
I’ve admired Elton John and his music since Tumbleweed Connection (1970). But this year, he did something that increased my esteem for him considerably. No, I’m not talking about performing at Rush Limbaugh’s wedding (although I did enjoy seeing the left become apoplectic at the news that Sir Elton and Rush got along famously).
No, I’m talking about the fact that Sir Elton remembered his idol and biggest musical influence, Leon Russell — who had fallen into complete obscurity — reconnected with him, and persuaded him that they should record an album together. Here’s Sir Elton telling the short version of the story (he tells the long version in a 4-page essay in the CD booklet):
I’m listening to the resulting album, The Union, as I write this, and it’s terrific. But the story is even more terrific, and I don’t mind telling you it brought a tear to my eye and some wonderful memories to my heart. It also caused me to reconnect with Leon Russell’s marvelous music from the 70s. I have all those albums on vinyl — I have tons of vinyl — but have never found the time and energy to rip them to digital form. Now I’ve bought several of them on CD.
If you’re under 40 (or maybe even 45), you may have never heard of Leon Russell. Well, allow me to introduce you to a bit of his work. “Back to the Island” is the song that made Sir Elton weep. It’s one of my favorites, too.
“A Song for You” has probably been covered by more artists than any other Leon Russell song, ranging from Ray Charles to Karen Carpenter. It’s one of the most beautiful love songs I know, and I still think the original studio recording, with its spare instrumentation and haunting air, is the best of them all.
Now for something more upbeat. The iconic Leon Russell song is “Stranger in a Strange Land,” from one of my all-time favorite albums, Leon Russell and the Shelter People.
I’ll finish with a live recording. A commenter at YouTube called this “The ten greatest minutes in rock n roll history.” It’s certainly one of the greatest live performances. From 1971’s Concert for Bangladesh, here’s “Jumpin’ Jack Flash/Young Blood.” Turn it up!
I hope those gems will motivate you to buy some Leon Russell music. I’m sure you’ll be glad you did.
UPDATE (13 Nov 2016): Leon Russell died last night. I’m terribly saddened.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: elton john, leon russell, music, rock | 8 Comments »
Posted by Richard on December 8, 2010
The first operational test of the Dragon spacecraft, capable of carrying up to 7 astronauts, appears to be a success. This morning, SpaceX launched the Dragon into orbit atop its Falcon 9 launch vehicle. Gizmodo has video.
This was only the second launch of the Falcon 9 (the first was in June), and the first under NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program. The plans for this flight were ambitious:
The upcoming demonstration mission will launch from Cape Canaveral and should follow a flight plan nearly identical to the first Falcon 9 launch, but this time the Dragon spacecraft will separate from the second stage and will demonstrate operational communications, navigation, maneuvering and reentry. Although it does not have wings like Shuttle, the Dragon spacecraft is controlled throughout reentry by the onboard Draco thrusters which enable the spacecraft to touchdown at a very precise location – ultimately within a few hundred yards of its target.
While Dragon will initially make water landings, over the long term, Dragon will be landing on land. For this first demo flight, Dragon will make multiple orbits of the Earth as we test all of its systems, and will then fire its thrusters to begin reentry, returning to Earth for a Pacific Ocean splashdown off the coast of Southern California. The entire mission should last around four hours.
It looks like they're well on their way to a successful mission.
UPDATE: Splashdown! And complete success!
The Dragon spacecraft the first private space to reach orbit and return to Earth. It just splashed down in the Pacific Ocean, after a perfect launch, separation, orbit and re-entry. This is a huge milestone in the history of space exploration.
Woohoo! Congrats to Elon Musk and the entire SpaceX team!
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: aviation, falcon 9, nasa, progress, space flight, spacex | 10 Comments »
