Herbert von Karajan

Probably the most highly-regarded conductor of the modern era. There's something truly inspiring about seeing someone like this in action.

Holst: Mars

This is the first part of his The Planets.

STS-130 pics

They did much of their work up there at night. It was pretty convenient for me to watch, as it would be on NASA TV when I'd get home. I saw much of this mission, including the pictured part below, live.

Here, they were readying that cupola when they had a sunrise. Sunrises and sunsets take only a few seconds each; due to the speed of their orbit, they have one or the other something like every 45 minutes.












I watched an ungodly amount of this mission: three hours of one spacewalk, and four hours of another. I also watched when they were using the "Canadarm" (cute word, that)to move the Harmony node, cupola, and pressurized mating adapter to their final homes. (I swear, the last one looks like a duodenum.) It was pretty mesmerizing, as NASA tv has no commercial interruptions.




Canada gets a lot of exposure from those arms. There's one on the ISS itself, and one (or two?) on the shuttle.





Harmony node, attached to the ISS, with cupola and pressurized mating adapter. The PMA is the dark thing on the right. The shuttle can dock with one of those. I don't know if I'd want to go through one though, as its appearance gives me the mental image of being squeezed through the alimentary canal.

One thing I liked about watching this mission, was that it allowed me to watch educated, intelligent people doing interesting work. Not only was this a nice antidote to the "normal" news coverage of dysfunctional people doing stupid things (like flying planes into IRS offices) but it gave me hope that I could someday be involved in something similarly rewarding.

Just watching mission control in Houston was pretty uplifting. Check out how most of the displays are just flat-panel computer monitors. The consoles are quite unlike the purpose built consoles of yesteryear.



Also, if I can say so without sounding too stalkerish, the chick in the middle row is cute as a bug in a rug. I can't quite read the plaque on her console, but from visiting the NASA website, it looks like she's sitting at the ODIN console (Onboard, Data, Interfaces and Networks). I guess that explains the viking helmet!

Endeavour STS 130

pic from NASA t.v. ...


I stayed up/woke up two nights to watch this. It was pretty exciting, but my video isn't all that great. Still though, it's amazing that you can actually see these things going up from by apartment. I'm on the other side of the state! And though you can't tell from the video, I was clearly able to see the SRB's separating. As this was the last nighttime shuttle launch ever, I'm sorry I didn't make the trip to see it close up.

It's just a small light on the video, but you're welcome to look at it. Anyway, I think it's a shame they're shutting down the shuttle program and replacing it with...nothing.

Ghost and the Machines

I'm back working the 2-10pm shift. After first shift leaves at 3pm, I'm the only person around. There are people in other departments, but it's not like I have any contact with them.

Around 6pm, most of the lights automatically turn out. Though my area stays lighted, I often end up having to walk through the dark to get where I need to be.

I have survived two layoffs now, one of which was last week. Over the past year, we have lost around one-fourth of our workforce.

Our plating department has been outsourced. The equipment is gone. There used to be a department-wide basin to catch spills--that has been filled in with concrete. It's just a big empty room.

Back in the day, there used to be around 650 people working here. Now, the bosses claim we have around 200. However, word out on the floor is that we have only 170.

Just ten years ago, when I started, there were 56 people on second-shift alone. Now there are six.

It's a big plant at night, and as I move through its acres of idle machinery I feel like a ghost.

Cheers

I mixed together Guinness and Fosters. I don't know what you'd call it.

Anyway, Happy New Year.

Live Blogging Midnight Mass

(No, they didn't show him getting knocked down. It wasn't until the end of the mass that they even mentioned it. I myself didn't even know it happened until the end. So, don't expect this post to be about that.)


I'm not Catholic, but I still like to watch the midnight mass from St. Peter's every Christmas. It's really something else. However, I don't think they've started filming it in high-def yet. Oh, well.

I wonder how one gets into the choir for this? It must be a serious audition.

Is the basilica used every week? For that matter, are any of the great cathedrals still used? I did visit Notre Dame de Paris once, and there did seem to be people praying there. However, I would think you'd need a huge congregation to keep something like that open. Although I presume the Catholic Church would supply the money to keep them in good repair, one would feel ridiculous worshiping in a warehouse-sized church unless the congregation was similarly impressive. (I seem to remember that Chartres Cathedral seats 10,000.)

I'm guessing the Pope knows three languages. I know he's German, so he obviously knows that, and he did the mass in Italian (I think). However, the Bible he read from looked to be one of those handwritten ones done by the monks. So, I'm guessing he has to know Latin as well.

Also, the ATM's in the Vatican are in Latin. Yeah, I'm sure they have other languages available, but not knowing Latin would obviously be a handicap for anyone at a high level in the Catholic Church.

Perhaps Latin serves as a universal language for the church? As always, they did have a lot of different countries represented at the mass.

He said some interesting things, about the shepherds vs. the three wise men. First, that the shepherds were sort of on-watch for something like the birth of Jesus--while most people aren't. Also, they arrived much earlier than the three wise men. Though this was due to physical proximity, the pope mentioned that the closeness of the shepherds was more than physical, that their closeness was also a metaphor for their being closer to God.

Interesting...