Cap'n Bob & the Damsel

January 2008

U.S. Enters Space Age – 50 Years Ago Today

I was in my freshman year in high school and remember the elation I felt after months of failed Project Vanguard flights in the wake of the Russian Sputnik launches.

launch

Image credit NASA

Entering the Space Age

Through the combined efforts of JPL and the Army Ballistic Missile Ballistic Agency, Explorer 1 launched from Cape Canaveral, Fla., on Jan. 31, 1958. There was a nail-biting wait before tracking stations confirmed that Explorer 1 had gone successfully into orbit around Earth. With the launch of Explorer 1, the United States officially entered the space age.

31 Jan 2008 by Aerospace Rocket Science

Damsel’s Water Zen

Gaze and Relax

You may have noticed the “Damsel’s Water Zen” widget in the sidebar. This is the background behind it.

Damsel likes the light patterns that water makes when sunlight dances through it. Whether in a swimming pool, in a river, in a marina channel or in a shallow harbor, it doesn’t matter, she likes the shimmering ripples.

Last September (2007), we spent our anniversary, as usual, on Catalina Island. We go to Avalon every year since that’s where we got married. While we were there, we took a lot of pictures and a few movies.

While we were waiting on the Green Pier for our glass-bottom boat tour. I leaned over the rail and captured this short sequence of the rippling water in the harbor. I used my little Canon A710 IS digital camera in AVI mode. I pointed the camera straight down and captured about ten seconds of video. When I showed the preview to Damsel, she said it was relaxing like ‘Water Zen.’

So, when we got home, I converted the short video to Flash® and popped it in the sidebar as a remembrance to our time in Avalon and an opportunity to ‘gaze and relax.’

30 Jan 2008 by Culture Travel

Welcome, President Bush

President Bush will be paying a visit to Robinson Helicopter in Torrance, California tomorrow. That’s about a mile and a half from our house. We’d like to go see and hear the President, but admission is by invitation only.

Bush to visit Torrance on Wednesday

r22President Bush will pay a visit to Robinson Helicopter Co. in Torrance on Wednesday as he urges Congress to pass three free trade agreements.

Bush will take a tour of the company, which is the world’s largest manufacturer of civilian helicopters, and deliver remarks to employees.

Robinson Helicopter posted a record year in 2007, largely on the strength of its exports to 55 countries. Much of that success is due to the declining value of the dollar, which makes American exports less expensive to foreign customers.

“We’re an unusual story because we’re not outsourcing everything,” said Kurt Robinson, a company vice president. “I think it’s pretty exciting that we get the president here. It’s fun to show off American manufacturing.”

In his State of the Union Address on Monday night, Bush urged Congress to approve trade deals with Colombia, Panama and South Korea, which would reduce or eliminate tariffs on American-made goods.

“These agreements will level the playing field,” Bush said. “They will give us better access to nearly 100 million customers. And they will support good jobs for the finest workers in the world: those whose products say ‘Made in the USA.'”

Read the article in the South Bay Daily Breeze.

29 Jan 2008 by Aviation California Money and Business

I Shot Mickey Mouse

wadcutter targetWadcutters tend to cut nice, clean holes in a paper target. A wadcutter is a bullet specially designed for shooting paper targets, usually at close range and with significantly subsonic velocities under 800 ft/s (244 m/s) such as are found in handgun and airgun competitions.

A wadcutter has a flat or nearly flat front, which acts to cut a very clean hole through the target, making it easier to score and ideally reducing errors in scoring to the favor of the shooter.

Occasionally, a grouping can resemble a celebrity mouse if you orient the target just right:

Mickey

28 Jan 2008 by Firearms Photography

Gleaming Spirals

The spiral rifling gleams in the afternoon sunlight shining through the barrel of my Para Warthog after the weekly shootout and cleanup. The Strike Hold we now use to clean the firearms leaves them sparkling and bright.

clean bore

27 Jan 2008 by Firearms Photography

Snow in Southern California

The last storm brought the snow level in the San Gabriel Mountains down to about the 3000 foot level. I snapped this shot of some of the mountain peaks as we drove to the gun show today. More on the show later.

As this is being written, the rain has begun again, and will likely add to the snow in the mountains.

Click on the picture to view a panoramic view of the snow-covered San Gabriels.

snowy-mountains.jpg

26 Jan 2008 by Environment Photography

Heermann’s Gull

Today we took a detour down by the ocean on our way for the weekly grocery shopping. It was just after a rain last night and the winds were whipping. We stopped at the L.A. Harbor breakwater by Cabrillo Beach and saw a number of sea birds including sandpipers, Caspian Terns, pelicans and several varieties of seagulls. The gull in the picture is a Heermann’s Gull, characterized by its black legs and feet and its red bill. Click on the picture to see the 1024×768 version in the image viewer.

heermanns-gull.jpg

From Wikipedia:

The Heermann’s Gull (Larus heermanni) is a gull resident in the United States and Mexico. Of the current population of about 150,000 pairs, 90% nest on the island of Isla Rasa off Baja California in the Gulf of California, with smaller colonies as far north as California and as far south as Nayarit. After breeding, birds commonly disperse to central California, and less commonly north as far as British Columbia and south as far as Guatemala. They are usually found near shores or well out to sea, very rarely inland.

25 Jan 2008 by California Critters Photography

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