Cap'n Bob & the Damsel

Watching for the International Space Station

Over the next several evenings, the International Space Station currently with Shuttle Discovery docked, will make dramatic passes overhead. I regularly visit a site called SpaceWeather.com; the site features articles and widgets about things going on in space. I tuned into the feature that predicts satellite passes for individual locations (based on zip or postal code) and found these for my zip code:


Date....Rise........dir.duration.el..magnitude
June 05 10:03:34 pm NNW 10:05:44 30° -1.3 (very bright)
June 07 09:12:24 pm NNW 09:14:32 31° -1.4 (very bright)
June 08 09:34:02 pm WNW 09:36:22 59° -2.6 (very bright)
June 10 08:42:33 pm WNW 08:44:54 67° -2.8 (very bright)

I’ll be looking at the times specified. I wouldn’t want to miss an opportunity to see something like this nice image from APOD:

streaks

04 Jun 2008 by Aerospace Rocket Science

Brilliant Orange Gerberas

I passed these in the garden shop the other day and promptly put them in with the rest of the garden supplies in the basket. I just had to have these beauties in the patio. Click to enlarge the image.

orange

03 Jun 2008 by Home & Garden

Yesterday’s Shoot

Yesterday, I put up a picture of the dirty guns all broken down for cleaning. One of the regulars on this blog dropped us a line in the comments about how much fun we must have had and also observed that our patio gun cleaning might unnerve our neighbors – well, we did have fun, but since the patio area isn’t visible to neighbors of normal height, we can’t comment on any jumpy nerves. Nobody in the area seems to react to the snick-snick noises our shotguns make when we’re cycling the fore-end to distribute the dry lube.

Our reader friend, Glenn B, blogs at “Ballseye’s Boomers,” a really neat blog. After reading his comments, I realized that I went to put him on the blogroll a while back but for whatever reason (senior moment?) it didn’t get done. That has been corrected now. Go to Glenn’s site and read about how he got the name for the blog – you will enjoy learning about that.

So, that brings us to the video here which has little to do with anything other than to relate to the post yesterday. I took some video of Damsel shooting her 20 gauge Remington 870 followed by a video of the broken down guns in the tranquility of our patio (listen to the songbirds and babbling water feature) followed by a before and after cleaning shot of the muzzle on Damsel’s Warthog.

02 Jun 2008 by Firearms Sports

Look at All These Filthy Gun Parts!

All these dirty firearms parts look daunting, but seldom take more than a few minutes per firearm to get them into ready-for-service condition. We like to sit on the patio where we can listen to music and the tranquil babbling of a water feature while we calmly bring order to this chaotic array of filthy gun parts.

dirty-gun-parts

01 Jun 2008 by Firearms Sports

Saturday Burger BBQ

I can’t believe I ate the whole thing – so say some of the 1970’s Alka Seltzer commercials.

At the behest of a celebrity chef on TV, Damsel and I set about grinding up some beef brisket today and made these huge cheeseburgers. She got about half of hers down, but I trooped on and consumed the entire meal. My burger was topped with lettuce, tomato, avocado, sauteed mushrooms, onion, mustard and mayonnaise. On the side was a rather healthy serving of butternut squash.

Now this was a whopper – that mess they crank out at Booger King can’t hold a candle to the meal we had today.

burger-bbq

Construction of a real whopper: grill, melt the Irish cheddar, stack and serve.

31 May 2008 by Food & Dining

Guess Who’s Going to the ISS Tomorrow?

Buzz Lightyear of Toy Story 2 fame

Story from NASA:

Buzz Lightyear to Soar with Discovery

Seven astronauts who will fly into orbit aboard space shuttle Discovery will have comfortable seats for the climb into space. An eighth space ranger won’t have a seat at all. In fact, he will be packed tight inside a box and won’t even get to enjoy the ride up.

But it’s nothing veteran spaceman Buzz Lightyear can’t overcome.

The good news is that he’ll have some sports shows to listen to, along with a host of jerseys that have been to the Champs Elysees in Paris for the Tour de France and to the Super Bowl.

More accustomed to soaring among the galaxies on fold-out wings and a backpack rocket, Lightyear will take to space on Discovery’s STS-124 mission stowed inside a locker in Discovery’s crew compartment. The 12-inch-tall action figure is flying as part of a partnership between NASA and Disney Parks to encourage students to pursue studies in science, technology and mathematics, one of NASA’s main educational goals.

30 May 2008 by Aerospace Rocket Science

Gardenias Galore

This spring, my little potted gardenia bush is producing many more buds than last spring. There are so many and they are very fragrant when they bloom. And pretty too . . .

gardenias-galore.jpg

29 May 2008 by Home & Garden

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