I’m flying to DC this afternoon for eight days of space stuff, culminating with a brief talk on space property rights at the International Astronautical Conference a week from tomorrow. I’ll have my laptop, but not sure how much time I’ll have to post. But be good in comments.
Category Archives: General
Dustbury
RIP, Charles G. Hill. This is sad; he just retweeted me the other day. He had been blogging half a decade longer than I’d been. He was a pioneer.
Knots
This is useful info. I’ve never been great at it.
Dave Brubeck’s “Time Out”
How it changed jazz.
Yes, a classic album. My sister went to music school in Ann Arbor with his son, Chris.
[Afternoon update]
I had not realized that Joe Morello started out as a violinist. How often does someone go from violin to drums?
[Monday-morning update]
The top 100 jazz albums you should own. With a meditation on the art.
[Bumped]
Bodie
An interesting history of a California ghost town. I went there once, back in the eighties. It’s a long drive on a dirt road, down in the desert east of Yosemite.
Lileks
Writes about the funeral of his father, a WW II vet (among many other things). He was three years younger than mine, who has been gone now for forty years.
Back On The Air
For those wondering why posting has been light, I woke up with a summer head cold on Monday. I spent a lot of yesterday taking it easy and napping, but last night I slept pretty well, and I’m mostly dried up today.
Am I “Able” to Open the Exit-Row Door?
OK, this post reminds me of a conversation I had Friday night on the flight I managed to escape to (not “from,” despite the movie) LA last night.
I’d gotten the ticket with miles, because the last-minute prices to DC were nuts, the only way to do so was to (a) go out of IAD instead of DCA and (b) fly into SNA (John Wayne Airport in Orange County) instead of LAX. Thursday, I asked American if I could change it by going same-day standby, and they said, sure, if you want to burn more miles. So I was resigned to going to Dulles, and flying into Orange County, and Patricia picking me up there, with at least a 45-minute drive each way.
Fortunately, God (or whoever controls the weather) intervened, and my flight from IAD was delayed sufficiently that I missed my connection to SNA, and managed to get reassigned to a flight that went to LAX, with no penalty.
So I’m in an exit row on the flight, and the flight attendant comes by with the usual FAA-required question: “Are you willing and able to assist in opening the door in the case of an emergency?”
I’d been asked this question before in similar situations, but this time, I realized that I couldn’t say “yes” with any honesty. Because I had never actually opened an emergency door. Sure, I’d read the instructions, but had I ever done it? No.
So I said to the flight attendant (because I can occasionally be a pain in the ass from my pedantry, and it had been a long day), “Well, sure, I’m willing, but how can I know that I’m ‘able’? I’ve never done it before.”
There was an American captain sitting next to me, dead heading, and I said, “I’d bet no one in this row, except him, has ever opened an emergency door in an aircraft, so when you ask us if we’re able, there’s no way for us to know.”
The flight attendant is now flustered, and asks if I want to be moved.
“No, I’m sort of kidding, but it’s not a useful question, despite the FAA rules. What you should be asking is if I’m willing and have sufficient strength. I am and do. But none of us know if we are able, and we all hope that we don’t have to find out.”
Home Improvement Conundrum
Posting is light because we’re doing things around the house this weekend. We just replaced the bedroom door (to the outside), and I’m replacing the threshold as well. The thing has an aluminum channel into which a rubber seal fits, after mounting it with screws. But you can’t put the screws in with the seal in place, and once it’s mounted, you can’t slide the seal into the channel (as the instructions say) because the ends are butted up against the door frame. All I can think to do is to shorten it so I have some clearance for inserting the seal, but then the ends won’t have channel, just seal.
[Update a while later]
OK, I figured it out. If I pinch the bottom flat part and bend it upward, I can squeeze the sides into the flange. I still don’t understand why the instructions say to “slide” it in, though.
Endgame Question
OK, saw Endgame yesterday. Question to people much more into MCU than me. In the final battle, there’s a very angry woman who comes at Thanos with two fiery swords. It looked like Natasha to me, but I suspect not, because, you know? If not, who was it?
[Update a few minutes later]
Never mind, someone on Twitter told me it was Wanda (the Scarlet Witch, a character with which I was unfamiliar, or had forgotten from Infinity War).
[Update a while later]
Question in comments: Sure, it’s been out long enough to have a spoiler discussion there. Have at it. No one has to read comments except me.
Continue reading Endgame Question