Category Archives: General

General, Technology and Society

High-Speed Rail

25 Comments

I’m on the Acela from Union Station to BWI.  Free wi-fi, but it’s too short a trip (twenty minutes) to justify getting out the laptop.  I’m just going to look out the window and enjoy the fastest train ride I’ve been on since I was in Europe.

[update a few minutes later]

This is the slowest high-speed rail I’ve ever seen. Just north of DC the train came to a complete halt for a couple minutes. It then proceeded at a pace sufficiently leisurely that we were passed by the Orange Line to New Carrolton.

OK, I’m now officially screwed. They just announced that they have an engine problem and are backing up into DC.

Whoops. Now saying that they’ve fixed it. We’re finally accelerating. But we’ve lost several minutes. It’s already nine minutes past scheduled arrival time. I still may not make it.

[update a few minutes later]

On the bus to the airport. It will be tight.

[10:15 EDT update]

I made the flight, with checked luggage. Next stop, Dallas.

Administrative, General

Light And Scattered Blogging

11 Comments

I’m at ISDC, but it’s not blogger friendly.  No tables or power for laptops, poor bandwidth. I didn’t even bother to bring my laptop today because the utility/hassle ratio is too low. I’m posting this from my phone.

And tomorrow I’ll be flying back to CA.  But hey, it’s a holiday weekend.  Why are you reading this blog anyway?  Go out and do something fun, and remember those who sacrificed to make it possible, on Monday.

General, Space

A First-Hand Report From Karl Hallowell

3 Comments

He checks in in comments:

Howdy everyone. Here’s my current status.

I have since been discharged from the hospital (John “JP” Powell, the founder of JP Aerospace was a great help there and setting travel) and am staying with my brother and his family for a few days in Denver before traveling to Yellowstone to start my usual summer-time job of counting beans. I’ll keep the bandages and immobilizing harness thingie on for somewhere around 3 weeks, then about a month later my arm should be back up to strength. My wonderful summer employer at Yellowstone, Xanterra Parks and Resorts has been very understanding.

The JP Aerospace crew managed to recover the final two payloads (which were also the targets of that ill-fated attempt on Tuesday) last Saturday. So we’re looking good on that side.

Thanks to everyone for their care (and Rand for the blog article). I’m doing well.

Good to hear.

General, Social Commentary, Space

Remembering Bernard Beard

8 Comments

Over at the original post, John Bossard comments:

Dr. Beard was a colleague of mine as we worked together at the ARES Huntsville office, and I considered him a friend, and I hope he considered me the same.

Bernard had a wide-ranging intellect, and made numerous contributions in a variety of fields, including computational particle physics, before moving into the aerospace field, where he worked for PW in turbojet engines and flight trajectory analysis. He then went into academics, teaching in the ME dept at Christian Brothers in Memphis, and eventually becoming department chair.

It was my opinion that the progressive politics and trans-logical arguments of the academic world eventually lead him to seek work back in the aerospace world, and it was my pleasure to get to work with him when he joined ARES Corporation in 2007. There, Bernard made significant contributions in a variety of different areas, most notably in working on slosh mechanics of the Ares I upper stage, where he developed some amazing analytic modeling capabilities. His website, “Slosh Central”, provided a great deal of references regarding this topic.

Bernard was a reserved, dignified person, of even temperament; calm, and thoughtful. He was a master of the BBQ, and participated in numerous team competitions out of Memphis, where he kept his home with his wife and two sons. He was also scouter, participating as an adult leader in cub and boy scouts with his sons, and this was an area where we found a great deal of common ground.

I’m sure there were many other things that Bernard did, that I’m not aware of, as would be the case of a man with a powerful intellect and imagination.

His passing was sudden and unexpected, and is a tragedy. He will indeed be missed.

Thanks, John.

Administrative, General

A Pro Tip

14 Comments

Don’t gash your knee horizontally right on the patella. I did it early Tuesday morning when I bumped into a glass framed picture in the dark. It also made a bloody mess on the bedroom carpet. Alcohol was not involved. Much.

I got staples in it today and it hurts like hell to bend it, and probably will for the next week or two until they’re removed. There’s just a lot of tension there when you stretch the skin, and the staples pull on it. I’ll be hobbling around for a while, especially up and down stairs. It will also be an ongoing joy to work a clutch. Fortunately, it doesn’t affect typing, except I have to work a little further back from the screen/keyboard because of my outstretched leg.

This may or may not be TMI.

[Thursday-morning update]

Thanks for all the well wishes in comments. It’s actually feeling better today. It will probably be stiff until I get the staples removed and relieve the tension on the skin, but I’m walking almost normally, albeit gingerly.