Well…around christmas, the James Webb Space Telescope, which I will call the JWST from now on, was launched towards it’s L2 station point and most of us science geeks were elated and concerned at the same time since there were over 300 things that needed to work perfectly for it to be usable…there were a couple of pieces of good news on the scope yesterday that I wanted to talk about here…first, the launch was so accurate that they had to burn very little thruster fuel to make course corrections and that means instead of having enough fuel for 5 years, the operators of the scope think they will have enough for 10-12 years and that is really good news since there is no way to refuel it with it being so far away…and second, the tennis court sized sunscreen successfully deployed yesterday and it is locked in place with no problems so we’re halfway there in getting it ready to start observations in a couple of months…still going to keep my fingers crossed that nothing goes wrong and I just can’t wait for “first light” and the science that can be done with it…
Monthly Archives: January 2022
First big snow since I’ve lived here…
Well…it looks like I’m going to be hunkered down here for a couple of days with the snow that is coming in here soon…possibility of 6 inches and, without snow tires, my car can’t cope with it…don’t really need to go anywhere anyway so no big deal….and it will be the first time for appreciable snow in the 10 months I’ve lived out here and I’ll take that any day after last winter in the Valley house where I had snow piles at the end of the driveway that were 5-6 feet tall. And I don’t have a driveway to shovel but I may need to shovel the alley up to my garage door but that is still shorter than the driveway in GR….so I’ll get a work out in the next couple days and that will fit well with taking the day off the bike tomorrow…won’t be able to get out to get the paper but oh, well…can get all of the ads online…it does feel good that I don’t have to worry about finding a place to live this New Years day…and taking the rest of the day off isn’t critical anymore….
Even the NY times thinks we’re doing it right here…
Well…I just about choked on my dinner yesterday when I read that the NY times thinks we’re doing something right with our non-partisan redistricting committee here in Michigan. In a state that, by all accounts, was one of the most heavily gerrymandered ones in the country…done by repubs…the Times gushed that we are going to have one of the most fair electoral maps in the country and that was the result of a constitutional amendment approved by 65% of the people a couple of years back….but that’s not enough..we may have fair maps here, but we can have them all over the country if Manchin and Sinema would go along and see the necessity of taking away the repubs chance to cheat by gerrymandering everywhere they are in control…and all they would have to do is vote for the freedom to vote act that is coming up for a vote in January….how can any dem not support taking away repubs ability to cheat? This act would finally level the playing field across the country and make sure that the voters pick their reps and not the other way around as the repubs have rigged across the country…and the time is now as redistricting takes place across the country this year…get it done…geez…
January 1st
Well…another year starts and I truly hope it’s not like last year…don’t need any more virus or attacks on the country…and I don’t need waking up at 5 anymore, either….and the dreams I’ve been having have been dour and depressing and not at all like the free movies they were when I was younger….it looks like I’ll be in for a few days with the storms that are coming in tonight and that means I’ll have to skip my Sunday ritual of going out to get the paper and that’s okay…the paper out here is pretty crappy anyway so it’s not worth the price I pay for it….will be doing some shoveling tomorrow, too and that’s okay…I can use the exercise and it’s nice to get some fresh air….didn’t do much yesterday but ride the bike and I think I’ll do the same today there are some bowl games on but I am depressed about Michigan getting blown out last night and I am losing interest in football…I guess I can watch soccer to pass the time….not sure about any resolutions for the year…going to make some changes to my routines but probably won’t share them….I try to do better all the time and I’ve gotten into some habits that are not good for my health so that would probably be a good place to start…we’ll see…not much to do today….I have reset the computer for the indoor bike and will start from 0 this morning but I still have news to read and coffee to drink first…..more later…