24 November 2013
Slow Week, Short Letter
24/11/13 05:54
Not a lot happening this week. Worked most days except for one afternoon when I had a Dr. appointment. Marsha’s boss was in town on Saturday so they got together for lunch. I’ve started working on the Xmas card. It’ll be a collage so I’m hunting up a few more pictures for that. We hope to get it sent out in the next week. As we did last year we’ll be sending it by e-mail.
Not this week, but the week before on Sunday night Barb called us and said “Come down. I have a surprise for you.” We walked in and found that my sister Jean and her husband had driven up from Portland for a few days. They had been planning this trip with Barbara for a few weeks but everyone kept it a secret just to they could surprise us. It was really nice to see them. Even better, Monday was a holiday that week so we got to spend a bit more time with them. We went out to dinner several times and got to chat and visit. It was a nice break among the cold (by our standards) and dark drippy fall weather. Much appreciated.
Oh then this morning we took Barb shopping with us. She was surprised to see the Prius was dark grey. I tried to tell her that it was the same Prius, but she wasn’t falling for it. Actually, we’ve replaced the Civic with another Prius. It’s easier to drive, more practical than the Civic for carrying remodelling supplies, plus we’re planning on a trip to Minnesota next summer. The red Prius is still a great car but it IS 8 years old. We’ll be more comfortable driving through the Rocky Mountains and across Alberta and Saskatchewan with a new car with full warrantees.
A few links:
One of the reasons we like Nanaimo is that the wilderness is so close. Wildlife is used to people and tends not to pay much attention to us. Most of the time it's mountain lion or bear but deer also tend to go about their business without a care for what we're doing. Here’s a video a guy in Nanaimo took in his front yard of a couple of deer having a battle.
http://shar.es/81oyx
Not related to Nanaimo but I found this story amusing. Boeing has plants in Wichita Kansas and Seattle Washington. As you might expect they just use their own planes to move large parts between the plants. Seems this week one of their planes was flying to the big airport in Wichita and inadvertently landed at the little General Aviation field a few miles away. In the pilot’s defence it was daytime, and the weather was clear, and the airports look nothing alike, and his GPS SAID he was several miles away from the actual airport. Um…I guess he does have some ‘splainin to do.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-25034358
A couple of days later, after lightening the load they were able to take off and fly the last six miles to the correct destination.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-25046719
Another story I really liked was about the launch of the Minotaur 1 from Virginia. First it set a record by releasing 29 payloads on one launch. Most of them are these little ‘cube sats’, low cost payloads for students and small companies. Secondly, the rocket was very low cost because it was made of surplus parts from Minuteman missiles, spares from other rockets, and obsolete parts from the Constellation and Orion projects. The cost for this launch was only $28.8 million, a tiny fraction of what most launches cost. I just like the idea of using a bunch if scrap parts to build a working launch vehicle on the cheap.
http://spaceflightnow.com/minotaur/ors3/131119launch/#.UpJPpZHmyGg
Finally here is an interesting piece from the BBC on the language of cancer. Cancer was just a disease until Nixon declared his “War on Cancer”. As a writer I found it interesting how that changed it from an illness to a military metaphor. This has had both good and bad results. As as they said in the article “Prof Michael Overduin, of Birmingham University, researches cancer at a molecular level. He knows that talk of designing "warheads" to target cancer cells with minimum "collateral damage" has an immediate appeal to funding agencies. But he sees his work as more of a puzzle to be solved than a battle to be won. "Cells work together like the players in an orchestra playing a symphony," he says. "But if a cell is malfunctioning it produces dissonance. The instrument may need to be retuned or the cell retrained.” In many cases that might be a more effective way to look at the problem than a military mindset.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24985184
There was a discussion of this on the BBC World Service radio and I really liked near the end when the reporter said that his cancer was not a a war. Rather it was an experience that was hard but left him a better, more thoughtful person with his priorities straight.
I like to think that’s what I think I’m going through as well.
And for those Dr Who fans out there - here is a link to a video about the classic Doctors trying to be involved int he 50th anniversary special. Enjoy!
http://news.thedoctorwhosite.co.uk/thefishdr-dayofthefishdr/
Doug & Marsha
PIX: New Car, and The Evening Sun on a Far Ridge
Not this week, but the week before on Sunday night Barb called us and said “Come down. I have a surprise for you.” We walked in and found that my sister Jean and her husband had driven up from Portland for a few days. They had been planning this trip with Barbara for a few weeks but everyone kept it a secret just to they could surprise us. It was really nice to see them. Even better, Monday was a holiday that week so we got to spend a bit more time with them. We went out to dinner several times and got to chat and visit. It was a nice break among the cold (by our standards) and dark drippy fall weather. Much appreciated.
Oh then this morning we took Barb shopping with us. She was surprised to see the Prius was dark grey. I tried to tell her that it was the same Prius, but she wasn’t falling for it. Actually, we’ve replaced the Civic with another Prius. It’s easier to drive, more practical than the Civic for carrying remodelling supplies, plus we’re planning on a trip to Minnesota next summer. The red Prius is still a great car but it IS 8 years old. We’ll be more comfortable driving through the Rocky Mountains and across Alberta and Saskatchewan with a new car with full warrantees.
A few links:
One of the reasons we like Nanaimo is that the wilderness is so close. Wildlife is used to people and tends not to pay much attention to us. Most of the time it's mountain lion or bear but deer also tend to go about their business without a care for what we're doing. Here’s a video a guy in Nanaimo took in his front yard of a couple of deer having a battle.
http://shar.es/81oyx
Not related to Nanaimo but I found this story amusing. Boeing has plants in Wichita Kansas and Seattle Washington. As you might expect they just use their own planes to move large parts between the plants. Seems this week one of their planes was flying to the big airport in Wichita and inadvertently landed at the little General Aviation field a few miles away. In the pilot’s defence it was daytime, and the weather was clear, and the airports look nothing alike, and his GPS SAID he was several miles away from the actual airport. Um…I guess he does have some ‘splainin to do.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-25034358
A couple of days later, after lightening the load they were able to take off and fly the last six miles to the correct destination.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-25046719
Another story I really liked was about the launch of the Minotaur 1 from Virginia. First it set a record by releasing 29 payloads on one launch. Most of them are these little ‘cube sats’, low cost payloads for students and small companies. Secondly, the rocket was very low cost because it was made of surplus parts from Minuteman missiles, spares from other rockets, and obsolete parts from the Constellation and Orion projects. The cost for this launch was only $28.8 million, a tiny fraction of what most launches cost. I just like the idea of using a bunch if scrap parts to build a working launch vehicle on the cheap.
http://spaceflightnow.com/minotaur/ors3/131119launch/#.UpJPpZHmyGg
Finally here is an interesting piece from the BBC on the language of cancer. Cancer was just a disease until Nixon declared his “War on Cancer”. As a writer I found it interesting how that changed it from an illness to a military metaphor. This has had both good and bad results. As as they said in the article “Prof Michael Overduin, of Birmingham University, researches cancer at a molecular level. He knows that talk of designing "warheads" to target cancer cells with minimum "collateral damage" has an immediate appeal to funding agencies. But he sees his work as more of a puzzle to be solved than a battle to be won. "Cells work together like the players in an orchestra playing a symphony," he says. "But if a cell is malfunctioning it produces dissonance. The instrument may need to be retuned or the cell retrained.” In many cases that might be a more effective way to look at the problem than a military mindset.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24985184
There was a discussion of this on the BBC World Service radio and I really liked near the end when the reporter said that his cancer was not a a war. Rather it was an experience that was hard but left him a better, more thoughtful person with his priorities straight.
I like to think that’s what I think I’m going through as well.
And for those Dr Who fans out there - here is a link to a video about the classic Doctors trying to be involved int he 50th anniversary special. Enjoy!
http://news.thedoctorwhosite.co.uk/thefishdr-dayofthefishdr/
Doug & Marsha
PIX: New Car, and The Evening Sun on a Far Ridge