Year: 2005

Scenes from Space #4

This image of the Helix Nebula was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. This image has always freaked me out. It's like a great big scary eyeball staring at us from outer space! In actuality, its just the gaseous envelope ejected by a dying star. This image always reminds me that the universe is a beautiful place, and is always full of surprises.

Kite #4 – Rokkaku

This was my second attempt to get this kite to fly. The first time I had to really struggle to keep it in the air, and it gave me a lot of grief. This time I was more careful setting it up and getting the bridle lines and tow point adjusted correctly, and it flew beautifully. But egads - those Roks can pull! I'm going to need to upgrade to a stronger flying line. Several times a gust caught the kite, and I could hear the line humming as it got near it's breaking point. If I can learn to set this kite up reliably, this will probably be the kite most capable of lifting a camera for some aerial photos. My camera rig is almost finished, and I hope to try it out for the first time this weekend. I'm very excited to see how it goes! By the way - it's tough to get a sense of scale in these pictures, but this is actually a pretty big kite. It is about 5 feet tall and 4 feet wide. Traditionally - in Japan - these kites are built 8 feet tall!

Trip to the Park

We went to the park to try out kite #4, but we didn't get any pictures of it before the batteries in the camera died. We did get some good pictures of Sean though.


Babies are Easily Amused!

We were sitting in the office tonight, just keeping the little man entertained. Lori started throwing the ball up in the air and catching it, and Sean went crazy! It was like someone told him the best joke he'd ever heard! Watch this short video to see what I mean...

Busted!

We've been trying to keep this quiet, but somebody leaked the photos from Sean's drunk-tricycling arrest back in June. Oh, the shame!

Scenes from Space #3

This image was taken by the Mars robotic rover Opportunity. It was taken two miles south of Endurance Crater, at a site named Rub al Khali. This image is actually nearly 100 individual images stiched together to create a 360 panorama. The coolest part about this image is that you can see the rover's tracks receding off into the distance in the center of the frame.

In other Mars news, I may get the opportunity to do some work on an instrument that will be on an upcoming Mars rover. How cool is that?! I'll keep you posted.

Building Blocks

I just finished making these building blocks. They are made from Northeastern Hard Maple, and are colored with water-based dyes, and finished with a water-based finish - so they are totally kid-safe. I made matching sets for Sean and Ryan. I hope they like them!

Kite #3 – Delta Box Trial Flight

Here's my third attempt at building a kite stable enough to loft a camera rig. I think this one is a winner. It practically leapt out of my hand when I launched it, and it rose quickly and smoothly. This one seems really stable. I'll have to start building my camera rig soon. I've also got plans to build a few more kites - they are turning out to be really fun to build! Once again, Sean was a little cutie. Look at him sitting up! He's growing up so quick!


Just a Typical Friday Night

We took these photos today, during our normal dinner-time routine. Sean is working on feeding himself by grabbing food between his thumb and index finger - this is called a 'pincer grasp'. He's just starting to do it, but he sucessfully fed himself a few pieces of puffed rice. Gotta start somewhere! He's also doing really well getting up to his hands and knees on his own. He can't exactly go anywhere yet, but it's oh-so-cute!


Scenes from Space

Enjoy the second installment of "Scenes from Space"!

This image was taken by Hubble in June of this year, when Mars was ~43 million miles from Earth — the closest it's been since 1988. Speaking of Mars being close to the Earth - there is a rumor going around about Mars. There has been an email circulating that on August 27th, 2005, Mars will be so close to the Earth that it will be as big in the sky as the full moon. This is just ridiculous! While Mars will be closer than it has been in a LONG time, The actual difference distance is only about 1%. So Mars will look about 1% bigger in the sky than on a normal approach. If Mars were to actually be close enough to look as big as the full moon, its gravity would throw earth out of its normal orbit and raise huge, terrible tides. So be sure to check out Mars this fall, but don't buy into this hoax!