Mortaine’s Blog

On about five hours of sleep, John and I headed up the coast to Titusville last night to watch the STS-123 night launch of the Space Shuttle Endeavor. We stayed overnight in Sebastian, an hour away, and so we drove up to and arrived on the shoreline about forty minutes before launch. We found parking and a very good spot precariously perched between a palm tree and the rather fetid swamp along the shoreline in Titusville.

But you don’t really care about that, right? What you want to know is whether we saw the launch, and if it was really as amazing as people say.

Yes, on both counts.

See for yourself.

 

 March 11 2008: STS-123 Endeavor Night Launch [0:58m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

(Click here if the player doesn’t work for you.)

Note that this video has been edited to move the launch sound up by a full minute, to coincide with the visual. In reality, the sound arrives a minute later, but I shortened it because otherwise you’re watching a dark screen and just listening to a distant rumble. If you want to see the whole thing, delayed audio and all, check out the un-manipulated video at NowPublic.com.

Much belated, and just two hours after the spectacular night launch (which we also saw), here are the pictures and video of the shuttle launch in February. I have to say this was one of the most affecting experiences of my life. I don’t think I’ve seen a more beautiful man-made event. The sonic boom, from as far away as we were, was reduced a great deal, yet it still made my heartbeat rumble with answering joy.

The photos are here

If you can’t see the video embedded below, click here to download it

 

 STS-122 Space Shuttle Atlantis launch [1:58m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

[Note: ecto3 is too buggy to use, so I've tried to write this post about 4 times over the course of the past 24 hours. Am now posting it using ecto2.]

Birthday party was much fun.

Sad thing: my bike got dropped upside down when one of the guests leaned into it and knocked it backwards over the side of a retaining wall. Shit. Hopefully, Cyclesport can look at it this week and do my new-bike adjustment on it.

I shared my birthday party with Michelle, a friend of ours from the Santa Cruz 4 Wheel Drive Club. She made most of the food, which was excellent (kahlua pork and teriyaki chicken). Her birthday is Monday!

A couple of pics from the day:

Jeff, Sandi, and Ron (SC4WDC)

Devil Dog, aka Chica the adorable chihuahua. Alladin and Chica almost got along during the day:

Dan, Jeff, and a bunch of other SC4WDC folks trying to fix Dan’s tent poles. It seems Dan’s 3 year old son Jackson really likes to untie the strings holding the poles together and, um, disassemble them. They eventually got it, after much hard work and lots of jokes about suction.

Mick and Johnnyb

We made a lot of food, of which there is TOO MUCH left over. This was my birthday cake:

And last night, we brought everything inside, more or less, but did not wash dishes. Everyone went out on trail this morning, and I stayed back and did the mountain of dishes. Surprisingly, it didn’t take that long– maybe an hour at most. I just went methodically through the pile and when I was done, I had clean dishes and a clean kitchen. Yay!

In addition to the swift and winder, I also received a copy of Getting Started Knitting Socks (from my friend Michelle) and two skeins of (Lorna’s Laces) sock yarn in pink, blue, and brown (yes, the same colors used in my first pair of socks– but these are much warmer: like hot pink and turquoise!) Mick (from Jeep Club) gave me a couple of sticker sheets for my scrapbooks– soooo awesome!

Anyway, Saturday (the day when this post was originally written), I dyed yarn (yay), some of which didn’t come out very well. And I did the dishes from the party (oooo). And I finished reading a book, and almost finished listening to an audiobook. And I cast on for some socks using the pink and blue sock yarn and a pattern from the book (and winding balls with the swift and winder!)

Meanwhile, Johnnyb went off-roading all day, getting back after 8 PM. A couple of rigs had turned around (1 broke stuff, the other escorted), and when they still weren’t back by 9:30, they sent out a search party. Everyone was back home by 10, or so.

As soon as I post this, I’ll put up the video from the party (ooo, videoblog!), so if you’re reading on LJ, pop on over for the video portion of this celebration.

And a bit of meta-blogging. I found 13 Blog Cliches to Avoid today, and, reading down the list, I seem to miss nearly all of the cliches except the “don’t turn your blog into a gigantic pink diary.” Oh, well. I already came clean on that score.

 

 Birthday party [1:32m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Test post.

The house is all fixed up now and listed on the market. We moved into the RV a week ago, and are enjoying our new life. I bought a new bike (it’s cool). Things are finally settling down, but this little video post is basically to help you all understand why I’m not at the cool new conference in LA this weekend, much as I’d like to be!

 

 Why I'm not at Pixelodeon [1:54m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download