I took my boys to see what could be the last solid rocket booster test at ATK Systems in Promontory, UT yesterday.
I first saw on of these about 20 years ago with my Dad and a friend of his whose father worked at what was then Morton Thiokol. We pulled over on the side of the road and waited. I had no idea what to expect other than it was going to be a big rocket blast like the ones that you see on TV that power the space shuttle. As the sirens wound down and the crowd started to countdown backwards from 10, the rocket lit. It was the biggest flame that I had ever seen and started building smoke all across the mountainside. And then, about 6 seconds after we saw it start ...we heard it ...we felt it. The earth was shaking and the noise was deafening. It was spectacular.
On Tuesday, I got a tweet from KSL that said that ATK was going to do another test this Thursday. I was so excited to finally be able to share this experience with my boys who are now just a bit younger than I was when I first saw a rocket test. I immediately took the day off and made plans to head North.
We got up early enough to get there and scope out a viewing spot. As it turns out, the best place to view is a big parking lot just off Highway 83. We pulled in about 2 hours early and got a front row spot. Over the next hour or so the entire parking lot filled with cars and trucks. The traffic on Highway 83 was backed up as far as I could see. We set up our chairs, tripods, and cameras and waited.
The test controller came over the PA about 45 minutes before ignition and started the checklist of double, triple, quadruple checks that go into lighting one of these things. I thought it was interesting how much effort and manpower it takes to pull this off.
There was lots of cool equipment there as well. More Canons and Nikons than you could count but as we roamed around the parking lot we saw a few remakable setups. One guy right next to us had a high speed camera that needed a generator, 3 batteries, a heater, and 100 yards of film. When we asked him how long that 100 yards of film would last he smirked and said "four seconds". The camera had a 1.5hp motor to move that fast and capture the first 4 seconds of ignition. All of that rig ...for four seconds. Awesome
There was also a guy there positioned at the very back of the parking lot with 2 old school cameras with the black accordion type shields and a wood frame. He had to get under a blanket-hood thing to look through the lens (that was upside down). We talked to the guy for a mintue and he told us that the cameras actually were only about 15 years old, they just looked like antiques. He said that the images these cameras capture on the silver glass "film" would last for 6,000 years whereas a digital copy might last for a few hundred. He was a photo geek. He was cool.
Then the countdown came:
...45 seconds to ignition
...and this is what we saw:
You can click on this video to see it larger or full screen
Traveling can be boring. It can be lonely and frustrating. Over the last few years I have made a habit of tweeting stuff that can sometimes be perceived as useless, and stupid, and maybe it is.
And I don’t care.
So, here I sit here alone in a hotel room, stuck in Atlanta, 2000 miles away from home after being overseas for 6 days. As I look at my list of tweets from the last 16 hours my tweets might sound weird and pointless when taken out of context. So here are my thoughts behind some of them.
I like numbers
I would consider myself a ritualistic flyer. I think everyone has these little rituals that we do whenever we fly. For instance, I always start my watch timer from the second the pilot really hits the thrust so that I know how long we have been flying and how much longer. I also note the time from “launch” to “wheels up”. This might be 100% crap but I once heard that most international airports runways are long enough to abort a takeoff anytime before 17 seconds; after that, you are taking off or crashing. I watch my watch go past 17 seconds and if we are all still alive I know we will be fine until landing. I also know that it usually takes smaller planes between 30-36 seconds to take off and bigger 747 type planes about 51-55 seconds. My watch runs for the whole flight and I tweet the total time when I land.
It makes me feel like I’m not so far away
Anyone who follows me and cares always knows where I’m headed when I leave and when I land. This has proven to be interesting when I get responses from Tweeple who might ask questions or give suggestions about where I’m headed. I like that. I keep up on what's going on at home and what my family is up to this week. I like that too. This trip I tweeted that I had landed in Atlanta and from no where I got a tweet from my cousin (who I didnt even know was on Twitter) telling me that I could come to dinner if I had time. Awesome.
It’s my way of tracking where I have been
Have you ever seen maps that have all of the little pins? Twitter is my way of pushing those pins into my virtual map. Foursquare has only improved this. I don’t make a habit of tweeting all of my Foursquare checkins (you’re welcome) but if it happens to be relevant to my travel tweets, I’ll get both done at the same time.
It extends my network of other people traveling around me
This is why I always tweet the airport code rather than the city name. Lots of people might be talking about Atlanta but if they are tweeting the letters ATL, you know they are probably speaking about a flight experience. For example I woke up at 3am due to jet lag in Belgium this morning. Because I am weird I checked logged in to Delta.com to check my seat assignment …for the 500th time. Seriously, I check my seats incessantly, I have see weird things happen on plane seats. Sometimes they fill up, sometimes the exit row magically become available. For whatever reason, I check it all the time. So, this morning I logged in to find that my flight had been cancelled. After the website failed, I got on the phone and began to wait on hold for what turned out to be over 3 hours trying to re-book. While I sat on hold, I looked up other flight originations and connections so that when the agent answered I would be fully prepared to tell her how to do her job. I tweeted that I was on hold and when and where I was trying to fly to. I got replies from people who don’t follow me looking for advice and numbers of how I got in touch with someone. I also search Twitter looking for information before I search any other resource. Long story short, I got a guaranteed seat on a flight tomorrow morning and a hotel room and a shower. While there were standby flights available, I’ll take a guarantee over more stress any day I suppose.
I see weird stuff when I’m traveling
I like to send tweets and pics while I travel to share what I see. My 2 boys follow me on Twitter and I know they love to check Dad’s tweets and keep up with me while I’m gone.
Twitter is a great boredom killer
I will be the first to admit that some of my tweets while I travel might be pointless and boring. Sorry, you have to deal with it, it’s my primary outlet that keeps me from killing old, drunk French ladies on the plane who seem to think that they are the only ones on the flight and who are cackling so loudly even my Bose noise-canceling headphones don’t drown them out. Or the morons who don’t know how to stand in line properly. Or idiots who seem like to walk slowly directly in front of me when there’s no way around. It’s these times that the junk travel tweets come out to play. Sorry in advance.
Anyway, that’s the goods on the stupid travel tweets.
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I just arrived in Taiwan. I'll be here for the week on business.
My day started at 6:30am to make it to the airport early. Security was a breeze and I was able to switch my seat to an exit row.
We got to LAX with no issue and made our way to the next gate which was in a different terminal so we had to go through security again. What's up with that? Probably because it was an international flight.
Got to the gate where there was a bunch of people loading for a different flight to Singapore and then we made our way onto our plane.
I flew China Airlines on a 747-400. Every time I fly, I start my watch just when the pilot really lays on the juice to take off. In the small jets that I fly domestically, they can usually take off in about 28-34 seconds. This big plane took 54 seconds to take off and it seemed like the nose was up forever before the rear left the ground. I think it's amazing that those things can fly at all.
I got an aisle seat 37C on a row of 3 with another guy next to the window and an empty seat between us.
I spent most of the flight watching movies on the entertainment system I watched:
The Informer
9
Surrogates
Inglorious Basterds (again)
Gamer
I also won a bunch of money playing video poker and got a high score on space invaders and took a panoramic picture from the back of the plane on my phone.
As we exited the plane and I did my boy scout duty and helped 2 ladies with their luggage down from the storage compartment. These 2 little Asian ladies weren't even tall enough to reach the bin.
As we walked toward customs there was a sign to remove your hat and a TV camera thermal sensor that showed everyone's temperature as you walked through. I guess if you have a fever you have to go to quarantine. I don't even want to know what that means.
The car service came and picked us up and we headed to the hotel.
So I left on Saturday 01/23 and got to Taiwan at night. When I wake up it will be Monday morning. What happened to Sunday? Weird huh?
Now it's 4am and I cant sleep. I'm excited for the sun to come up so I can check out the view from my room on the 19th floor.
Description:Ultimate Video Poker in collaboration with 
Description:The classic card game Hearts. You can play solo against three robot players or against one or more of your friends on a WiFi network. This game does not allow you to play against others on the worldwide internet, only with other people in the same building.This game is now free for awhile, in order to help get the word out.Many of my Hearts Solo players told me it's too easy to shoot the moon, so I upgraded my robots to be far more paranoid about that. Try it and see if they are better at defense than they used to be.Card movements are animated. Works in portrait and landscape modes. Hearts rules enforced are exhaustive and complete. Scores are displayed hand-by-hand, showing progress over time. Very configurable. Saves your game between runs of the program. Robot players are pretty good.For more details, see my website.
