Thursday, April 28, 2016

Alert *** Geek Ponderance *** Alert

So, I'm reading Leonard by William Shatner which is a biography of sorts of Leonard Nimoy, but more of a story of their 50 year friendship.  I've just gotten to the time in the past when they had finished Star Trek II.

And I began thinking of Star Trek III in terms of the military.  A crew of 6 steal a ship for personal reasons.  One of them sabotages the flagship of a new kind of ship.  And then they end up destroying the ship they stole.

Think about that.  They destroy the ship.

Okay, so there's no money in the Star Trek world, but think of the exotic materials and time it required to build that ship.

And then by the end of Star Trek IV, the Enterprise A is ready to go.  And it lasts for two more movies before being mothballed, because the Enterprise B is introduced in Generations.

Enterprises don't have the best record.

Original: heavily damaged often

Mark II: Dealt with V'Ger, beat up pretty badly by Kahn, self-destructed by Kirk

A: [REDACTED], and fought Klingons and Saboteurs.  Presumably mothballed

B: Bridge ripped apart by nirvana fragment

C: Sacrificed itself to save Klingon settlement against Romulan attack

D: heavily damaged often, destroyed several times in time loop, battle bridge destroyed and saucer section crashed after fighting a Klingon Bird of Prey

E: severely damaged after fighting Romulans, but retrofitted

Replicators must be awesome.

Friday, April 22, 2016

Zen and the Art...

So in between phone calls, emails, and such, I've been performing inner tube repair.

Of course, the first thing to do is take the tube out and check the tire for sharp fragments that are still stuck in it.  I didn't feel anything, but as I was turning it and feeling, I heard a sound of something sliding inside the tire.

Here's what I found:


Two pieces of glass, or as we geologists call it "beerbottleite".


So I looked over the tube, eventually I have found six punctures.  Four of the punctures were in pairs where the glass went through both sides of the tube.  The two others were pin holes.



So now, I'm all patched up, and hoping that I've found all of them.

Synchronicity

So let's talk about things aligning.

This morning I got up and it was raining.  Not really a big deal, I was prepared.  I had the fender on my bike ready, and just had to gather and don rain gear.

However, about 2/3 to 3/4 of the way to BART, I almost lost control of mu bike as I started to shimmy.  My back tire had gone flat.

Still, things aren't terrible, The rain is minimal, and I make it to BART just in time to get on the train.  Also, the walk could have been so much worse if I'd worn the rain jacket I'd planned to instead of the waxed canvas jacket that Jennifer talked me into.

Then we went one stop, and held at the station for ten minutes because the train ahead of us had door troubles, and we had to single track around it.

The walk from BART to work wasn't too bad.  It only rained on me twice.

So, I'm now sitting at the office waiting for the bike to dry so I can do some work on it.  Also, I'm soaked in sweat from walking in rain gear.

But hey, it could always be worse.

Friday, April 01, 2016

Ooooh, Big Numbers

So since my last post, I've past 75,000 pageviews.  Kind of a cool feeling.

Of course, I kind of like XKCD's take on milestones.