Merry Christmas

Watching some xmas Rockettes with nephew J.

Geminids WOW

The Geminids last weekend and Teide volcano of the Canary Islands, Spain.

China lands a rover on the moon

At least somebody is still trying to do a thing.

This morning we got up early and ran to the top of our mountain to watch the Geminid meteor shower. We actually had clear skies and saw 2-3 /minute including a giant beautiful green one. Last night we watched “The Sting” 1973 which I had never seen. Was fantastic. Captain Quint recovered from being eaten by a 25-foot carcharodon carcharias to become a scary, limping Irish mob boss. The distinguished philanthropist/actor Paul Newman bursts through the door into a gentleman’s poker game and says “Sorry I’m late, I was taking a crap.” Classy stuff.

career lowlight

My former boss said he was watching TV news coverage after the marathon on Sunday, and they said “Personnel were on hand to assist runners in need of medical assistance” and showed video of me hobbling across the finish line on my cramping calf and the two volunteers who prodded me to keep moving forward through the finishing chute when I just wanted to stretch my damn leg.

Honolulu Marathon

This is a pretty amazing event. 30,000+ entries and 40% from Japan (apparently only 23k started, likely due to the $26 promotion about 10 months ago). I looked at historical results and weather data and saw a strong correlation between the 15th Hawaiian finisher and dew point. 66 seemed to be about average, 64 was a fast year, 68 was a slow year. Today the dew point appears to be 72. There was a Japanese guy that had a 3 minute lead at halfway, but finished 19 minutes back from the winner (2:18 to 2:37, course record 2:11). The paper says he was overtaken at 22 miles. Poor dude must’ve struggled around Diamond Head. I was feeling *ok* until about mile 14 in Hawaii Kai, then my calf started cramping which was something kind of new. It increased its frequency of cramping from every 100 strides at mile 15 to every 0 strides as I crossed the finish line. But my wife ran the last four miles with me, and I did have fun and felt pretty good for all but the middle two miles. Some day though I’d like to run a fast marathon again but maybe the distance is a little too far for me. One of my neighbors apparently recognized me running up and down our mountain all the time as I heard a “Go Tantalus!” at mile 18. Thumbs down though to gendered port-o-potties with 2:1 female:male ratio and water stations on the outside of tight turns on 3-lane highways. Thumbs-up to a very early start, finisher-only T-shirts, and cold sponges (which I think might have been reused).

I have the best anxiety dreams before a marathon. This time I was convinced that I had to go to work and mount my Hayabusa samples before the race. I think it was the Japan connection.

My wife is a budding action sports photographer:

Yuletide

Here’s our locally sourced bamboo yuletide wreath that we made with zipties and aloha:

Ed on The Colbert Report

I’m very proud of him. He did not tolerate Colbert calling future Voyager a junk heap. Good job Ed!

Interview

Medal ceremony for his NASA Distinguished Public Service Medal.

Sound of Music redux

We’re watching the new ‘Live’ Sound of Music on NBC. I was confused when they sang “Lonely Goatherd” song when they should have been singing “My Favorite Things”. The latter was sung in the abbey. Twice. But apparently this is how the Broadway production is done? Nonetheless I don’t like it and it made me sad and scared. The worst though is the infinitely repeated commercials for Walmart. If Walmart were a character in The Sound of Music, they would be Rolf Gruber.

Comet ISON RIP

It looks like Comet ISON did not survive it’s trip around the Sun. I say better to go to the comet than hope it comes to you!

Garbage truck of the future

(from reddit)