Essays and Stuff
Musings, rants, etc., shorter or longer in form.
Thoughts on a kaboom
First reaction (on admittedly too little sleep) to SpaceX's Starship/Falcon Super Heavy test flight April 20, 2023.
A fire in the sky, 20 years later
I knew it would be my last chance to see a space shuttle passing over Waco during re-entry; what I got wrong was why Columbia’s return would be the last time. An updated version of my Waco Trib column from 2013.
Hope Is The Thing…
There have been several recent discussions concerning Emily Dickinson’s description of hope, and the accuracy thereof. Today in my mind they crystalized into this. The image by Xing Lida and Song Qijin accompanied a Science News item from April 2010 about fossil evidence suggesting that at least one feathered dinosaur molted during development the way modern birds do, as reported in a letter to the journal Nature. There will probably be a song about this in the near future.
Gymnastics and rocket science
Simone Biles was right to call NO GO.
The drive to West I didn’t have to make
Among many, many other things, the fertilizer plant explosion on April 17, 2013, meant I didn't have to go to the nearby JP's office the next day. On the whole, I would have preferred the jury duty.
T+51 years: Space is a marathon
Apollo got us to the moon at the cost of leaving us all but earthbound for the next 50 years. Another moon or Mars sprint isn't the answer.
Tornadoes, memories, and gaps
Originally posted on LiveJournal in four entries over May 9-21, 2006. (I was on LJ from 2005 to 2011 and am presently going through looking for lyrics and longer-form stuff.) The F2 tornado struck near where I lived then in Waco in the early morning of May 6, 2006. The first time I remember seeing my father crying, I was nine years old. We were living in a trailer house then, out on Spring Street on the edge of Marfa. He had been on the phone in the living room; my mom was on the extension in the guest bedroom/sewing room/office, just off the living room. I think I knew…
