And now, a photo from the Chilean sojourn I mentioned in the last post. Somewhere I’m pretty sure I have a photo of the condor eating leftover meat outside the cafeteria, but I only found this one and one other. Maybe the rest will turn up someday. If you look closely, you can see the round circular office building in the background that proves this is Cerro Tololo. It’s easier to see if you click to embiggen.
They had a mess o’ these carts up at the observatory, and charging stations everywhere. I remember being confused that the battery was full when the meter read “0”. That would have been the meter measuring the charging current, of course. I was 9, what can I say. But hey, I got to drive around some. How cool is that?
Also, no grid power, cause y’know, big mountain in the middle of nowhere. So they had a big generator, running at 60Hz cause all the telescope drives were from the US and needed 60Hz. But the wall clocks were all local, and Chile running at a slower pace than the top gear zoom zoom zoom of America, they preferred 50Hz. So pretty much they were never right. Shoulda just unplugged ’em all so’s they could be right at least twice a day.
And then there were the sidereal clocks, which confused me even further. I should have complained more, but at that age I didn’t understand the greatness of a good Chilean whine.
By which I mean, in the age when you did astronomy in the dark. In response to a post at the Bad Astronomer’s blog, I was reminded of some long-ago nights.
I spent a month at Cerro Tololo one summer, and it was totally awesome! Mostly because I was 9, and if I fell asleep in the dome it was no problem! And yeah, I think I made it to midnight once or twice. Actually I was probably up the mountain only a handful of times, but it was so cool I remember it more than staying down in La Serena. What more could you want: Magellanic Clouds, giant condors eating meat out of your hand, beautiful mountains, electric carts to drive around in, night assistants to develop all the photos I was taking with my box camera (with VP-620 film! Yeah, shooting medium-format at age 9, woo-hoo!) And plenty of Creedence Clearwater Revival in the dome. A friend had sent my dad a tape of all the CCR albums. Y’know, a reel-to-reel tape.
And the cocoa made from hot water was the best ever, because the powdered milk down there had fat in it! Didn’t last forever like the nonfat dry milk they have round these parts, but it tasted like actual milk. And you haven’t lived until the sun has been blotted out by the shadow of a passing 12-foot-wide bird. So that was all very cool.
And my dad is still cool, even if he’s gone on to studying scallops. Wait, because he’s gone on to studying scallops. Apparently science is like joy: You make your own.
So I was reading Ed Brayton’s report on being arrested for photographing a cop, and realized what a coup I got away with last weekend. Not only did I photograph a National Park Police helicopter, I recorded its sound! And then, to make matters worse, I went to the Vietnam memorial and recorded audio there too! Man am I gonna get in trouble.
Except here’s the cool part. The Park Police flew for me! All we hadda do was ask. Hooray them! So now we have some awesome helicopter sound effects, as well as background noise from the Wall, for One Red Flower: Letters Home From Vietnam. Which doesn’t open until next February, but we’ve been working on it for a year already. It’s gonna be the most awesome show ever done by a community theatre. I’m even going to have to make a major update to Macs Cue for it.
No web presence for the show yet, so I can’t show you it.
But I can show you the helicopter. Yes, I asked. They said take as many photos as you want. It’s a secure area; we couldn’t stay there without an escort, but photography was okay. Wow, real security instead of security theatre. Go National Park Police!
I had all but forgotten! Smilin’ Jay reminded me that July 7 is Freenynakamas. Or was it Freeny-Nakamas? And what was it about the wheat paste anyway? Well, hell, it’s been a long time since high school, it’s kinda hard to remember. But I’ll raise a glass of grot anyway, if I can find some.
It is good to remember. Lot of water over the bridge since then, sure, but those times will always be with me. The spontaneous hikes up the mountain, the mad drive to get up the other side before the sun came up. Riding around town in someone else’s Land Cruiser, with the roof off and the gas tank never more than 1/2 full. Pulling up next to a carload of girls, our very attitude just screaming geek! Setting off the fireworks from the radio antennas at graduation. Watching the mayor turn into a snake and eat us all. Good times.
Some of those things actually happened.
Well, Freeny-Naka never made it big like the Flying Spaghetti Monster, but he was our fake prophet, and nobody can take that away from us.
Happy Freeny-Nakamas, everyone.
Do I have a great job or what?
Okay, you all (both of you reading this) know by now that George Takei is finally getting married to his longtime partner Brad Altman. I can’t believe he waited this long! Oh wait, it was the government that kept him waiting. Kinda like it kept him waiting in the concentration (sorry, “internment”) camps back when he was an extremely dangerous foreign (by which I mean “natural-born American”) enemy (by which I mean “child”) back during WWII.
But I digress. So yeah, I heard on NPR that he was getting married, and it made me very happy. I’m not a huge Trek fan, but I have probably watched nearly all of The Original Series, and the movies through #4, when they jumped the shark. (Technically a whale, but close enough.) And somehow it just seemed like a great improvement in the world that Takei-san could marry his love.
But wait, the story isn’t over. He is coming to my workplace next Tuesday to give a talk, and being a space-oriented sort of workplace of course he wants a tour. And guess who gets to give him the tour of building 29?
Do I have a great job or what?
It’s not so unusual for a co-worker to be out for the day for some medical reason. A doctor’s appointment, or a cold. Food poisoning. Maybe a softball injury, or a bad cough. A stroke. A stroke and lung cancer. Stage IV lung cancer. Chemotherapy. And then gone.
So long, Bill. I think we need to have a special breakfast in the VEST in memoriam.
Don’t take life so serious. It ain’t nohow permanent.
—Walt Kelly
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