June 30th, 2007 by Shantastic

My whole life I have ALWAYS wanted to sing the national anthem for a sporting event.  Tonight I am going to live that dream!  YES, Tonight I am going to sing the national anthem for our favorite local minor league team…The Crabs.  Awesome. 

 I want all of you to know it was very difficult to arrange.  I actually had to email the Crabs and then wait for a response.  Then I had to ….get this….pick some days.  It was rough.  But now I have arrived and I am part of that elite group!

I’ll post to let y’all know how it went.  I’ll admit I am a little nervous about singing in a stadium with my big big voice.  I’m singing two games in July too!

June 30th, 2007 by Shantastic

I am always excited when I go to pick up woodchips.  I think the only real reason is because of the loader.  Rock on loader!  The driver may have thought I was crazy for taking the photo…but I bet the already new about the craziness.

June 29th, 2007 by Hiland

Ok, we’re not going to space quite yet, but Bigelow Aerospace just launched their 2nd test space station. Bigelow’s model is to build habitable modules that inflate once in orbit. They had a succsessful test launch last year of a small, never-to-be-manned station, and they just had a second launch just yesterday. Their plan is to have habitable modules in the sky before 2012.

Private aerospace is where it is really at- companies like this have an initiative that NASA doesn’t have, which is to eventually turn a profit. Now that the cold war is over, NASA has become a giant administrative monster that’s turning out some great projects, but doing it in a bulky, expensive way. NASA may be the Big Dog, but their are always going to be stuck under governmental bureaucracy that will slow them down. Smaller companies need to stay lean so their start-up costs won’t be a burden once they start making sales, and they can climb out of the red quickly.

The money needed to land on the moon or mars is still only possible to a government, but that might not be true for long. Instead of taking NASA’s approach of just throwing money at the problem until it works, private space companies have to think harder and make their dollar go further, which will lead to more innovative technologies. Also, the competition between two or three private space companies will also help push them along. Here’s hoping someone comes along and challenges Bigelow in this arena.

June 28th, 2007 by Hiland

A new technique that uses microwaves can actually turn plastics into usable oil and gas. The implications here are huge… already the technique is being used to strip the plastic out of old cars. Remember that scene in Back to the Future where Doc starts throwing all the garbage into the fuel receptacle on the Delorian? That might not be so far off now.

Suddenly all of those garbage dumps around the world look like mines for the future.

June 26th, 2007 by Hiland

I used to write people these awesome testimonials where I would pretend to be a mad scientist. I just remembered this bizzare trait of mine, and I’m taking this oppertunity to consolidate and share them all with you.  I think I need to start writing these things again. Read the rest of this entry »