Flight of the Falcon

Remember this picture, its the first launch vehicle of the 21st Century.

Just under a week ago, amidst financial meltdown, high-stakes piracy on the high seas, and a looming political battle of the sexes, an upstart and his start-up made history by putting a privately funded rocket in orbit for the first time ever.

SpaceX, founded in 2003 by PayPal billionaire and technology tycoon Elon Musk, successfully launched (on its 4th try) their Falcon 1 orbital launch vehicle. This trip carried a dummy payload, but the Falcon 1 can put small satellites in just about any orbit.

This is the dawn of a bright new era for spaceflight. SpaceX's rockets are a fraction the cost of their competitors, and are mostly reusable, which could eventually bring their costs down to 1/10th of their competitors. The door to affordable spaceflight has now been cracked open, and the greatest dreamers in science and industry are eagerly peering in.

And they have no lack of ambition. SpaceX is already competing with the veteran Orbital Sciences to be the space shuttle's replacement for getting supplies to the space station through the COTS competition (Commercial Orbital Transportation Services). Elon Musk has offered a variant of his Falcon 1 to ferry small missions for Google Lunar X-Prize at a discount, and this past week it came out that SpaceX is offering NASA $80M cargo rides to the moon, which is almost laughably cheap.

The proof-of-concept success of the Falcon 1 brings great promise to the rest of SpaceX's exploits. Their Falcon 9 and Falcon 9-Heavy launch vehicles, which essentially are respectively 9 and 27 Falcon 1s strapped together, have now had their hardware flight tested. This subsequently brings great promise to others who have been waiting for SpaceX launch vehicles, such as Bigelow Aerospace and their line of inflatable space stations.

Say what you will about the state of the world, but with the flight of the Falcon 1 orbital launch vehicle, private space is at least one industry with something to cheer about. In an age of relative technological stagnation in the United States, where America sees its competitive edge getting duller by the day, SpaceX has acheived a game changing triumph that could keep the red white and blue in first place when it comes to business in the great beyond.

Bow-legged Kentucky Woman

When in doubt, trust your bartender. That was the lesson I learned in Baltimore this weekend. There are times when beer is too bitter, well-drinks too dry, Long Island Iced Teas too... Long Island... and sober is just not an option. In moments like these, I usually turn to the Rusty Nail (Scotch and Drambuie) , a drink I learned from my good friend Joey, but unfortunately Drambuie isn't always that easy to come by. In one such moment last Friday, at Max's, I had the good sense to ask Frank, the upstairs bartender, what he could suggest in lieu of a Rusty Nail, and this is what he had for me:

Bow-Legged Kentucky Woman*
1 Part Jack Daniels
1 Part Southern Comfort
1 Part Amaretto
Splash of Triple Sec
Splash of Pineapple Juice

*Frank wasn't so sure of the name

Fun Accomplished.

Thanks Frank.

shadow posting

look Ma! No computer! that's right, im posting from my tmobile shadow right now. it's not exactly quick, it's not exactly clean, and for some reason my xt9 has stopped capitalizing the first letter of every sentence, but still, pretty neat.

Meteorological Magic

The past several weeks have been intense, ranging from hellish heat waves and sweater weather, to windless thunderstorms and funnel clouds forming over the white house (just kidding). This spectacular mix of spring weather patterns make 15 minute maelstroms followed by picturesque sunsets a near daily occurrence. And with this weather wizardry come some stunning sights.

A week and a half ago I was biking down U street, trying to find Vinoteca, when out of the blue (literally, the sky was blue) came a downpour that left me soaked to the skin before I could get off the street and under the awning of a CVS. Once it cleared I was about ready to try and blame SOMEone for dragging me out into the elements, when I happened to glance eastward, the direction the storm had moved on to. My camera phone hardly does it justice, but there was




the biggest and brightest double (triple?) rainbow I have ever seen, stretching across the sky. It was the kind of phenomenon that made strangers talk to each other and brought stylists out of their salons. I walked out into the middle of the street to take that first shot, but its ok, because the traffic had stopped to get a look at this thing as well.

I'll leave it to the good people at tickle my wiki to post about the physics of how rainbows work.

And then this past week, I was biking home across the Key Lime bridge, focusing on getting enough oxygen out of air so humid you had to drink it, when i glanced to my left to catch a glimpse of this


god moment in the sky. I kind of wish I'd waited a few seconds longer, taken more pictures, or better yet, switched to video, because that little speck by the right-most lamp post was an airliner on approach, and as it passed in front of the light, it cast this awesome shadow in the air.

Cool stuff.

I just wish it wasn't so damn hot all the time...

Why can't I write about snowstorms instead?

Gchat Rawks

Gchat has fundamentally changed the way we (Gchatters) communicate. Where once the distance that lies between two people was measured in miles, it is now measured in the time between simultaneous logins to Gmail. I see my friends every day, every time I log in and see their happy little round green faces (), and I get to chat away with them to my heart's content. Indeed I find myself in better touch with friends half-way across the country than friends half-way down the street, simply because of how well our gmailing schedules match.

What makes Gchat so great is its beautiful combination of simplicity (a bell-less, whistle-less, click, type, enter), convenience (I'm already logged in to Gmail), expedience (As opposed to that e-mail you sent me. I'll reply later. I will. Really. I promise. I mean I don't know when, just later...), and low-stress non-intrusiveness (cuz now that I just woke you up with this phone call, I'm way too distracted by how pissed off you sound to remember what it was I had to say. If only there were a little circle and status message telling me whether or not you were available, and a little box where I could organize my thoughts into words before sending them, without listening to an awkward silence over the scratchy phone line...).

And then, of course, there are emoticons. There is one school of thought that believes deep within its soul that emoticons give you a beautiful language of pictures and happiness to express yourself and connect with another person's inner spirit. There is another that says using emoticons makes a person seem gay. The two schools feed off each other in a symbiotic cycle of flamboyance and belligerence. But whatever the case may be, it is definitely true that when used appropriately, emoticons can capture some of the more elusive conversational nuance that was formerly the exclusive domain of face-to-face conversation. A fairly inclusive list of emoticons, including various less-known "easter egg" emoticons are available on this random blog.

My search for a more exhaustive list of emoticons has also led me to discover a fascinating new way to waste time. By holding alt, typing in a combination of numbers, and then releasing alt, you can access a whole host of special characters. (only works if you type on the num-pad, for those of you with full keyboards. This won't(?) work if you try using the numbers above your alphabet keys, sorry) Heres a sample of the first 40 or so:

1	☺
2	☻
3	♥
4	♦
5	♣
6	♠
7	•
8	◘
9	○
10	◙
11	♂
12	♀
13	♪
14	♫
15	☼
16	►
17	◄
18	↕

19	‼
20	¶
21	§
22	▬
23	↨
24	↑
25	↓
26	→
27	←
28	∟
29	↔
30	▲
31	▼
32
33	!
34	"
a few from 35-183	#$%&'()*+,-./012 FPZ[cdx}éá╛┤╡╢╢

This list goes up into the thousands (700 = '╝', 1000 = Φ)


Is fascinating no? No.

Anyway, gchat rocks.

My New Haircut

This will be interesting mostly just to people who met me or knew me during or after college. Haven't been clean shaven like this since high school.

Stimulus

You know the economy is in trouble when the whole world becomes split between being incredibly expensive and incredibly free. You can see it happening all over the place and it inspires a big-picture awe as well as a what-am-I-eating-tonight intrigue.

Of course we're all excited about our $300 (for individuals) to $123 Billion (for oil companies) economic stimulus checks from Uncle Sam this year, but a little less advertised are the perks you can get from floundering companies. You know there's trouble when Godiva starts offering free chocolate just to get you through the door. Trader Joe's on the other hand must be trying to find ways to deplete their overstocked inventory, as this week they doubled their sample offerings to 4 separate cheese, wine, beer, and hot meal (Shrimp) demonstration tables. Suffice it to say I neither cooked nor purchased dinner last night, but still went to bed full and happy.

Here in DC, my friends and I have become increasingly adept at sniffing out good happy hour deals, like the $2.75, 28oz King Kong glasses of beer at the aptly named bar Recessions. But their good deals are unspectacular since they fit with the whole under-priced dive bar ambiance going on there. The real "wow" kicks in when you find decidedly over-priced venues, like MCCXXIII (The "Champagne and Caviar" club, according to Michael Jordon), start handing out hours worth of 100% free open bars to in-the-know ballers like me (but please tip the bartender). If no one can afford your goods, it seems like a bit of a jump to give them away for free, but I'm not complaining.

On the bigger picture side of things, it is interesting to see who does well in an economic downturn like this. Those who specialize in the cheap seem to be quite happy, as demonstrated by the increased patronage of the aforementioned budget bar, Recessions. My friends at Trader Joe's have told me that business has never been better, whether for the fine weather or for the way that Whole Foods sucks your wallet dry. And then Google, who's stock ruined my portfolio early this year, has rebounded in recent days amid higher than expected profits. Apparently unemployed people who can't afford the gas to drive anywhere spend more time on the internet looking at ads.

Everybody Loves Parfait

Everybody loves parfait. Thats what Donkey taught us in response to Shrek's onion metaphor (I couldn't find the clip I wanted for this, but I did find the Duloc song in French). They really are one of the best ways to start your day, full of light, rich, crisp, chewy, crunchy goodness. And its kind of awesome how a good, hearty breakfast can set you on the right footing for the day. I didn't get much sleep last night, but then I made myself a parfait for breakfast, and now I'm feeling perky and energetic without even needing coffee. Then, to top it off, not only do parfaits taste delicious, they even look delicious.

So do yourself a favor, on your way home, get the following ingredients:
yogurt
granola (I prefer Quaker(r) Oats 100% all-natural granola with raisins)
fruit or berries (apple, pear, orange, blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, banana.... pick 2)

And then make yourself a parfait. Better if you can haul your lazy stomach out of bed early enough to make it before work, but you can enjoy this as a dessert too.

Groove Armada - Hands of Time

One of my latest up-thumbed songs on pandora. Haven't had much to say lately, at least not that I could take the time to type about. Time is moving so very quickly. Can't turn back the hands of time...

The Web Is For Music

The "New" Media

Slowly but surely the CD is going the way of the 8-track, pushed out by a superior medium, that being the digital ether of the interweb. Getting music online puts more power in the hands of you, the consumer, in letting you pick and choose not just between genres and artists, but individual songs, and even variants on songs. Everything a music store has to offer plus much more is available for your mixing and matching pleasure, all at low or no cost.

Which leads to my next point: I never really bought CDs growing up, first of all because I didn't know what I'd like best without buying it, and second of all because I hate spending money. Emblematic of those frustrations was the time I spent too much on a Green Day CD for the song "Good Riddance", only to find that I hated the other 12 songs on the disk. Today, iTunes shakes that first chain, allowing you to sample the music for 30 seconds, and then buy just the songs you like for a dollar a pop. But thats still a dollar I'd rather not spend, especially when I tend to listen to a song 3 or 4 times and then forget about it for the rest of my life.

Your (Free) Options

Research is a critical and surprisingly simple step. I mean, of course there are the obvious songs that you need to have and listen to, but then there are the ones from years ago, the refrain of which might pop into your head once a year. In either case, the google search is simple: type in those words you remember, "hard times good celebrate baby " + the word "lyrics", and voila, you've a page full of links to sites that wanna tell you what you were looking for.

Listening is the next step, and if you want a quick fix for your song, your best bet is going to be Youtube. Using our previous query for lyrics, we need only search for the song title we found and then the first hit will be Fatboy Slim's cracked out music video for his song, Praise You. From there, the related links sometimes get lucky with suggesting other good songs, but I'm often disappointed. Furthermore, building a youtube playlist can be labor intensive when you really just want something going on in the background.

Recommendations for music you might like have never been easier to come by than with Pandora Radio. Pandora is an ingenious service from the Music Genome Project. They have parsed and categorized thousands (millions?) of songs by class, character, tonal and compositional attributes, and have a pretty good idea what two songs do and don't have in common. In a sleek interface, you tell them a song you like, and they give you a radio station that will only play songs related to it. Of course, in the end this is a robot in charge of matters of taste, so it gets better if you train it (thumbs up or down), but if you pick a good song, you'll be pleased with the results!



Downloading is unfortunately an increasingly frustrating task. Gone are the days when you could download from Napster without care or concern, because now its been made abundantly clear that downloading illegal stuff is stealing (and you wouldn't steal a CD, car or handbag, would you?). Limewire is still out there, but the warnings against P2P downloads are only getting stiffer, and the risks more apparent. Besides, downloading to your hard drive is SO 90's, the future is streamed baby.

Happy listening everyone.

Engadget Wearables

For those unfamiliar, Engadget is a technology blog network with the scoop on all the latest and greatest in dorkware and geekdom. While the overwhelming majority of posts that litter its front page relate to flatscreens and playstations, there are a few hidden gems. For example, if you scroll down a little, look under "Sections" and click wearables, you will find a repository of the fantastical daydreams of science fiction that have (or promise to) become manifest in this, the real world.

Some of these innovations are kind of ludicrous and appropriately ridiculed by the authors as being good ways to loose your friends (but I still want one). Others reference truly remarkable inventions that we've known were coming, but are finally here and could drastically improve lives, such as this prosthetic arm from the maker of the Segway (video). And then a few talk about things that are just awesome, such as a tattoo that turns on and off, plays videos, makes phone calls, alerts you of health issues, and oh... is powered by your blood.

There are some incredible things out there, and i take it as my job to tell you all about them. Fortunately, sites like Engadget are doing all the hard work for me...

UPDATE 3/12: Once in a while, on days like today, Engadget's front page picks up a good article.

Sundance

So, enough people have expressed an interest in hearing about Sundance at different times, that instead of telling the same story over and over, I thought it reasonable to condense my accounts. The full story is as follows:

Background (Boring):
I work for The Concord Coalition, a non-profit focusing on balancing the federal budget. Our major project right now is running the fiscal wakeup tour, something we do with David Walker, the Comptroller General of the Government Accountability Office and lots of other organizations.

There is a movie, IOUSA, written and directed by Partick Creadon, who was behind the documentary Word Play. This movie focuses on the issue of the federal fiscal imbalance, and follows the works of Concord and General Walker on The Tour. IOUSA got "nominated", or whatever the word is, to go to the Sundance Film Festival. This is big news. To celebrate, our executive director, Bob Bixby, decided to bring much of our office to Sundance.

Going to Sundance:
Arriving in SLC, Utah the evening of Friday the 18th, I spent Saturday morning negotiating shuttles to neighboring Park City, sharing one with an Australian couple, who turned out to have co-produced Made In America, a documentary about gang warfare in south-central LA. The ride itself, on interstate 80 through the snow capped Rockies, was nothing short of breathtaking.



The weekend was, first and foremost, a cultural experience. As far as the movies themselves go, I only saw two, IOUSA and Paul Schneider's Pretty Bird. But the real treat was seeing the mindless masses crushing to catch a glimpse of movie stars and pop icons. At one spot a crowd formed in front of a rope line, waiting for something or someone to happen, though know one knew what or who. The crowd remained for several hours, and to my knowledge nothing ever actually happened, except the likes of Kevin Sorbo walked unnoticed behind them.

IOUSA was excellent. A documentary on the scale and of the quality of An Inconvenient Truth, it was very well received by the audience. To my knowledge it was the first documentary to sell out at Sundance, and it was the first time I've ever seen a policy wonk and an accountant enter a crowded theater to a standing ovation. It was a great opportunity to chat up the Concord Coalition and distribute our materials, but in the end the public's enthusiasm was my personal dismay, since if this movie does as well as it looks like it might, (they're negotiating with distributors) the pressure is on me to have a 5-star website ready to match the millions of new fans.

Other highlights of the weekend included seeing old friends, staying at the Giamatti's house, riding the bus with Jodi Foster, and dancing at arms length from Paris Hilton.

The Takeaway:
In short, Sundance was an experience well worth having. It was the highest concentration of ostentation and fur I've ever encountered. The town was full of pouty-lipped 20-somethings who would spontaneously strike poses in the streets and generally look like this. And all were desperately trying to peer past each other's sunglasses to determine if they were passing someone worth pawing at. The whole dynamic was ridiculous and I had a wonderful time only because I felt so splendidly disconnected from it all. Friends who work in "The Industry" and live that culture were less amused and more disgusted by the adulteration and general debasement of the independent film showcase Robert Redford originally envisioned.

But in any case, I had a great time, slept for 4 hours over 3 days, and would gladly go back if someone were willing to send me again.

Old Russian Coffee

You're a cheater

As a cheater, you'll likely prefer not to read all of my hard-typed, but ultimately uninteresting words. Thus, to make life easier for you, oh undeserver of my graciousness, I have highlighted the most interesting or important parts of this post. If it didn't work, too bad. Deal with it, or help me

Send me this via email or IM:

I made Pasta tonight, with a spicy red sauce, it was delicious. The best part, however, was that I finally used the last of the pepperoni that Nuala, Alex, and I bought for our June 2007 trip to Disney World. Maybe some of you aren't surprised, but I for one was impressed to see how long a shelf life Bridgford pepperoni has. Then again I suppose just about anything can be eaten if you fricassee it for as long as I did.

As a tip of the hat to certain people's good taste, I must admit that I can't get this Soviet-American singer/songwriter out of my head. I'm mildly obsessed and if anyone happens to know her and can introduce me/set up a marriage, I can spare you some of my organs as payment.

Also, I will finally be able to get some work done now that I've discovered a way to stay up past 8:30pm unlike my 70 year old brother. The answer obviously lies in coffee, but the challenge with coffee is to avoid being so put off by the taste or the labor that you get grumpy and "take a break", which always lasts until you go to bed. The key is a combination of instant coffee and my special recipe:

Yum Yum Zing Recipe*:
1 part milk
some part water
small part chili powder
bigger part cinnamon
major part sugar
equally if not more important part chocolate syrup
and an inappropriately large part instant coffee

Directions: Combine and make hot. Or vice versa. Figure it out.

*subject to tweaking, overhaul, and complete re-creation. I am not a doctor, nor do i claim to be one. If you die, don't send lawyers.

A tip on use of this recipe: If you used the right amount of instant coffee, you have ~5 minutes to secure yourself to your desk (belt, tape, staples). Failure to do so may leave you exercising, cleaning, or dancing to Stronger for several hours. Each of these are good things but not actually what you need to accomplish, thereby defeating the purpose.

Bloggoliferation

More than nuclear proliferation I fear bloggoliferation. This blog was started just over a week ago in the blog race that spawned out of the 3913 diaspora. There are only three of them out there now, and already I'm overwhelmed. Imagine how I feel if the rest of the community joined. Then it dawned on me, or rather it was suggested to me, that we should just create one blog that we can all post to. This makes sense to me. Lets do it.

Good Morning

This is my blog. I made it to talk about me. I may talk about you, or anyone else, but that would be a less important post than any post that is about me. Nuala and Nadia got here first, so I am a follower. Well, The Aspirationalist actually beat Nadia, but then my jerks, I mean friends, insulted it, so now it will wait until it has something aspirational to say.

Its morning. Dylan texted me at 7:30 this morning, waking me up. I called him back because I was awake, but definitely not getting my lazy ass out of bed. We talked about movies and protein shakes, and how he's forgotten everyone else now that he's a big shot goomba.

Also, peanut butter puffs from Trader Joe's = delicious.

Thats it.