Posts

Showing posts from February 24, 2008

Wyoming and Idaho

Image
We are back from a quick vacation. I managed to score three (actually several more) bucket list items in 4 days. 1.) Long Snowmobile Trip. 2.) Yellowstone Park and 3.) Wyoming. I reached my 50th State --Wyoming! And we took a 90 mile snowmobile trip in Yellowstone National Park. We went to the "Craters of the Moon--National Monument and Preserve" in Idaho and also stopped at Idaho National Laboratory (INL) where I got to see (with my own eyes) the very cool nuclear powered twin turbojet engine. It was a successful experiment in the 1950s and 1960s. https://whatisnuclear.com/safety-minutes/htre-3-meltdown.html Of course, I had my Radiacode scintillation detector with me and yes, the apparatus is "Hot". The screenshot of the readings from my three walk-arounds the artifact. I swear you could smell the radiation. There was a very un-natural burnt smell something reminiscent of burned bakelite. Although, I am quite certain the emitted radition was not the source...
"If you go to work on your goals, your goals will go to work on you. If you go to work on your plan, your plan will go to work on you. Whatever good things we build, end up building us." -- Jim Rohn, Motivational Speaker
Image
I am off to Florida this week. It will be good to see my Brother and Sister. Plans are to see Cape Canaveral, canoe in the springs near the Gulf Coast, spend time on the east coast and generally chill. I had a flight lesson yesterday. I am getting it. It takes me a while, but I get it. I am impressed on how much better I can sense the wind than I could originally. I practiced short/soft take offs and landings. Greene (4N7) is a grass strip with tall trees on the approach. It is in a valley too. The downwind leg in the pattern is really about 300 feet from the hills, whereas normally, it would be 1000 feet anywhere in the pattern except for final. We had quite of bit of snow on the runway so it adds another dimension of training. As I get good at Greene, regular paved strips are going to seem so easy! We had a great lunar eclipse this past week. The sky was nice and clear. This is a great youtube video. I think the quality of the video production and the subject matter really make...