Canada Day 2007

In the normal course of events, our friends Chris and Liza would hold the Canada Day barbecue. However, this year, there was a snag: Liza needed to work over the Canada Day weekend. Her job was to crawl around in a swamp over toward London, determining the number and types of plants in various predetermined plots, part of a continuing ecological study which had been done over many years.

Unable to do their normal Canada Day barbecue, Chris and Liza outsourced it to Michael and Lorna, who proposed that the venue be at our place, our back yard being somewhat larger than theirs.

Thus it was that there were two barbecues in a row at our house over the Canada Day weekend.

The difference was that on Canada Day, someone else would cook and do things. My objective was to sit around and eat and drink my face off, including getting some of the fabulous blueberry pie that I had missed out on the previous day. In addition to the Usual Suspects, we were joined by Bob, Elaine, Robert, and Lisa.

Here then are some highlights of the 2007 Canada Day celebration.

Karl was working on the final book of his "Virga" trilogy, and had not made it the previous day, but was able to come with his family for Canada Day.


Corwin had a new geek toy -- a calculator watch.


Lisa and Bri continued their visit.


Bob was very mellow...


...as was Jill.


For the second time in two days, John and Leanne made the trek in from Burlington.


Michael and Dave share a quiet moment over beers.


Sean (son of Kevin and Sue) and Corwin getting their water guns prepared.



Sara, taking time away from sailing.


Allan, back for more.


Two pies -- a strawberry rhubarb pie and a blueberry pie, hand made by Elaine -- had been held back from Saturday's ravening hordes. I tried to claim the entirety of the blueberry pie, but was made to share it with the undeserving masses. I did manage to get a single small slice out of it, though.


Sherry, being happy...


..and likewise Sue...


...and Liza, back from the swamp.


The group was much smaller, and the day was much like the previous day -- a gray sky clearing to scattered clouds, cool in the evening.


Madeline and Dave talking.


Mark, being happy.


Lisa being exuberant.


Sara, Madeline, Dave, and Robert -- huddling together for warmth after sunset.


Bri and Robin having fun.


Kevin and Sue.


Canada Day sparklers after sunset.


The kids came inside when it got too uncomfortably cool. Robert had cycled through Undying, Halo, and Quake 4 through the day. Toward the evening, his audience grew.


Various adults came inside to sit around the dining room table.



The evening ended with Bob and Jill and I sipping scotch after everyone had left. Bri and Lisa had gone over to Bob and Elaine's hotel. Robert would continue his videogame marathon at our place into the night.

When Bob left, it had cooled even further. The sky had cleared, and toward the south, Jupiter was shining brightly -- a perfect end to another Canada Day.

Permanent Link

Mid Year Barbecue 2007

The last Saturday of June -- the day of the Midyear Barbecue -- began at 7:30am with a telephone call from the delivery service, to let us know that Bri's lost luggage would be delivered before 2pm.

With most of the prep work done the night before, there were only a few last minute things to handle -- getting the barbecue grills cleaned, getting drinks outside and into coolers, getting plates, napkins, utensils set up. In the midst of these preparations, Bri's luggage arrived amid much rejoicing.

I had already filled one tank of propane, but at the time had decided that the second tank still seemed to have at least some propane inside. Confronted with the final opportunity to decide, I reconsidered the problem and decided that the risk/reward model pretty well meant I needed to have it filled. When I took it in, I got a rude shock -- it was a vintage 1995 tank, according to my propane supplier, and so therefore couldn't be refilled, although they were happy to sell me a new tank. My recollection is that this was a new tank that I bought only a year or two back. I think from now on, we deal only with a larger outlet like Home Depot or Canadian Tire -- one with less incentive to sell a new tank.

I got home and got the tank set up under a sky that was getting progressively grayer. It never rained, and the Weather Network never changed their forecast from 10% probability of precipitation. When Bob, Elaine, Robert, and Lisa arrived around 1:30, the sky was still gray, but shortly after, when Michael and Lorna arrived with both beer and ice, the sun began peeking through the clouds.


Mike and Glen also arrived early.


Bob and I made our annual trip to get chicken wings. By 3pm, the party was in full swing, and the sun was out with only scattered clouds in a blue sky.

Early preparation had significantly reduced the workload and stress. Perhaps there is a life lesson in there...



Mark, Elizabeth, and their children Ben and Olivia also came this year. Ben took a while to get over being shy, but ended up having a great time with Corwin later.


I cooked turkey sausages first. Although these would not have been good for people with restrictions on eating pork (since the casings were pork), we had obtained (through Michael's efforts) some halal lamb sausages that I intended to cook later. Even before the sausages were cooked, I put on the first installment of pork tenderloins.


Marlene, Ted, Marie, and Michelle were able to come, which went a long way to making the day even more special for me.


David and Sandy came, with David bringing a giant ice cream cake -- much appreciated by both children and adults on a warm afternoon.



Karen and Paul brought their son Zach, who went off with Corwin to do Kid Things involving water guns and explosion sounds.


Paula brought her son, Howard. She had come up with Catherine, Griff, and Jim. Griff and Beverley had been the first ones to accept this year's Midyear invitation when it was e-mailed a few weeks ago, but unfortunately, Beverley had caught a bug and was just getting to the symptomatic stage.


The day was warm and sunny, but not oppressively hot like previous Midyear Barbecues have been. Our friend and neighbour, Pam, has been to every Midyear barbecue, and has helped in the past with chairs, umbrellas, and barbecues. It wouldn't be the same without her, and it was nice that she was able to make it over late in the afternoon.


Mark and his family hung out with Glen.


Michael and Lorna, as usual, helped to make the party a success.


Patty, her husband Mike, and their two boys came in from Kitchener.


Madeline and Robert (not pictured) were first timers at the Midyear Barbecue this year.


Good news from Kathryn and Ken -- with their respective children moved out, they are getting married. Their date is New Year's Day, 2008.



The day had been warm, but not hot. It cooled off rapidly after sunset down to the low teens. Jackets and sweaters became necessary -- especially for Bri, who had limited experience with the concept of "cool weather" in the southern USA. Seated in front of Bri is Allan, who just finished his first full year of teaching at York after getting tenure and a professorship two years ago.


This group shot shows Jill and her former IOF colleagues -- from left to right: Pam, Karen, Suzanne, and Jill. Had I been more alert, Patty would have been in this shot as well.


In the end, we determined that 62 people (adults and children) attended this year's Midyear Barbecue. The count of 62 includes Jill, Corwin, Bri, and me.

Permanent Link

Midyear Barbecue Preparations

Preparation for the 2007 Midyear Barbecue continued on Friday.

After breakfast I got a barbecue tank filled, got the remaining pork, and got sausages. This year, we went with turkey sausages in order to try and accommodate some people who have dietary restrictions with pork. Unfortunately, the pure turkey sausages use a pork casing. Note to self -- read the fine print **first**.


Michael stopped by and helped with returning the collection of empty beer bottles and with doing the last major grocery run. Over the last few weeks, Jill had done a lot of work to get us to this point.


We tried out out the turkey sausages for supper with Michael and Lorna. The sausages were determined to be suitable for serving to midyear guests.


This year's marinade recipe went as follows:

8 jars of Lee Kum Kee Char Siu Sauce (available from fine grocery stores in many urban centres)
1 jar of Lee Kum Kee Hoisin Sauce
1 jar of minced garlic

All 10 jars of ingredients were combined in a large pot with very low heat. One of the Char Siu Sauce jars was set aside for measuring one jar of water which was added to the pot. The same jar was used to measure out one jar full of Heinz tomato ketchup, again added to the pot. A small shot (equivalent to two or three tablespoons) of Yeo's Sweet Chili Sauce was added.


There was enough to marinade 52 pieces of pork, with four jars set aside for use during the actual barbecuing process on Saturday.


There are some other preparations of note.

My neighbour's cherry tree overhangs our yard, and he has always encouraged us to pick and eat the fruit. This year, there are so many cherries on the tree that the branches are hanging low. Jill is going to set out a basin so that people can pick and wash and eat right at the tree.

Earlier in the week, we heard from Bob and Elaine up in the Ottawa Valley -- three blueberry pies had been created for the barbecue. However, due to local circumstances, one of those pies became unavailable, although the other two are thought to be likely to arrive on Saturday.

The countdown is on...

Brianne Arrives!

Our goddaughter Brianne arrived on Thursday. Her departure point in Texas had been experiencing heavy rain and generally bad weather, so her flight was delayed. One consequence of the flight delay was that her luggage didn't make it.

But Brianne herself is here safe -- bright, cheerful, and ever so much more poised and confident than she was last year.


We got the traditional arrival night pizza, picked up a toothbrush, and headed on home. Corwin, who has been looking forward to this visit for months, was very happy.




After spending some time on hold with the airline, I learned that the lost luggage would likely make it to Toronto on Friday afternoon. The luggage contained some critical items -- an iPod charging cable, and a power adapter for Bri's Nintendo DS. We learned that the NDS can be charged by a Gameboy charger, something which my NDS Lite can't do.

On checking again late in the afternoon, I learned that the suitcase had indeed arrived in Toronto, and was to be picked up at 6PM by the delivery service. Delivery would be within six hours, or would occur the next day.

Since it is now midnight with no sign of Bri's suitcase, I am going to assume that it will be the next day. Luckily, we got that toothbrush, the NDS works, and Bri fits Jill's t-shirts.

Dinosaur Adventures

Way back there in the dim mists of time, sometime in the late Jurassic when I was still in high school, I had a couple of classmates and a number of teachers who were deeply committed Christian fundamentalists. These acquaintances believed, among other things, in the idea that that the evolutionary view of the world was wrong and that the biblical view of creation as recounted in the book of Genesis in the Christian Bible was literally true and correct.

Even as a teenager, I had a problem with this.

This YouTube video, a mini-documentary posted by Dave and Karen, two of the Usual Suspects, brings back fond(?) memories of creationism debates. Their topic is Dinosaur Adventure Land, a small theme park built by a man named Kent Hovind in Florida.



Kent Hovind is currently serving some jail time now for various criminal offenses. However, a lavish new Creation Museum has opened in Kentucky. In my view, this is another manifestation of the same creationist belief culture that produced the Presidentially-appointed NASA PR flack who was anxious to reshape the outward message of the space agency to conform to a political agenda driven by the religious right.

When I see the representations of humans and dinosaurs together, that being one of the central premises of the beliefs of Hovind and his Creation Museum compatriots, I am struck but how similar their vision is to the imagery of the Flintstones. But unlike the cheerful buffoonery of Fred and Barney and their friends, the creationist vision serves a darker purpose, whose aim is to keep its adherents tractable through ignorance of the truth.

STS 117 Flight Videos

I have discovered how to embed video in my blog, and so like any right thinking geek with a new toy, I am using it immediately to excess. There are many YouTube videos that relate to the last shuttle mission and what I am attempting in this post is to provide some highlights of the mission. This is very cool, because with my schedule and general disinterest in television, I very rarely get to see any launch or operational footage of a space shuttle mission, so this compendium probably represents the most video that I have seen of any flight with the exceptions of STS 107 and STS 51L.

The rollout of shuttle Atlantis to Launch Pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center took place on May 15, after repairs to the hail damage to the External Tank back in February. This damage had delayed the launch from the original date of March 15.


NASA's weekly video summary for the first full week in June when the launch countdown for Atlantis was in progress is very optimistic about launching on time. They were justified -- STS 117 launches very close to the target launch time.


The following video shows astronaut preparations, launch, and on-orbit activity on June 8.


Because of the hail damage to the External Tank, and because of the role that insulation from the External Tank played in the loss of shuttle Columbia on flight STS 107, a lot of attention was focussed on the condition of the tank after separation.


This video is a repeat of the launch, showing the perspective from cameras mounted on the port and starboard sides of the tank, monitoring the shuttle's wings for impacts from foam insulation. The final part shows the rendezvous with the ISS, and shows from a camera viewpoint on the ISS, the shuttle doing the back flip maneuver first performed by Eileen Collins on mission STS 114. This full rotation allows the ISS crew to do a visual inspection of all sides of the shuttle to check for damage.


This video provides another view of Atlantis approaching the space station.


Atlantis docked with the ISS on June 10. This video shows the actual docking.


The Atlantis astronauts performed a series of spacewalks to install new solar panel components for the ISS. This video is an interview with a NASA official regarding the last space walk.


One issue which was discovered during the damage inspection early in the flight was that a thermal blanket, a heat shield component, had come loose on one of the OMS pods. The OMS pods are the housings for the Orbital Maneuvering System -- fuel tanks and rocket engines for thrusters which allow the shuttle to do course corrections and perform maneuvers while in orbital flight. A final spacewalk was done to repair the thermal blanket. One of the astronauts used a medical stapler to refasten the blanket.


Undocking of Atlantis from the ISS took place on June 19. Atlantis left without Clayton Anderson, who remained behind as the newest member of ISS Expedition 15. However, Sunita Williams joined the Atlantis crew for the return to Earth.


Due to bad weather in Florida, the June 21 landing opportunities were missed. On June 22, the facilities of Edwards Air Force Base in California were made available in addition to the facilities at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Due to continuing bad weather in Florida, Atlantis concluded the STS 117 mission by landing at Edwards on June 22. Had Atlantis not been able to return on the 22nd, then additional landing facilities at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico would have been activated on the 23rd.

Space News Update - June 2007

Since the last Space News roundup last year, there have been a lot of developments.

Space tourists Anousheh Ansari and Charles Simonyi completed trips to the International Space Station. In both cases they launched on Soyuz flights from Baikonur -- Ansari in September 2006 and Simonyi in April 2007.

In January 2007, a NASA astronaut who had flown on the July 2006 flight of Discovery to the International Space Station had a very public career-ending breakdown involving a love triangle and an alleged assault on a perceived rival. As a result of this incident, however, NASA has begun studies on the psychological dynamics of crews who will be isolated for 30 to 36 months on a Mars mission.

A year earlier, on January 19,2006, NASA launched the New Horizons space probe from Cape Canaveral -- the rocket was a Delta V, with a Centaur second stage and a STAR 48B solid rocket third stage, all of which served to accelerate New Horizons to very high speed. About nine hours after launch, New Horizons crossed the orbit of the Moon, outward bound for a gravity assist from Jupiter on February 28, 2007 to send it on its way to Pluto. The encounter was a success -- shortly, the spacecraft will be put into interplanetary cruise mode, with Pluto encounter set for July, 2015.

During the Jupiter encounter, flight controllers at JPL and the science team used the opportunity to calibrate the probe's cameras and science instruments. Close-up photos of Jupiter and its moon system haven't been available since the Galileo mission ended in 2003. The following is a view of an eruption of the volcano Tvashtar on Io, one of Jupiter's moons.

Image Credit: Release date: May 14, 2007 -- NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute.

On March 20, SpaceX, a privately owned corporation, successfully launched their Falcon 1 booster, which achieved every important test objective except actually making it into orbit. A problem with the second stage -- fuel sloshing in the tank causing the vehicle to oscillate and creating conditions for an early engine shutdown -- resulted in the rocket not achieving orbit. However, SpaceX were confident enough in their results to move their launch program to full operational status -- their next Falcon 1 launch in September will be the US Navy's TacSat, followed by a communications satellite launch for the government of Malaysia.

In May, the head of NASA, Dr. Michael Griffin, took some heat for stating that he was unsure that global warming trends were "...a problem we must wrestle with. To assume that it is a problem is to assume that the state of Earth's climate today is the optimal climate, the best climate that we could have or ever have had and that we need to take steps to make sure that it doesn't change." These remarks were interpreted as NASA toeing the American government's ideological line on climate change and on science in general. The thought of science being subject to ideology makes my head hurt, and it concerns me that the Americans didn't learn this from observing the Soviet Union and the Chinese Cultural Revolution.

There were earlier incidents involving a 24 year old presidential appointee in NASA's Public Affairs Office pursuing a religious and political agenda, and these have reflected badly on NASA. In these incidents, a web designer was told to add the word "theory" after every mention of the Big Bang and there was an attempt to limit media access to a senior climate researcher -- effectively to muzzle him.

Earlier this month, on June 5, the MESSENGER probe successfully made its second encounter with Venus, shaping its orbit for the first of 3 flybys of Mercury in 2008 and 2009, to be followed by entry into orbit around Mercury in 2011.

In a mission delayed by hailstorm damage to the fuel tank, NASA launched the shuttle Atlantis (mission STS 117) to the International Space Station on June 8. In a series of spacewalks, the Atlantis astronauts installed a new set of solar panels for the station, getting it prepared to handle the power demands of the Japanese and European laboratories that will be added later. After installation of the additional solar panel unit, Russian control computers crashed, apparently due to power issues. The computer problem was subsequently corrected over a period of several days.

Image Credit: NASA -- STS117 Mission -- S117-E-08003 (19 June 2007) -- Backdropped by the blackness of space and Earth's horizon, the International Space Station moves away from the Space Shuttle Atlantis. Earlier the STS-117 and Expedition 15 crews concluded about eight days of cooperative work onboard the shuttle and station. Undocking of the two spacecraft occurred at 9:42 a.m. (CDT) on June 19, 2007. Astronaut Lee Archambault, STS-117 pilot, was at the controls for the departure and fly-around, which gave Atlantis' crew a look at the station's new expanded configuration.

Atlantis also brought Clayton Anderson to the ISS, a replacement for Flight Engineer Sunita Williams, who had been aboard the ISS for the previous six months. Williams holds 3 records for female space travellers -- when Atlantis returned safely to Earth at Edwards Air Force Base on June 22, she set the duration record for 195 days in space. She has also been on 4 spacewalks totalling over 29 hours. The previous duration record for a female astronaut had been held by Dr. Shannon Lucid at 188 days, 179 of which were spent on the Mir space station.

Next month (target July 7), NASA will launch the Dawn mission -- an ion-drive powered space probe which will travel to the asteroids Vesta and Ceres to conduct close-up reconnaissance of the asteroid belt. here is a brief video narrated by Leonard Nimoy (Spock!) which provides an overview of the Dawn mission.