As the world goes whistling by...

I am sure that the astronauts were not looking out of the windows of the ISS as they went by last night. I've translated enough Form 24's to know that there are only certain times of the day when there is "nothing" to do ("nothing" in the sense of "now you can 'turn to' and take care of the million little things that aren't on the schedule, including talking on the ham radio and looking out the window"), and those times don't come around too often... certainly not on a weekday.

But from our vantage point on the ground (we being Drew and I), we were outside and looking up at a moon that's somewhere between half and three-quarters, and a sky so clear that the moonlight was illuminating the contrails of high-flying aircraft.

The ISS made its appearance on schedule - I'd say within 20 seconds of the time calculated on my Palm, and we caught it in the southwest sky as it was rising. It was a pretty dull point of light initially, but as it passed nearly overhead, it was a very bright spot, indeed. As it moved toward the north-northeast, Drew noticed another satellite moving roughly south-to-north on a path that, from our perspective, would cross the ISS somewhat behind the station.

I have no idea what the other satellite was, nor did any of the folks at this morning's ham breakfast (ham, as in amateur radio). I ordered the pancakes this morning as opposed to my usual feast of eggs with onions and peppers on top of fried potatoes (the local eatery's "Pagosa Sunrise" platter), and remembered - afterward - just why I really don't like pancakes... I find them to be cloyingly sweet when slathered in syrup, and about as edible as wet cotton if left alone. No matter, I wasn't there for the fare... the other folks around the table were the thing, and it's always interesting to hear what they have to say.

Galina wants to go to Albuquerque this afternoon, which means we'll probably spend the night there, as it takes about 4 hours to get there and what we have to do (visit a supplier and a mega-hardware store like Home Depot) will probably take until after 9 pm. We'll see... she's not home from the shop yet, and if we're going to go, it will have to be soon.

Gotta go do some research.

Cheers...

Not Albuquerque, but...

Farmington!

We just got back about 40 minutes ago from Farmington, after a search on the Internet and a phone call revealed that the Home Depot in Farmington opened today!

Farmington is about two hours away, and while we were there, we got the ball rolling with regard to a renovation of the carpet in the downstairs "mother-in-law" suite, which is where Drew and Shannon will be moving in a couple of weeks. The first thing that has to happen is for the Home Depot rep to come out and measure the room (makes sense, so that if anyone makes a mistake, Responsibility can be Assigned). We stocked up on paint, rollers, and the like, and some items that will hopefully help us remove the 20-year old wallpaper in the room.

We then took advantage of our proximity to Sam's Club to restock our flagging stores, and I found a Sharp plain paper fax machine that is just like the one we have in the shop (one model number more advanced) for under $100. I had been considering using something like eFax for the fax service we offer at the store, but intermittent outages for incoming service and delays of as much as several hours in sending faxes outbound made me rethink this option. If things don't improve, or at least stabilize (which would be an improvement) I'll cancel my account.

[...]

Just ran out to see the ISS again... moving from west-southwest to north-northeast... just as Drew and Shannon pulled into the driveway. It turns out they went to Durango while we went to Farmington.

Just mad for travel... that's us.

Cheers...