The Problem with Normal People

[JTM]

The SOHO satellite watched the events unfold. On October 26th, Active Region 10486 had grown to over 10 times the diameter of the Earth and could be seen with the naked eye from Earth. Two days later the region was directly inline with our planet when it released a flare with the energy of fifty billion atomic bombs. The accompanying coronal mass ejection (CME) raced past SOHO at a phenomenal 2300 kilometers per second (5,144,953 miles per hour!) View attachment 600460 Most CMEs take 2 to 3 days to cross the 150 million kilometers between the Sun and the Earth.

This one made it in less than 18 hours!

Jack, The problem with all this is that mortal man does not have the capacity to comprehend it, and for those who have been blessed with a slight glimpse, the words to describe it. Carry on my wayward son...

 

[JTM]

Wishin' I were a freight train, oh, just a-chooglin' on down to New Orleans.



We be drowning in water

I once knew a man with gift of writing of the great mysteries of life. He was down to earth and loved to hunt and fish. He used to travel a bit for speaking engagements. He had a great fear of water and traveling by plane. So he would take the Amtrak wherever he went. He was traveling to New Orleans on the train. As he crossed Mobile bay in Alabama in 1993 a barge struck the trestle and uncerimoniously dumped his ass in the bayou. An event to forever contiplate.

 

[Jackbnimble]

Jack, The problem with all this is that mortal man does not have the capacity to comprehend it, and for those who have been blessed with a slight glimpse, the words to describe it. Carry on my wayward son...

Either one of these explosions, had they occurred on earth, would be all she wrote.
http://sci.esa.int/soho/47813-soho-catches-two-solar-flares/

 

[Jackbnimble]

Until Ed Hubble came along, we didn't know the universe was bigger than the Milky Way Galaxy. Dark energy was discovered in 1998 by two teams of astronomers, who measured light coming from exploding stars called Type IA supernovae, known as "standard candles" for their consistent brightness Dark matter and dark energy make up about 90% of the universe even though no one knows what they are. IOW, they are not made from atoms.

 

[Jackbnimble]

Boys, the 8.2 earthquake that hit Mexico was one big quake. Biggest to hit that country in a century. 8.2s are huge and very rare. Look at the buildings shake:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/08/world/americas/mexico-earthquake.html?mcubz=1&_r=0

 

[Jackbnimble]

As the chain dulls very gradually and my built-in-forgettor can't remind me how much better it was cutting just a few days ago, I begin to apply more pressure and then some more, ad infinitum. Vaguely, a sense that something ain't quite right floats by my thinking, which I promptly ignore. At some point after the saw powder is smaller than hydrogen atoms, I change the chain and I'm back in heaven, slicing thru tough old red oak like it's warm butter.

Half the reason I like cutting wood comes from watching the chainsaw devour the wood. You know? "Take that you scumsucker" as I whack the 10" thick branch in a few seconds. Watching wood chips fly off in every direction! Hearing the engine howl and whine as it creams the enemy. "Get off of there punk." When the chain is not real sharp, the wood is kicking my behind.

 

[Jackbnimble]

I'm with you L.E.M.
Though it's a shame that it had to be you.
The mother ship is just a blip
From your trip made for two.
I'm with you boys, so please employ just a little extra care.
It's on my mind I'm left behind
When I should have been there.
Walking with you.

That's a big boy.

I couldn't understand what he was singing-the words-for about 34 years. Then, I read the them someplace. And I thought, "Who is this guy? Who sings about stuff like this? No one! What in the world is his point?" AS usual, he had one and the music highlighted it perfectly. As many of the big shots in the world of macho, cool, rock-n-roll, scream rhythmically about sex, those Puerto Ricans girls just dyin to meet chu, Layla, G-L-O-R-I-A, cocaine, satisfaction, Morning Dew, this nut comes along, doesn't touch drugs, plays a flute in his metal rock band, and sings about cross-eyed-mary. And L.E.M. (that'll date me)

 

[JTM]

I'm with you L.E.M.
Though it's a shame that it had to be you.
The mother ship is just a blip
From your trip made for two.
I'm with you boys, so please employ just a little extra care.
It's on my mind I'm left behind
When I should have been there.
Walking with you.View attachment 600810

That's a big boy.

I couldn't understand what he was singing-the words-for about 34 years. Then, I read the them someplace. And I thought, "Who is this guy? Who sings about stuff like this? No one! What in the world is his point?" AS usual, he had one and the music highlighted it perfectly. As many of the big shots in the world of macho, cool, rock-n-roll, scream rhythmically about sex, those Puerto Ricans girls just dyin to meet chu, Layla, G-L-O-R-I-A, cocaine, satisfaction, Morning Dew, this nut comes along, doesn't touch drugs, plays a flute in his metal rock band, and sings about cross-eyed-mary. And L.E.M. (that'll date me)

What's a L.E.M? Ian Anderson is pretty talented.

 

[Jackbnimble]

Lunar Excursion Module

 

[JTM]

Growing up in Florida I got to see a lot of fascinating launches and people too. I stood within feet of Jacques Cousteau during an Apollo launch. Before the first shuttle disaster you could get a lot closer than you could afterwards. My dad took me fishing and to watch the launch out of Cape Canaveral one morning. We were in a boat and we could see the launch vehicle on the pad. Being hit by those sound waves is something I will never forget. And after the sound died down fish went crazy jumping out of the water all over the place. The fascination of exploration is dead in people today compared to what it was 40 years ago. Now folks have smart phones, amazon, and think themselves as the righteous moral standard to justify any behavior in themselves and condemn the same in others. You would think that Tabloid Trash would have gone out with the dark ages when our society "evolved" the past 40 years. One of the greatest and politically powerful things about this country was its middle class with sound work ethic and little to no debt. Now it's moot and rendered fangless. Now it's the insatiable entitled-in-debt class which has no principles.

 

[Jackbnimble]

"For Michael Collins, Jeffrey And Me" is the title of the song mentioned. "Michael Collins is an American former astronaut and test pilot. Selected as part of the third group of fourteen astronauts in 1963... His second spaceflight was as the Command Module Pilot for Apollo 11. While he stayed in orbit around the Moon, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin left in the Lunar Module to make the first manned landing on its surface."

Anderson wrote the song out of a sense of empathy for Collins as the lone astronaut who remained behind in the Command Module circling the moon while Buzz and Neil took off for the moon. He imagined Collins would feel extreme isolation in the vastness of space. It's a good song. He ties in the human condition of thrill seeking as an unconscious justification for our support of space exploration.

And the limp face hungry viewers
Fight to fasten with their eyes
Like the man hung from the trapeze
Whose fall will satisfy.
And congratulate each other
On their rare and wondrous deed

O, he's a genius alright.

 

[Jackbnimble]

Sometimes I feel, sometimes I feel,
Like I been tied to the whippin' post.
Tied to the whippin' post, tied to the whippin' post.
Good Lord, I feel like I'm dyin'.

My MS660 was a growling like a six hundred pound tiger today. Actually exercised a little control over the beast, too. Can't wait until I'm as skilled as some of you cats around here are, as in two or three decades, which I ain't got.

I'm free-handing timbers right now and it shows. Tower of Pisa. Everything wants to go down and to the right.

O yea. Almost forgot. Fell in love with Sara Vickers tonight. I'm pretty sure I'm just what she's looking for, too.

 

[JTM]

I've always been fascinated with tigers. Those poor fishermen around the bay of Bangal would wear masks on the back of their heads because the tiger attacks from behind. The villages would erect cloth around the perimeter because tigers do not like to jump over things but they will swim through the water, climb in your boat, and eat you. There is an old Siberian proverb, only a dead man offends a tiger.

 

[Jackbnimble]

Dukenfield William Claude

Ahh yes, my little lovely. Indeed I do like children, well done

He started out in Vaudeville as a juggler.

 

[JTM]

If you are interested in big cats there is the movie called ghost in the darkness. Based on a true story of two mane less adolescent male lions that became man eaters and terrorized railroad workers in Africa for months. The cats were displayed at the field museum in Chicago, stuffed of course.

 

[Jackbnimble]

"Growing up in Florida I got to see a lot of fascinating launches..."
I envy you.

I'd love to see a launch or two, but we ain't doing many.

To all our Floridian friends, thinkin about you. Take care. Help is on the way.

 

[JTM]

"Growing up in Florida I got to see a lot of fascinating launches..."
I envy you.

I'd love to see a launch or two, but we ain't doing many.

To all our Floridian friends, thinkin about you. Take care. Help is on the way.

You owe it to yourself to see a launch.

 

[Jackbnimble]

"field museum in Chicago..." great museum--Science and Industry, too. Adler Planetarium, three.
To me, tigers are the most beautiful animals in the world. Gold and tan and black and white and they are massive, much bigger than lions. I'd love to have one. I'd love to have an elephant, too. You could rough house with an elephant and not have to worry you might be getting too rough with it, you know?

I wonder if Florida is still here?

 

[Jackbnimble]

TO ALL FLORIDIANS: HOPE YOU ARE OKAY.

 

[Jackbnimble]

Always enjoyed Van Morrison, but never more than in this rare masterpiece, a little lilt by a distant river. Old Van goes to and kindly takes us with him to the mystical waning hours of a chilly night, interrupted only by the sounds of a lonely creature or two, warmed by a fire, to deliver sharp memories of bygone times when nature called out to those able to hear her mysteries, longing for his absent true love




The twilight gleam is in her eye
The night is on her hair