Category Archives: Stuff

We Have Landed!

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The post below was written June 12, 2020. At that point, the Perseverance Lander had not yet left Earth. It launched on July 30, 2020 and I’ve been following it ever since.

Today, it arrived safely on the Red Planet, and will start its science missions soon. Now, Nate, Garrett, Beth and I have our names on Mars, attached to the rover along with about 1.2 million of our closest friends who also have their names on the rover. The permanence of our family’s presence together on Mars is wonderful to know.

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Back in September of 2019, I stumbled across a NASA website describing the new Mars Lander scheduled for launch July 20 at 6:15 a.m. PDT (9:15 a.m. EDT).  NASA offered the chance to send your name aboard the Mars Perseverance Rover etched into a chip placed on the rover. 

I thought this was a terrific idea for the family, so I registered the four of us and, lo and behold, we four were among the 1.2 million names that made it.

NASA sent an electronic boarding pass for each of us verifying that our names would be making the 140-million-mile trip to the Red Planet, the average distance from Earth.  At its closest, Mars is roughly 38.6 million miles from Earth.  Since the path to Mars depends on many variables and is not a direct shot, I am not sure of the actual distance the Perseverance Rover will take to get to Mars. Edit: Turns out that the actual distance is printed on the boarding pass itself in the bottom right-hand corner. The Perseverance Rover will travel 313,586,649 miles on its journey from the Earth to Mars.

I thought the boarding passes looked really cool, and the rest of the family surprisingly agreed. I had intended to post them back then, but it didn’t happen.  However, today’s the day! Better late than never, huh?

Here’s more details about the mission from the NASA website:

“The Mars 2020 spacecraft with its Perseverance Rover will launch on an Atlas V-541 rocket from Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida.  The Atlas V is one of the largest rockets available for interplanetary flight.  This is the same type of rocket that launched the InSight and Curiosity to Mars.  The launch vehicle is provided by United Launch Alliance, Centennial Colorado.”

And here’s a mission fact sheet. You’ll need a PDF reader to see this one.

Here are our four boarding passes.  Nice to know that the family will be together for the duration, even if it is on another planet.

Many would likely agree that another planet would be just the right place for the four of us.  

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The Apple, er… Cheese Doesn’t Fall Far From the Tree

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Nate is spending a few days here and he likes to cook when he’s here. I try to help out and NOT be the nervous father when he lights multiple gas burners on the stove at once. Dude’s gotta learn, am I right?

Tonight’s recipe was macaroni and habanero cheese. Let that sink in a minute. Not just the plain ol’ Kraft Mac and Cheese. No, sir. Nate decided to go full-tilt with the habanero cheese he got at Giant Eagle last night.

Did it taste good? Yes. Was it hotter than hell? For me, yes. Mind you, I DO eat spicy food with some degree of regularity, but I’ve never crossed that line between the edible and any second-degree-burn-inducing cheese. And yes, I know there are lots of allegedly edible things that are far, far worse. I prefer not to think about. I already have nightmares and I certainly don’t need more.

He made a big bunch of it, too, so there’s leftovers. As George W. Bush would say, “Na Ga Da It!” (“Not gonna do it,” for the uneducated in historical Dana Carvey SNL bits or the extremely young.)

However, it DID remind me of an unfortunate encounter that Nate’s mom, Beth Geyer, had with habanero cheese back in June, 2016. Just thinking about her hilarious essay made me laugh all over again. I’m reprinting it below.

DW

Guest Blog – Evil Twin of the Sub Divine -or- Chernobyl on a Bun

by Beth Geyer

SubDivineFromHell

Allow me to introduce you to this little asshole. I’d apologize in advance for the language but it’s already too late for that and I refuse to use the backspace.

My family’s pizza shop had this magical oven-toasted sub aptly named the Sub Divine. It was a glorious gold standard for hot subs everywhere. I miss it and every now and then I crave it so much that I replicate it at home. Usually with rousing success. I have, after all, 14 yrs experience making them.

I dropped the ball today, though. As I type this, my nose is still running and I’m positive I’m working through a mild stroke. Bear with me.

I looooooove spicy food. Love it. Always have. But I knew that if I substituted the shredded cheddar for habanero cheese, I better tread lightly. I thought I sliced it up thin enough for both pieces of bread (I had no sub buns) that I could avoid feeling like I was biting on Satan’s hairy undercarriage but failed spectacularly. In the picture you’ll see the delicious sandwich before I wrapped it in foil and baked it. Do not be fooled by it’s innocent look; I still can’t feel the roof of my mouth.

I knew after the first bite that something was wrong. The pain was almost immediate and was soon followed by shaking. I breathed through each bite like I was in labor and powered through half of it with sheer will and the power of prayer. I’d spent too much time creating this masterpiece to give up like a little bitch.

Alas, after half of the sandwich disappeared, so did my will to live. It was me or the sandwich and I chose me.

My tongue isn’t currently working properly and after blowing my nose and washing my face with cold water, I was able to stumble outside for fresh air, mumbling “Nothing about me feels good about any of that”.

This mofo ended up just being a bunch of toppings encased wall-to-wall in pure hatred.

I couldn’t even tell you if it was good or not. I *think* I tasted banana peppers and pepperoni at first but it was short-lived. After that, all I could taste was hell fire and every mistake I’ve ever made in my life.

Probably the worst part of all of this is the fact that I’ll have to relive the pain all over again tomorrow.

Look at that sandwich…..it was a simpler time and I was but a 35 yr old girl full of hope and wonder. Now Satan himself is holding a Fight Club meeting in my stomach and no one is the winner.

The lovely and talented Beth Geyer posted this on Facebook [on June 9, 2016] and it had me laughing.  Well done, Beth!

A Previous Facebook Rant Which Still Applies Today

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This is a repost of an earlier post that I made when I was pissed off at everything. Well, tonight, I’m pissed off at everything again, so you get this rerun instead of something original. Deal with it.

It’s time for a rant and my rants mean run-on sentences. Grammar police, you might want to look away.

I’m not going to single anyone out but yes, I’m going to bitch about something that some of you like to do that just completely pisses me off.

Yes, I see your status update, and I’m delighted that you have chosen to post something for an hour in support of some probably worthwhile cause, but I am not going to repost it.  Failing to repost it is not meant to imply that I…

a.) Don’t care.

b.) Am a racist.

c.) Don’t support beating cancer. (Who LIKES cancer?)

d.) Am a Republican.

e.) Am a Democrat.

f.) Am a Libertarian.

g.) Am Gay.

h.) Am Straight.

i.) Am asexual, bisexual or trisexual. (Figure that one out, wise guys!)

j.) Prefer Picard to Kirk.

k.) Prefer Kirk to Picard.

l.) Prefer TOS vs. TNG vs. DS9 vs. Voyager vs. Enterprise vs.
the Kelvin Universe vs. the new CBS All Access stuff. (Though I WILL admit that the upcoming animated Trek series has promise!)

m.)  Approve of any combination of l.) above.

So don’t infer it.

I will support you to the extent that I’m able and to the extent that I give a shit, but the one way I will NOT is to repost anything and everything that looks like a good cause, because I’m just not interested in spending that much time administering my Facebook status and besides I’m just generally not that fucking interested in the first place.

Repost this as your status if you agree.  If you don’t, you’re a jackass.

Reposted: Dan’s Ten Rules for Critical Thinking on the Internet

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This was originally written and posted in 2015. It would appear that not much has changed.

Feel free to add your own rules in the comments below.  

CriticalThinking

1.  One statistic can never tell the whole story.

2.  A meme does not constitute an argument.  It is an advertisement for a particular point of view.

3.  Do not agree or disagree with anything based solely on Rule 1 or Rule 2.

4.  Always seek and cite multiple original sources.

5.  Life is not simple and cannot be boiled down to a catchphrase.

6.  Exception to rule #5:  “Life’s a bitch and then you die.”

7.  Strive to be fair in your thought process.  “We can never hope to be objective we can only hope to be fair.”  (I am paraphrasing and I don’t recall the original source of this quote.)

8.  Read “How to Lie with Statistics” by Darrel Huff.

9.  Freely allow facts to get in the way of your preconceived notions.

10.  Be willing to change your mind in the presence of a winning argument.

“Road” Trip to Mars!

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Back in September of last year, I stumbled across a NASA website describing the new Mars Lander scheduled for launch July 20 at 6:15 a.m. PDT (9:15 a.m. EDT).  NASA offered the chance to send your name aboard the Mars Perseverance Rover etched into a chip placed on the rover. 

I thought this was a terrific idea for the family, so I registered the four of us and, lo and behold, we four were among the 1.2 million names that made it.

NASA sent an electronic boarding pass for each of us verifying that our names would be making the 140-million-mile trip to the Red Planet, the average distance from Earth.  At its closest, Mars is roughly 38.6 million miles from Earth.  Since the path to Mars depends on many variables and is not a direct shot, I am not sure of the actual distance the Perseverance Rover will take to get to Mars. Edit: Turns out that the actual distance is printed on the boarding pass itself in the bottom right-hand corner. The Perseverance Rover will travel 313,586,649 miles on its journey from the Earth to Mars.

I thought the boarding passes looked really cool, and the rest of the family surprisingly agreed. I had intended to post them back then, but it didn’t happen.  However, today’s the day! Better late than never, huh?

Here’s more details about the mission from the NASA website:

“The Mars 2020 spacecraft with its Perseverance Rover will launch on an Atlas V-541 rocket from Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida.  The Atlas V is one of the largest rockets available for interplanetary flight.  This is the same type of rocket that launched the InSight and Curiosity to Mars.  The launch vehicle is provided by United Launch Alliance, Centennial Colorado.”

And here’s a mission fact sheet. You’ll need a PDF reader to see this one.

Here are our four boarding passes.  Nice to know that the family will be together for the duration, even if it is on another planet.

Many would likely agree that another planet would be just the right place for the four of us.