Showing posts with label Alaska. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Alaska. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

When I was in Alaska


When I was in Alaska, there was a spacewalk.
Somehow I seem to find space everywhere.

Back to the beginning: I went for a walk. An 8-ish hour walk to be precise. I was very sore the next day. Also, I am writing this on an airplane. The first half of my walk was along a bike trail that followed the ocean. 




Here I stumbled across the most amazing thing (besides the ocean and mountains an trees and ducks and just everything in general):

Jupiter! 



Apparently (if you read the sign), a brilliant, beautiful, human being decided to scale down the solar system and measure it out along this bike path. Amazing!

The four inner planets were supposedly located on 5th street in downtown Anchorage. Jupiter was a 43 minute walk from the Sun.


Next I found Saturn.





Saturn was another 35 minutes beyond Jupiter. Beyond that were Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto; Pluto was a 5 hour and 30 minute walk from the Sun. I didn't make it that far. I did, however, make it to Moose land.

I found this moose sign, which I loved.




If you meet a moose with perky ears, don't invade its personal space, and try to peacefully coexist with the half-ton moose with slashing hooves. If the moose has flattened ears, think angry, half-ton, cat. Run - preferably faster than the moose. Actually, it doesn't say it on the sign, but you probably should back away slowly first, then run if necessary.


At any rate, all you really need to know is that if you ever want to stroll through a system of planets, gazing at the glittering stars and basking in the emptiness of space, go to Alaska at night (or you can go back in time and hitch a ride on one of the Voyagers - that would work too - but I'd recommend Alaska - you're less likely to die.)




Sunday, November 13, 2011

Buckets Hold More Than Water

Carl Sagan, one of the most brilliant men of the 20th Century, described Earth like this


"Our future depends powerfully on how well we understand this cosmos, of which we float like a mote of dust in the morning sky." 

If the Earth is a mote of dust, what am I?
Easy: I'm just me. 

Here is my list of things I want to do before I die, in no particular order:

Publish/finish my novels.
Go hang gliding.
Touch dry ice.
Introduce my cat, Goblin to my big brother and sister-in-law's cat, Chloe.
Fly on the Virgin Galactic (anybody want to give me $200,000?)
Write about flying on the Virgin Galactic.
Have Elton John sing "Rocketman" to me.
Go to Alaska and meet a bear.
Be a Verizon Cell Phone Tower Fix-it Man.
Take a cosmology class.
Learn how to drive a tractor trailer and/or a backhoe.
Hug my mom. Pull my dad's beard.
Buy a nice writing desk and put it in a room with a window and a rug and a book case.
Watch my little brother play a show on drums.
See the aurora borealis, possibly while I'm in Alaska.

Any more suggestions?