Growing up, we always had to eat vitamins to keep us young Laird children healthy.  Vitamin C was always my favorite.  Sometimes I would chew them, and sometimes I would just let them dissolve slowly on my tongue.  I liked the way Vitamin C had that slightly tart, slightly zingy sensation.

It must have been when I was just learning to read.  Ashley and I went to Mom who was working on Laird Enterprises work and asked her if we could have a Vitamin C.  Perhaps we had an unhealthy like of Vitamin C if we were asking mom if we could eat them.  We didn’t feel that way towards other vitamins, but Vitamin C was out favorite.

Mom of course said we could.  She reminded us where the vitamins were kept and told me to read the label to make sure it was Vitamin C.  Ashley was probably too young at this point to read.  We scurried up to the kitchen and got a stool so we could get up to the cupboard with the vitamins in it.  We eagerly climbed onto the counter and I shuffled through the vitamins looking for Vitamin C.  Mom had trusted me to READ the label, so I had to use my letters.  I knew what C looked like, but I was still a bit fuzzy on the others, especially those last few v,w,x,y,z those guys were hard to remember.

Finally, I found the one with the C on it.  I sat down next to Ashley on the counter and unscrewed the lid.  We each took one, as Mom had told us to do, and popped them in our mouths.  I decided I would chew my Vitamin C today.  I anticipated that zingy tart, taste running throughout my mouth.  It never came.  Instead I got an incredibly bitter taste all throughout my mouth.  I looked over at Ashley who was drooling and trying to spit out her Vitamin out on the counter.  What was wrong with my Vitamin C, it was making me want to throw up.  We both rushed to the sink and spit out our vitamins and rinsed our mouths with water vigorously.

“The Vitamin C doesn’t taste right”, I said to mom as I showed her the bottle I had grabbed.

“Oh no.  That doesn’t say Vitamin C Andrew”, Mom said.  “It ends with a C, but see it begins with a Z.  It’s a Zinc.  I bet that didn’t taste too good.”

Mom took us back upstairs and got us the real Vitamin C and we got the bitter taste out of our mouths as quick as we could.

I took to heart what mom said.  Specific letters are only as good as the letters that come before them!

It just works…but why does that impress me so much?

I decided on a whim last week to download the Release Candidate for Windows 7 Ultimate.  Reformatting my computer turned out to be a nightmare, but was completely user error (which I may tell you about some other time).  That aside, I finally got back to a clean working computer state and was ready to install Windows 7.  Below are my first impressions.

Installation

My first impression when installing Windows 7 was that there are several screens that should have hour glasses or “please wait” signs in them so that you don’t think your computer has locked up.  I came very close to resetting my computer a couple of times (glad I didn’t) because I thought something had gone amiss, but nothing was really ever wrong, it was just working in the background without telling me.

Other than that, I was very impressed with the LACK of time it took me to install the OS.  Windows XP always seemed to take around an hour – no matter how fast your system was – before you could actually start installing drivers and applications.  Windows 7, despite the fact that it’s several times larger than XP, was done installing within 45 minutes, maybe less.

I noted that they don’t ask for your key now until AFTER the entire OS is installed.  Several cynical ideas went through my head as to why they would do this, such as “A pour sole gets all the way through installation and realizes their key is no longer any good – but since they are so close to being able to use their OS, they are more prone to buying that new key” – or they might have just thought it fit better there…who knows

Movie Desires

Laura and I wanted to watch a movie last night – we chose The Two Towers since I am reading through The Lord of the Rings again and had recently finished that book.  That is no short movie as you know and we decided we should start it no later than 6 so we could get to be on time (which is preferably before 10).

I had just finished “healing” my PC from the previously mentioned (Andrew induced) sickness which I won’t go into now either.  The time was a little after 4 PM.  I started installing Windows 7 and started thinking trough all the steps that I usually had to go through with an XP install to get to the point where I can watch a movie.  Six o-clock wasn’t looking very promising.  Windows XP could take me 3-4 hours just to get the OS ready and the drivers installed.

I could have ditched the Windows 7 install and tried to XP up to Movie Watching status as fast as I could, but I decided to press ahead with the Windows 7 install.

Fast Installation

So thirty to forty-five minutes later I was already in to Windows and it was configuring my network for me and activating the OS.  But there were still all those pesky driver disks and restarts to go through.

Side Note

I was very happy with the user interface this time around for Windows.  It feels very natural.  I was able to customize all the basics without having to use any help forums (which is what you would expect, but not necessarily from Windows).  I was most excited when I found a slider in the “Getting Started” section that allows you to turn the UAC (also known as Windows Hand Holding) all the way off.

The user interface is only as good as the OS behind it right.  Well perhaps this can be a small proof, six-o’clock came and Laura and I were actually starting our movie.  Not only that – we ran to pick up some pizza before we started it.

Devices Just Work

I was completely impressed with how many of my devices Windows 7 just knew how to use.  I turned on the printer, Windows 7 set it up.  I detected ALL of my motherboard devices and set up my network for me.  It set up my video settings intuitively (although I did go a grab the latest driver just to ensure optimal performance).  And the one device that it couldn’t get on the first try (the sound card) it sent me right to Creative’s website and told me what to download so I could get going as fast as possible.

Application compatibility was another concern I had.  I figured some of my XP programs wouldn’t work right and I would still have to load Windows XP just to be able to do everything I need in a given day.  I can honestly say that so far I have found no reason to put XP back on.  The real test will be when I start putting on some of my games and development software, but as far as watching our movie and checking the budget before I went to bed last night.  I have no reasons to go back to XP.  In fact, several of the features (burning ISO images for example) that I used to have to load programs for are now built right in to Windows.

I’ve just started to dig into the system level applications, but at first glance, it looks like there is a whole suite of programs that come with Windows designed to help you keep your computer running its best – from resource monitoring tools to a program that will give you a complete health report of your computer.  I have yet to see how helpful these programs will actually be, but it looks promising.

It’s Still Windows

The last thing I did before I went to bed last night (after our movie which ran great) was to copy my backed up documents and music from my external hard drive, back to my internal hard drive.  This reminded me that, yes this is still Windows.  As I was watching the “Estimated time left” it went from 40 minutes to 3 Hours and then ended up taking about 50 minutes.  Obviously, they did not spend any time updating their file copy algorithm.  This was more humorous than annoying.

It’s Got Potential

I was impressed with how things just seemed to work after I stalled Windows 7.  Then I thought “really, that’s how it should be”.  For some reason we’ve come to expect (and be OK with) a Windows that requires several hours of a user’s time to get it going.  Hopefully, this trend will continue.

I figured it’s finally time I should post about our trip to Florida.  No, we didn’t get to see a Space Shuttle launch – maybe next year – but we still had a great time.  And so, I present Andrew and Laura’s Florida trip.

I like to have goals when traveling.  The following were a few of our goals for this trip.

#1 See the space shuttle Endeavour launch during our stay – live – as in not on TV – in person

#2 Visit the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex

#3 Go to at least one beach (Laura hadn’t ever been to the beach)

#4 Parasail (It was Laura’s Idea…really)

#5 Swamp Tour – And hopefully see an Alligator

#6 Relax

#7 Not get sunburned

#8 See a space shuttle launch

#9 Eat ice cream with Jenna’s money after seeing a space shuttle launch

The space shuttle was our main goal for the week, but as many of you probably know, it was the only goal that we didn’t accomplish.  Other than that, I have to say it was a very successful trip.  Here’s a visual summary of everything we did.

Thursday – Departure

We flew on an MD-80 with Allegiant Air

I took a picture of the cockpit so I could see our initial heading

Friday – Recover from Travel

Strange ducks that lived at our resort

Saturday – First Launch Attempt Scrubbed

No pictures – but seriously who wants to see a grown man cry

Saturday – Parasailing

Pictures coming in part II since I have to scan those in (didn’t want to take the digital camera 800 feet in the air)

Saturday – Atlantic Ocean

Pictures coming in part II since I also didn’t want to risk the digital on the beach.

Sunday – Swamp Tour

I can't remember any names - so this is a bird taking off

A tall white bird

Baby alligators running away from us

Year old alligator swimming away

This guy totally could have eaten the Ern alive - good thing he didn't get to come

A cow hanging out by the Alligator lake

We found a Lamborghini on the way home and I insisted we get pictures!

Spook Hill

Ok Spook Hill needs some explanation.  There is a legend that in the old days, farmers found that their horses were actually struggling to pull wagons DOWN HILL.  And thus the name “Spook Hill” was given to the hill.  I heard of it, and since it wasn’t too far from the swam we went to, I figured we’d stop by.  The picture doesn’t show it as much as a video (and maybe that’ll be in Part II) but basically what you see the the picture shows a road going down to a dip and then climbing.  If you drive to the dip in the road and put your car in nuteral – it will actually roll backwards “Uphill”.  Of course the truth of the matter is that the dip is an illusion.  Notice you cannot actually see the skyline.  So that was Spook Hill!

Monday – Rest Day

Laura didn't get to see the white sands beach - so we had to do with golf course white sand

Phase 10 took up much of our rest day

These guys were everywhere, we made a special trip with our camera just to photograph them

Tuesday (Day) – Kennedy Space Center Tour

Coming in Part II – in order to build suspense!

Tuesday (Night) – Second Launch Attempt Scrubbed

Ok – here’s the closest you get to see my cry

At this point - I just wanted to go to bed

Wednesday – Rest Day

You can't have a rest day without Krispy Kreme

Then we went to Disney World (since we were resting)

Saw Epcot

And rode the tram - well ok we saw the tram

Ok so we didn’t actually go INTO Disney World – that’s not really important though is it?

Thursday – Fly back Home

Big storms moving through just before we take off - That's our plane through the window!

Wonderful view from our plane!

That’s something worth remembering!

And I must end with this completely cute picture of Laura!

Laura in our apartment / hotel room

When we got home – The Ern did not appear to have missed us or even realized that we were gone…

The Ern is Out

Yesterday I tried to go flying in the same pasture with the cows.

I took some video, but the cows ruined my hope at getting a take off video with the camera at the end of the runway.

Enjoy

(Note I had to remove the soundtrack because YouTube said it was copyright – silly YouTube)

I want to see a space shuttle launch.

I’ve always wanted to see a space shuttle launch

When I was younger, I used to wake up at 3 in the morning just so I could watch the space shuttle launch or land. In fact, I would sleep in the TV room with my digital watch smashed between my head gear (for my teeth) and my ear. That way I would hear my alarm go off and wouldn’t have to get up but could just turn the TV on.

Alex and I used to take cardboard box lids and draw “complicated” gauges and dials on them and number pads and position them all around us as we lay on the floor and did simulated rocket launches.

I watched Space Camp and the Challenger Investigation video so much that the VHS tapes were almost burnt up.

I would record hours and hours of NASA TV on tapes and not let ANYONE touch them because I might just want to watch that launch or landing again. Incidentally, I’ve never watched any of those VHS videos again, but I kept them, just in case

During college my desire didn’t go away, but got preempted by the less exciting but more important aspects of education. I did however get the chance to see an Astronaut speak once and watched as many launches as I could be near my computer for.

When I heard that the space shuttle was going to be retired in 2010 I resolved in my heart to see a launch before I it retired. Last year at Iowa State, with the help of family, Laura and I decided that we would try to go see a launch sometime this year. What with her school and scheduling a trip around a particular launch, it’s been difficult to get the trip off the ground.

This week, the pieces are finally falling into place. Actually the first piece fell into place last summer when my parents graciously gave us permission to use their resort in Orlando for our vacation. This was for my Birthday last year on June 1. I also got some graduation money from other relatives and placed it in the “Florida” fund.  It didn’t work out to go down that summer (2008) because of my new job and I was already taking time off for Boundary Waters. During the school year, it’s almost impossible to get Laura a week off, so that left this summer 2009.

As the winter months ticked by I watched the launch schedule weekly if not daily. Unfortunately, there were no launches scheduled for this summer. There was one in May, and one in August, but none in June or July when school was out. About 3 months ago, I noted that they had scheduled the Hubble mission (STS-125) right over top of STS – 127 in May. This seemed odd to me as it’s impossible to launch two shuttles at the same time. I decided it must mean they were going to delay one of the two missions into the summer gap. I found out the double schedule was because the Hubble mission was not for sure yet. NASA didn’t want to commit to it in case the Hubble broke down again (as it did last year right before they had tried to launch this mission). If that happened, then the Hubble mission was off, and STS-127 would be in May and there would potentially be no summer launch for me to go see. If the Hubble mission did go ahead, the STS-127 mission would delay to June 13^th.

Perfect, right in the middle of the summer. Now I had my potential date, but nothing is for sure with NASA. Dad and I made several plans, but couldn’t solidify any of them until the Hubble mission actually launched and we could be fairly sure that STS-127 would be in June.

On Monday I watched with great excitement the launch of STS-125, the Hubble mission. I was happy, not only because I like watching shuttle launches, but because this began to pave the way for me to view the June 13^th launch. On another front, I had been watching Allegiant Air’s ticket prices from Cedar Rapids to Orlando for the June 11^th flight. They had been as high as $149 per person per way and had been steadily coming down as the 30 day mark came closer. I had watched the site enough to know that they usually went to $69 per person per day about 30 days out and that was about as good as you were going to get.

Sure enough, last week they went to $69. But the launch hadn’t happened yet, I didn’t want to order my tickets and then have the Hubble mission get delayed. So this week, after we had a successful Hubble mission launch, I ordered my tickets and Dad reserved the resort. I reserved a car the next day which only left the actual tickets for viewing the launch left to buy.

I happened to go to the site that was selling the tickets on Tuesday, the day after the Hubble mission launched. Now I had been to the site before, but it had always be advertising tickets for the Hubble mission, and they don’t sell tickets for any other mission except the one that’s coming up next. Tuesday they finally updated their site to get ready for the STS-127 ticket sale event. It is, in fact, an event similar to buying tickets to see a really really good movie that has been anticipated for about 5 years. The reason being is that they only sell about 2000 tickets per launch. “Two thousand, that sounds like a lot” you say. I thought that too, until I read some people’s stories online about trying to buy tickets and having them sell out within minutes – MINUTES – of going on sale. Also, people warned that you have to get ALL THE WAY through the purchase process and get a confirmation email before you’re guaranteed to have your tickets. In other words, clicking buy doesn’t reserve the tickets for you. Clicking confirm at the end of the purchase form does. So you have to get all the way through the form before everyone else does in order to get your tickets.

The message on the site Tuesday said “Tickets will go on sale on Wednesday at 9:00 AM EST.” I figured the whole “selling out in minutes” was probably an exaggeration, but I wasn’t going to take that chance. I got in to work at my usual 7:15 this morning and first thing set an alarm for 7:55. I wrote out all my information into a notepad document and double checked it all so that I could just copy and paste the fields into the order form when it became available. I went to the website and hit refresh a couple of times. I got the “Tickets will go on sale at 9:00 AM EST” message again so I knew I had to wait.

7:55 came and my alarm went off.

I pulled up an online clock of Greenwich mean time adjusted to central standard time so I would know exactly when it went to 8:00AM (9:00 EST). I hit refresh every minute and got the same “Tickets will go on sale at 9:00 AM EST” message. At 7:59 I started hitting refresh every 20 seconds, just in case they let us in early.

“Tickets will go on sale at 9:00 AM EST”

At 7:59:50 I hit refresh every second.

“Tickets will go on sale at 9:00 AM EST”

I remembered what people had said about being part of the way through buying their tickets and having them sell out. My hands began to shake as I held the mouse.

I hit refresh at 8:00 AM – the page changed. The message now said “Buy Now!” I selected the ticket I wanted and the purchase form came up.

Now my hands were really shaking. I realized in my haste to have everything ready, I had totally forgotten to type my address out beforehand. Quickly I typed and double checked my address. I copy and pasted my credit card information and selected 2 tickets (one for me, and one for Laura).

I hit submit.

I looked at the clock – it was 8:03AM

I waited for two seconds.

Then, the confirmation page came up. I checked my email, and sure enough, I was confirmed two tickets had been purchased. I double checked everything again just to make sure I hadn’t made a mistake in my haste but everything looked good.

Phew well I guess those people saying everything sells out in two minutes were exaggerating right?

I went back to the main page and hit refresh again – the page now read SOLD OUT

It was 8:04AM

Ernie got to spend most of Saturday over at Mom and Dad’s causing trouble.  Mostly he just runs around the kitchen-living room-dining room circle about 10 times and then gets tired and lays down in whichever room is most full of people.

Ernie has severe anxiety about the rapture happening while he’s not in the room so he has to always move rooms if his people do and this leads to him not getting much rest during the day if people are around.

We had steak for dinner and The Kid was bad and fed Ern some steak fat.  He didn’t tell him this until Sunday morning – AFTER Ernie threw up…

The Kid doesn’t get my computer anymore if I die.

Anyway, Ernie didn’t feel good at all Sunday and mostly just layed around looking at Laura and me and making us do things for him with his big eyes.  Stuff like carry him outside to go to the bathroom and giving him extra cheese for his breakfast.

Here’s a picture of the Ern looking pathetic, even though it’s not from Sunday – you get the idea.

The good news is, Ern seems a little better this morning…

I was getting ready for bed last night when Laura said “Looks like our outdoor temperature unit has died”.  We have a weather station that has an outdoor unit and an indoor unit and the outdoor one seems to always need new batteries.  I came into our bedroom to look at the indoor unit and found that Laura was right.  The outdoor unit was reporting the wrong temperature. 

Remote Weather Station

But this was odd, usually when it runs out of batteries, it just reports a dash (-) for the temperature.  Today, however, it was reporting 65 degrees and 25% humidity.  Maybe the chip had gotten wet and it was malfunctioning.

A thought hit me and I decided I should investigate.  It just seemed to strange that my remote weather unit would report what looks like accurate information, but not accurate for outdoors.  It was, in fact only 30 something degrees at that time last night.  I went outside and looked under the bush that I had placed our remote unit under and confirmed my suspicion that it was in fact GONE.

Great, I thought, some neighbor saw my remote unit under my bush and thought they’d swipe it for themseleves, apparently not knowing that its reporting it’s temperature to my indoor station all the time.  So now I get to see what temperature their appartment is as well as my apartment, but I never get to know what temperature it is outside.

I found this slightly humorous and felt kind of spy getting to know what temperature my neighbors apartment is.

So once I retrieve my remote weather station unit from which ever neighbor swiped it, I think I’ll buy me a long rod and some cable and strap it to the ground.

I’ll keep you posted on whether I get it back…

This year the family is celebrating Thanksgiving and Christmas on the same weekend due to the fact that my Sister and Brother in law will be in town on Thanksgiving but not over Christmas.

This requiredus to come up with some name for the holiday that signifies that we are celebrating both Thanksgiving and Christmas together.  ChrisThxgivinmas was what came to mind, and thus the name of this post.

Thanksgiving and Christmas are two of my favorite holidays.  Probably because it usually means that family is together, but more importantly because we get to enjoy a holiday that points us to thankfulness, and a holiday that points to Christ’s birth.

I woke up this morning thinking about how my family is making the two holidays into one this year and I started thinking about how, really, these two holidays can be easily interchanged, but only for the Christian.

The non-christian wouldn’t want to swap a holiday where you get presents for one where you only get turkey. 

But for the Christian thanksgiving should be a time to thank God for all that he’s done for us, which should always culminate in our thankfulness for the gift of his Son.  And Christmas, though it centers around the birth of Jesus with the Nativity story, usually leaves me with a feeling of thankfulness.  So the two really are a good pair and I’m really looking forward to it.

Happy ChrisThxgivinmas

 I thought the caption was real great and very enlightenling on this picture.  I feel real bad for the guy though.  Looks like he won’t be going on that vacation to Europe after all…course there’s always the credit card.

Flying is one of those things that I’ve always enjoyed.  I love anything that has to do with flight.  It is more of a hobby than a career though, which is why I don’t fly for a living.  I was going to get to fly last night with a buddy of mine, but his instructor got sick, so we had to enjoy being stuck to the ground instead.

My sister, Jenna, has a fear of heights.  She always has.  I remember driving to Grandma and Grandpa Laird’s every year growing up and going through the rest area that had the observation tower back in the woods.  Every year we would go to climb it, and every year she would get all disturbed.  I didn’t pay much attention to this back then because I wanted to get to the top as quick as I could to see the view.  What a kind brother I was.

This fear of heights has translated into a fear of flying.  Which is most unfortunate for her in my opinion since I think flying is great.  The advantage, is when we go on family vacations, she is more than happy to give up her seat by the window to me in exchange for a seat near the center of the plane.

The truth is, people that are afraid of heights may have good grounds to be afraid of them.  Even I get the queezies when I look at the picture below.

Men On Skyscraper

If one of those guys fell backwards, they would more than likely fall to their doom, death, and demise.  That’s why I have a desk job.  This does not hinder my enjoyment of flying however.

Why, you might ask, does the fact that falling from hundreds or thousands of feet in the air will cause death not hinder your enjoyment of flying.  This is the important point, and the point that I hope my sister Jenna takes to heart when she has to fly next time.  It is the fact that a human, is not designed to fly or glide or do anything graceful in the air, other than fall.  The airplane however, is designed to do all three: fly, glide, and do them gracefully.

A quick physics lesson about airplane flight.  Think of the wings of the airplane as what keeps the plane up, and the engines as what makes the plane go forward.  In some respects you must have both in order to fly, however you can get speed without engines, if you have altitude just be descending, but I digress.

The engine in the plane is similar to the engine in the car, so I won’t get into that.  Suffice it to say that the engine propells the plane forward and causes air to rush over the wings.

That last part is the important part, because this is where planes differ from humans falling through the air.  A human falling through the air can flail as much as they like, but will most likely never fly.  They don’t have wings.  A wing is specially designed to create LIFT.  Lift is described as the difference of pressure between the top and bottom of a wing causing the wing to move towards the area of lower pressure.  A visual would help.

Lift

I had originally thought that it was the engines that kept the plane up.  You push anything fast enough through the air, and it will fly right?  So you just need a really big engine (which planes have) and you can fly.  What I was thinking of is actually called a Rocket (which I always enjoy).  A rocket doesn’t have a wing and is, in fact, propelled upward only because the engine behind it is huge.

The airplane however does not rise off the ground solely due to the engine power.  The engine just propels the airplane forward so that air passes over the wings.  Once air passes over the wings, lift begins to occur.  See the diagram above?  The air has to take a longer path around the top of the wing than around the bottom.  This results in the air moving over the top of the wing moving faster.  It’s roughly the same amount of air as is moving along the bottom of the wing though, so in order to move faster it has to spread out.  And when air spreads out, the pressure drops.  Pressure is just the measurement of how many air molecules there are per square inch.

When you suck on a straw, the Pepsi in the cup comes into your mouth.  This is because the sucking action causes the pressure in your mouth to drop below the pressure in the cup.  The Pepsi tries to fill that area of low pressure and moves up the straw and into your mouth.

The same thing happens with the wing.  When the lower pressure is created on the top of the wing, the wing begins to move up.

Therefore, the engine is only used to keep air moving over the wing, the wing itself is what causes the plane to rise off the ground and truly fly.  This, I hope, is a great comfort to those with a fear of flying because it demonstrates the difference between a human falling through the air and a bird or plane flying through the air.  The human is helpless because they have no wings, but the plane with the help of the lift on the wings, will be able to gracefully soar to its destination.

Armed with that knowledge, go out and fly confidently and without fear.

Boeing 777-200