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 13th.
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 13th launch. On another front, I had been watching Allegiant Air’s ticket prices from Cedar Rapids to Orlando for the June 11th 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…
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
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
I am the 2nd born of 4 children in the family (see image below). Being an analytical type by nature, I sometimes analyze myself and one way to do that is to try to figure out if I fit into the Middle Child stereotypeor (because I’m actually the eldest boy on top of being the second child) do I take more of a first born role?
The Siblings - Note these are actual photos taken of the children as much as 30 years before they were born!
Henry T. Stein developed some basics of children behavior. Here’s his summary of the positions that may apply to me and my thoughts:
Second
| He has a pacemaker. There is always someone ahead. | Is more competitive, wants to overtake older child. May become a rebel or try to outdo everyone. Competition can deteriorate into rivalry. |
Jenna is my elder sister, so she’s the one that was “always ahead” of me. I’m not sure if Dr. Stein meant “peacemaker” rather than “pacemaker” but either applies really. I don’t like conflict and tried to keep my siblings from fighting. Unless we were fighting Alex (my younger brother), he was fair game. I never felt very competitive, but maybe I was in the depths of my brain. I’m still not competitive at all, but I am a better driver than Jenna and I’m taller than her too, not to mention I’m more dashing and stronger.
Eldest
| Dethroned by next child. Has to learn to share. Parent expectations are usually very high. Often given responsibility and expected to set an example. | May become authoritarian or strict. Feels power is his right. Can become helpful if encouraged. May turn to father after birth of next child. |
This is a stretch since I’m just the eldest boy, not the eldest child, and it was 4 years after I was born until the next boy (Alex) was born. So I didn’t feel very “dethroned” by him since I was far Superior. Maaaybee I was kinda strict and authoritarian towards him, but you’ll have to ask him – either way I think he’s cool now. I like the part about being helpful, that’s me to a T
Middle
| Is “sandwiched” in. May feel squeezed out of a position of privilege and significance. | May be even-tempered, “take it or leave it” attitude. May have trouble finding a place or become a fighter of injustice. |
Ashley (Sister) and I are both middle children, so we were both squeezed out of privilege and significance. This could be remedied by larger portions of the parents will, but I’m probably still out of the will and will therefore have to get back in before I can get any extras. The even-tempered is a good description of me. I usually only get riled up after several days of repeated abuse from my siblings.
Only Boy Among Girls
| Usually with women all the time, if father is away. | May try to prove he is the man in the family, or become effeminate. |
This applied for the first 4 years of my life and, truthfully, Dad was not “away” all that much so I had a good man figure despite my sisters attempts to make me “effeminate.” No high heels here. I’m sure there’s probably deep underlying scars from having to live 4 years without a brother for support though. They probably will become evident when I go through my midlife crisis.
Most of those characteristics seem to focus on the negatives of each position. So here’s some positives of being the second/middle/eldest boy/among girls for 4 years born in the family: I wasn’t the Guinea pig like Jenna, I got Dad’s attention all to myself, I learned how to relate to girls early in life, I had Sister as a fellow middle child to play with, I got to do more cool guy stuff than Jenna did.
I figured I would take a few moments this morning (now that I’ve got my disclaimer out of the way) to introduce myself into the blogosphere.
My name is Andrew and I live in the beautiful Midwest of the US of A. I have a lovely wife name Laura and we have a dog named Ernie. My family is mostly addicted to blogging and everyone except for myself, Laura and Ernie had a blog. My sister Jenna decided it was high time I entered the great world of bloggers and so she kindly set up this blog for me.
That is the origin of this blog, the title of the blog (I Analyze Things) was also set by Jenna, but feeling comfortable with the fact that I do indeeed analyze things, I don’t plan on changing it. Whether I actually analyze things on this blog or not has yet to be seen.
Hey it's me!
The Family
This picture introduces those who will most likely be referenced in this blog. On the left is my wife Laura, next is myself (after I cut off that hair from the previous picture). Next is Stephen and Ashley Nicole my brother-in-law and sister. Mom is next followed by Dad. Jenna and Joey, my other sister and brother-in-law are next, and my brother alex who can’t decide if he wants to be negative (the thumbs down) or positive (the smiling face) today.
This picture was taken just before we headed into the great wilderness of the Boundary Waters which you can read about on my sister Jenna’s blog where she has tons of pictures and great comments about the trip.
Hello friends family and enemies (until otherwise labeled).
My sister Jenna has kindly set up a blog for me so that I can use those precious few hours that I should have been making the world a better place with, to communicate with you.
My first post, will be a short disclaimer about the content of this blog.
The following text and images herein enclosed are the sole property of Andrew J Laird or whoever he stole them from. You are here by warned that due to severe LOL cat influence the spelling and or grammar of the following pages is most likely incorrect and should not be used as references to middle school research papers or other “official” documents. Also note that due to the fact the owner of this blog is part of a minority of previously non bloggers in his family, this blog should be supplemented with the blogs of the afore mentioned majority of the family that does blog, which now includes this member.
And lastly, any confusion created by the previous paragraph is hereby pardoned. Thanks for visiting, and come back again next month when there may or may not be anything new on this page.
