They're coming from spaaaaaace!

From Miscellaneous

I popped over to the greenbelt after work again today. I got tickled when I saw these contrails lit up after sunset. If the conspiracy nuts think daylight contrails are chemicals imagine what they would think of these -- maybe death comets from space, or intercontinental ballistic missiles from Russia sent to blow up Jimmy John's on Bee Cave Road. Whatever, they were pretty. I also saw a cottontail rabbit and an owl and found a secret waterfall that I could hear but couldn't see.

Autumnal Equinox -- Sunset, Moonrise

The clouds cleared out after I saw the double rainbow and I got to see the sunset and the moon, too. Not moonrise, just after the fact. I bet I could have seen both from that house on the ridge in the greenbelt. I wonder if the people that live there ever plan ahead to look at things that happen in the sky?

Double Rainbow!

Double Rainbow!

All the way!

It's so beautiful!

What does it mean?!

Refraction, bitches!

Atlas V launch

(Time lapse photo from Spaceflight Now)

Another rocket took off tonight like the one in my video with the visible sonic boom. This one was from Vandenberg Air Force Base near Santa Barbara. My old boyfriend Chris the skydiver lives near there so I asked him to go see it for me.

Ok, that was a pretty awesome sight. We were driving home from dinner and noticed we could see the launch tower all lit up, so we parked and watched. About 30 mins later everything got extremely bright around the tower... off went the rocket. About 20-25 seconds later we heard the rumbling as that super-bright rocket headed up. I believe we may have witnessed the visible sonic boom you described.  It was a wide wave around the rocket after a few minutes of flight. We have almost a full moon tonight with clear skies, so it was well lit. The wave started as a small circlet around the rocket & extended out in several directions that we could see. Not sure if that was a visible boom or some sort of vapor or something. Anyway... thanks for the heads-up about the launch. It was an experience!

According to Spaceflight Now Mach 1 was at about 85 seconds, so that's about right.

So cool! Sorry I missed it but I'm glad I got a first hand report! Now if anybody in southern California wants to try skydiving go to the drop zone in Lompoc and ask for Chris Warnock and you'll be in good hands!

Civil Works

I like big things viewed from a great height.

I went to the northwest side of town this morning for a charity screening of Dr. Horrible and Serenity. They are both so good. Lake Travis was on the way home, and so was this rust finish bridge. It's not as bad as Good Morning St. Bridge at Windmark in Gulf County Florida. I think the 360 bridge is actually a functional structure. Just the same finish. This bridge at the St. Joe resort is an oversized reinforced concrete road bridge with an oversized pony truss plopped on top of it just for looks. Only it looks retarded.

A pony truss only has to be this big to hold up a great big long span. This is an old rant for me, but I just want to round out my compliment to the Loop 360 bridge. It's a good looking bridge. I like it. But when it comes to rusty bridges the Hadley Ferry is still my favorite because it got that way the honest way -- an actual long, hard life, in what would appear to be more than one location. I think they moved the two halves from other, shorter spans of nearby rivers. These new-fangled bridges that are designed to be rusty, it just seems like they're beefing up the structure to allow for corrosion and it just raises a lot of questions to me. What about the connections? What if the corrosion is uneven? What about the runoff staining whatever is under it? I'd like to read the engineering analysis for this new style.