Bob Hunkins dot com

Living in San Leon

You see strange things here occasionally.
This morning it was this pig. I wasn't able to get a good shot of him(her?) but he was sniffing around our neighbor's yard and looked through the fence at us. As far as I know, a neighbor across the street is keeping this pig. Why, I'm not sure. (Christmas supper?) The neighbor also has a dog, and the pig thinks it's a dog. Sounds like the subject for a kid's movie.

Kerry and the Bunny suit

Some folks I know might wonder what I think of this and in any event I'm compelled to post my 2 cents worth here. (ain't freedom of speech wonderful?) I generally try to avoid putting politically charged stuff here, so I'll put it in the Extended entry for those who could care less, and don't want to read it.

This is about the silliest thing I've seen. Not the pictures of Kerry in a clean room suit a.k.a. "bunny suit" but the flap over it. He may look stupid, but so does everyone else who dons one.
I've worn one a few times, and I look like the Michelin man.

Everyone is required to wear them when going into the Orbiter or other clean room areas. No exceptions. NASA always takes photos of celebrities and high profile public figures in these situations. The notion that they wouldn't post them publically is absurd. The notion that NASA leaked them for political purposes is doubly so. It looks to me that someone in the Kerry campaign didn't like the pictures because they are too stupid or ignorant to understand what's going on, or worse yet, they thing the public is too stupid to understand.

But what annoys me the most is the preoccupation with appearance here. It seems that it is more important that the candidate have good looks, good hair, etc. Policies? Proposals? who cares? Give them fluff!

"Hello, Kerry Campaign, Bush is Evil. What's that? You want a positive statement on what John Kerry would do as President? Gee, we don't have have that prepared yet, he's got to decide what to do and get the focus group data. Instead, we'll send you here's a picture of him on the campaign trail, hugging his VP. They've got nice hair, huh? Oh and Bush is Satan, he lied, Cheney went to war for oil for his Halliburton buddies, etc. etc... Thank you."

We live in amazing times

I have been using a Personal Digital Assistant for a few years now. I had been using a Handspring Visor model, but I dropped it and broke the screen. Since they don't make that model anymore I went looking for a new one.
I finally settled on the PalmOne Zire 72

This thing is amazing. It's got the capability to take Digital pictures
and videos, (1.2 Mega Pixel) resolution, plays MP3's, - so now I can listen to audio books from audible.com record hours of voice memos, take pictures, and keep my appointments. I can also download adobe acrobat documents for viewing in this little device. I've downloaded the Day Sailer Handbook, already.

If I can find a good waterproof case for this thing could I take it on the boat and record a race with it? I doubt that the case would let much sound in. hmm...

In any event, technology keeps advancing and this stuff is miraculous.

Specifications and measurements in PDF format

Here's a 220-odd kb file of the Day sailer class rules in PDF format.
Download file

My buddy Paul

...does some pretty cool stuff. He's a reenactor, he does reenactments for the Civil War, the Napoleonic War and now WW II.
He's recently went through paratrooper training:

'I just finished ADT Jump School and received my wings, one of 9 graduates out of the class of 27 we started with. It was a tough program, involving 5 days of ground training and 3 days of jump training out of the C-47. After the ground phase, we were tested on parachute landing falls (which we practiced for about 4 hours a day), emergency procedures and had to pass a written test. Only 18 students went on to the jump training, the others quit or did not pass the testing. Others dropped out after their first jump. One jumper on the first drop dislocated his knee and fractured his leg - that caused a lot of people to quit right there. This was serious stuff. Some people decided at that point that this was not for them. To graduate, we had to complete 5 jumps, the last with weapons and equipment. All jumps were graded on door exits, canopy control and landings.

This was not "City Slickers" parachute scool, it was serious stuff - probably the hardest thing that I have done since the bar exam (maybe even harder than that). Only Gene will understand that experience of getting together that mental resolve in order to go out that door and do that first jump. I could talk about last week for hours and could write you pages about it. Being alone up in the air in a parachute and watching the plane fly away from you with the other jumpers coming out the door is truly an extraordinary sight.

At graduation, my wings were pinned on me by Thomas Young, a 101st WWII vet. (I then got them hammered into my chest by our Capt.)'

I wouldn't have the courage to do this, not even for "fun"...
Way to go, Paul!

Big Announcement

I've decided to resign from my job at Johnson Space Center with United Space Alliance on August 20th. I've been here for just over 15 years and I am convinced I need a change. I am going to continue my education and get a Master's Degree starting on August 23rd, at the University of Houston Clear Lake. I'm interested in Digital Signal Processing, and Telecommunications. I don't expect my studies to interfere with my involvement with the Day Sailer Association and CLSC, although those are necessarily diversions, and if necessary, I may have to scale back my involvement.

I'm looking forward to starting my studies, so in the finest traditions of the Space Program here's a Countdown clock to the start of my new adventures!

How to Rig a Day Sailer for Spinnaker Launching

This is an article from 2001 by Mark Schroeder, Fleet 89. It's a basic setup for those who want to learn the joys of the spinnaker.
Download file

The follow on Article he mentions is available here.

Gag me with a donut drink

Okay, this has to be the most disgusting concept in food yet. I've never liked Krispy Kreme donuts, I find the texture is nasty.

"Drinking those cool Krispy Kremes
Doughnut retailer unveils frozen beverage line, including a glazed-flavored drink."

Glazed flavored? GLAZED?!! To me, the most awful thing in the world is a cold glazed donut. And why would I want to drink a glazed flavored drink, much less a cold one?

'President and CEO Scott Livengood said in a statement.
"We feel our expanded beverage offerings will provide tremendous growth opportunity for both the company and the Krispy Kreme brand,"'

Not to mention waistlines all over the country. Who thinks this is a good marketing idea? It sounds so disgusting. Is this a joke?

We are constantly bombarded by statements about how Americans are getting fatter (Yes, I'm guilty of that) but even so, I'm amazed that this kind of thing would sell. What's next? Lard shakes?

The Mishmashed Oil Change

The chief of the Flight Director Office, Milt Heflin, sent out a memo to the people in Mission Operations who worked the recent spacewalk that was conducted on the International Space Station. The memo was rewritten as an editorial in the Houston Chronicle. As usual, the Associated Press had characterized the spacewalk as a cobbled together job, using phrases to get the attention of the reader and at the same time "setting a bit" in the readers' head about lack of competency in the agency and therefore the executive branch of the federal government. For example, the title of the article from July 1 was "Finally, spacewalk a success". The press LOVES to use the word 'finally' in headlines with NASA. It makes it seem like things are in really bad shape, and that the people at NASA are the equivalent of the Three Stooges, or the Keystone Cops who take forever to complete a task, spend lots of money doing it and are just plain lucky to get the task done, in spite of their buffoonery.

I've observed the press for a few years and seen things from the inside of the manned space program during the last three Presidential administrations. Little is accomplished through luck. On the contrary, there's an extreme amount of planning, practice and hard work by many dedicated people to bring off the successes we have seen. and it has nothing to do with which political party is running the executive branch of government.

But, I have seen that the press will adopt this belittling attitude when a Republican is in the White House. Had there been a Democrat there, the emphasis in these articles would have been on how NASA overcame problems and rose to the challenge. It would have been all praise and esteem instead of thinly veiled reflections on NASA's competence.

It's really sad to see NASA used by the press for political purposes when it's essentially the same organization that was in existance during the previous administration. If the press uses a non-partisan agency like NASA to push it's agenda, what is it doing on other more political stories? That, as they say, is an exercise left for the reader. For my part, I've already decided that the press is neither so honorable nor so honest as we were led to believe when we were kids in school.

The next time you read the newspaper, I'll pass you the salt.