Daily Archives: November 24, 2017
We Have A Visitor . . .
Jan and I spent the day huddled in the rig staying as far away from the Black Friday madness as possible.
But Jan didn’t stay quite as ‘huddled’ as I did, since when I got up at 11am, she was gone. She finally showed back up a little after 12, having been down visiting Janice Evans, as I had figured.
For lunch we finished off our Pho 20 leftovers from our visit Wednesday night. Really heats up well.
Even though I didn’t leave the coach, I did my part, albeit small, to contribute to Black Friday sales by ordering a couple of things from Amazon.
First up was a DVD of all 20 episodes of Kolchak: The Night Stalker starring Darren McGavin. The series, which ran in 1974 and 1975, was the acknowledged inspiration for the long-running X-Files.
The series was preceded by two made-for-TV movies, The Night Stalker in 1972, and The Night Strangler in 1973. The Night Stalker became the highest-rated TV movie at that time. And The Night Strangler wasn’t far behind.
One of my all-time favorite series, it’s always been in the $50 range in the past, but now it’s going for under $17. It’s been digitally remastered with all cut scenes restored. Really looking forward to it when it comes in on Monday.
While I was at it, I also ordered a new First Alert Smoke Alarm for the coach, an upgrade for our other one.
And on the subject of X-Files, it’s coming back for an 11th season this coming summer.
We have a visitor passing through, though actually it’s already heading out of town. Or rather out of the solar system, anyway.
Named Oumuamua by its discoverers, it’s the first verified ‘visitor’ to our solar system from interstellar space, coming from the direction of Vega, the brightest star in the constellation Lyra, and heading toward the constellation Pegasus. Oumuamua, (pronounced oh MOO-uh MOO-uh), is Hawaiian for “a messenger from afar arriving first.” Very apropos.
Besides the fact that it’s from the stars, its shape has never been seen before on any other object. At over 1/4 mile long and about 120 feet in diameter, it’s spinning along its long axis like a bullet.
Scientists are looking at a way to rendezvous with Oumuamua to take a closer look. Called Project Lyra, it would have to be launched in the next 5 to 10 years to have a chance to catch the asteroid, which is presently traveling at about 59,000 mph, faster than any man-made object has before, meaning that the rendezvous would take place far beyond Pluto.
Sounds a lot like ‘Rendezvous with Rama’ by Arthur C. Clarke.
The Word of the Day is: addled
Thought for the Day:
Remember, the truth is out there.
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