Happy birthday Jose Moreno Hernandez!

A very happy birthday to a true inspiration for anyone who feels as though the odds against them are insurmountable.
I don't care where you're from. I don't care how poor you are. I don't care what language you speak. I don't care how many people you shared a room with as a child.
This is America. IF YOU WANT SOMETHING BADLY ENOUGH, THEN YOU CAN GET IT.
Whining won't help. Bemoaning your lot in life won't help. Studying hard and working hard and believing in yourself - that will help.

Jose M. Hernandez was born August 7, 1962 in French Camp, California. He was one of four children born to migrant workers on what he calls the "California circuit", traveling from Mexico to Southern California each March, then working northward towards Stockton by November, picking strawberries and cucumbers. The Hernandez family would return to Mexico for Christmas and then start the cycle all over again.

"Some kids think it might be fun to travel like that," Hernandez laughs, "but we had to work. It wasn't a vacation."

One day, Jose was hoeing a row of beets, listening to his transistor radio. Over the radio came the news that Franklin Chang-Diaz had been selected as America's first Hispanic astronaut.
"I was already interested in science and engineering," Hernandez remembers, "but that was the moment I said 'I want to fly into space.' And that's something I've been striving for every day since then."

Jose learned to speak English at age 12, graduated Stockton High School at age 18, and enrolled in the University of the Pacific in Stockton, where he earned an electrical engineering degree.
He was then awarded a full scholarship to UC Santa Barbara for their graduate program. After this, he worked at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where he eventually co-developed the first full-field digital mammography imaging system, which has proven useful in detecting breast cancer much earlier than traditional mammography.

During the astronaut application process, Jose walked into the oral board to find none other than Franklin Chang-Diaz on the panel. On May 6, 2004, Jose Hernandez was selected to Astronaut Group 19. It looks as though Hernandez will be one of the fortunate few from Group 19 to actually fly on the Shuttle. (The retirement of the shuttle will likely prevent most of this group from actually flying.)

He has been assigned as a Mission Specialist to STS-128, scheduled to fly no earlier than July 2009 or April 2009, depending on who you ask.

Garrett's replacement's birthday.

Happy 46th birthday, Greg Chamitoff!

Happy birthday, Neil Armstrong!

A very happy 78th birthday to Neil Armstrong, a very contemplative man who eschews the limelight, leading some to believe he is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.
In fact, he's just extremely private, and if you ask me, the world could use a few more celebrities who embrace this quality.

A hilarious short: "Water on Mars."

You don't look a day over 200, baby.

[Above photo of USCGC Pt. Barnes and STS-41 liftoff. I found this photo online. The caption states it was taken by BMC Charles Kinnear. I fondly remember Chuck from the Pt. Barnes (which was out of Ft. Pierce, where I was stationed), and I hope he won't mind my stealing his picture.]


Happy 218th birthday to the United States Coast Guard, the military branch in which I served four years and from which my older sister retired as Commanding Officer of Station Port Canaveral.

In honor of the day, I would just like to mention the first member of the United States Coast Guard to go into space, Bruce Melnick.
I was stationed in Fort Pierce (just a bit south of Cape Canaveral) in October of 1990, and when we found out that one of us was going to be on STS-41, my roommate and I immediately made plans to be there.
We drove up early that morning and met up with Mr. K., the then-Commanding Officer of the Coast Guard station (Don't ask me why he wasn't at the station working. I don't make the rules. He was obviously very good at delegating.) on the Causeway.
It was the break of dawn, and everyone was happy and excited and Mr. K.'s wife had brought doughnuts and thermoses of coffee and beer (wouldn't be a Coastie gathering without it) and we laughed and listened to music and danced and waited.
We cheered as Discovery lifted off into the Florida sky, and more than one of us was so proud we were weeping.
Later, Mr. K. went down to the station and my roommate and I went to KSC. We were delighted at all the Coast Guard t-shirts we were seeing on other visitors. I distinctly remember being too warm in my Coast Guard sweatshirt. (I also distinctly remember getting a terrible stomachache after eating a freeze-dried ice cream sandwich on a dare, but that's a story for another time.)

Crap, crap, a thousand times, crap.

Rumor has it that the President has been briefed by the Phoenix scientists on something really, really big:

I knew all this "exploring" was going to get us in trouble.

Buzz on Colbert.

New vid-ja updates.

Finally got my lazy self around to updating the Filmography links.
Please direct your attention to the sidebar to see Garrett's second smash appearance on "The Colbert Report."
Awesome stuff.

And the award for baddest-ass moon in the solar system goes to...

Titan, duh.

Seriously, what's next? It rolls up a pack of cigarettes* in its shirt sleeve and starts listening to Radiohead?
I mean, every frapping day, Titan gets a little bit more awesome.

*That's a joke, kids. There is absolutely nothing cool about smoking cigarettes. It's just a cultural reference.

Another spectacular photo on SpaceWeather

From SpaceWeather.com:


This morning in Iran, Mohamad Soltanolkottabi photographed the Moon tantilizingly close to the rising sun. "I went to Naghsh-e Jahan Square and took this picture in front of the Sheykh Lutfullah Mosque," he says.