I am hoping to make it to the Moore Observatory at Columbia Basin College with the Tri-City Astronomy Club on Sunday evening, July 3rd, to watch the NASA Deep Impact spacecraft plow into Comet Tempel 1. It is anticipated that ice and dust debris will be ejected and will reveal fresh comet material and that sunlight reflecting off the ejected material will provide a dramatic brightening that will slowly fade as the debris dissipates into space or falls back onto the comet.

Spacewriter.com passed along info that Kitt Peak Observatory in Arizona will be offering a live feed of the Deep Impact on the internet. The comet feed from Kitt Peak currently shows the most recent image of Comet Tempel 1 and an animation of the most recent images of the comet.

The Amateur Observers’ Program has good information for everyone, from beginers to pros. You can also visit the mission’s web sites at deepimpact.umd.edu and www.nasa.gov/deepimpact.

Matt recently wrote (note to self: find a stronger word) in his Welcome to Communism post that:

. . . the Supreme Court graciously handed us the precedent for plank #1 on a silver platter by deciding that it’s all right for local governments to sieze your land in the interests of private commercial development. In other words, if somebody decides they’d like to build a strip mall, and your house is in the way, and they can convince city hall to go for it (”we’ll bring in more tax revenue…”), the city can come in and take your house from you whether you like it or not.

Well I was just directed to how this new ruling will be put to use. ColdForged directed me to this article at FreeStar Media:

I just received an e-mail from Costco stating that you can now upload your photos to CostcoPhotoCenter.com and then go to the local warehouse and pick them up. Prices are pretty good too:

• 4″x6″ $0.17
• 5″x7″ $0.69
• 8″x10″ $1.99

They advertise you can order prints for pick-up at a Costco 1-Hour Photo Lab or have the photos delivered directly to you. You can store your photos online and share them with friends and family as well getting inexpensive prints & enlargements. You can edit and enhance photos with tools including cropping and red-eye removal, and you can create one-of-a-kind gifts like mouse pads, mugs, and t-shirts.

The CNN/Money article titled: “Car insurance: Cheap to cover - Insurance can add a lot to the cost of owning a car, but you don’t have to drive a snoozer to save” gives some good advice when looking to save money on car insurance.

Insurance costs can vary widely based on the car that you drive. Usually the new the vehicle and the more expensive it is, the more your insurance will cost. But CNN/Money says “the good news is that you don’t have to buy a boring minivan to save money. ” They then give some ways to keep your insurance costs down.

First and foremost, one of the most significant predictors of how much you will have to pay is YOU (and people like you):

The New York state based Times-Heral Record reports that 11 people were charged in stolen-car ring. Seems they conspired to have their own cars stolen. The cars were then sold and an insurance claim was filed - what better way to get the most value for your car! Not!

Newburgh – A 24-year-old suburban man was the brains behind a stolen-car ring that grabbed 19 vehicles in recent months and filed $166,000 in false insurance claims, the state attorney general’s office says.

Well, time to start cleaning out the old Komfort trailer. Either got to get it ready for the anual family reunion trip to the Long Beach Peninsula (Ocean Park) or buy a new one :) I ran across this list of the top 5 RV claims according to GMAC RV Insurance and most importantly - how to avoid them. The site also includes some checklists for getting your RV ready for the travel season.

GMAC Insurance top five RV claims:

<href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/bmaas/15296612/”> Was searching Technorati for thing related to the Tri-Cities and came across this photo of the Columbia River. When I looked at the other photos by the author, Barry Maas, I was really impressed. I used his photo of Mt St. Helens for the wallpaper on my wife’s laptop. <href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/bmaas/21341656/”>

Well, this was funny, and gave me the opportunity to explain family planning with my 11 year old boys. Don’t have the kids around if you don’t want to do any explaining :)

From Knowledge Jolt with Jack :

Anyone who has kids will appreciate this, and anyone who doesn’t have them should see it.

Games for the Brain has 20 different games that will challenge you and wake up those old grey cells. They also have a forum where you can discuss each game - brag about your abilities - or complain.

Looks like a fun site to check out more thoroughly.

Via - lifehack.org

I just finished listening to this abridged version of Himalayan Passage. It originally aired in August 2004 on Wisconsin Public Radio’s Chapter a Day program. It was read by Jim Fleming in ten 30-minute segments. I save the MP3 files from the archive on a regular basis to play back later. It was an interesting book - hard to believe someone had 7 months to walk around!

For a few months in 1987 the Chinese allowed relatively unrestricted access to Tibet for Western travelers. Jeremy Schmidt and his photographer friend Pat Morrow, along with their wives Wendy and Baiba, took advantage of the opening and traveled by bike and foot and truck through the country.

Stacey Palevsky of the Tri-City Herald reported on Tuesday, July 12th, 2005 that:

One-of-a-kind World War II artifacts (a flight jacket and goggles) from the Day’s Pay B-17 bomber were stolen from Richland High School during the weekend.

“This is much more than just memorabilia,” said Richland police Capt. Mike Cobb. “This is not something that can be replaced. It’s definitely one-of-a-kind.”

The leather flight jacket is brown with the name “Captain Wineiger” stitched on the front. On the back is a painting of the Day’s Pay and a B-24 bomber named “Shoo Shoo Baby.”

Day’s Pay dates back to 1944, when more than 50,000 workers from the Hanford Engineering Works Project donated a full day’s pay, collecting nearly $300,000 to buy a B-17 bomber to give to the Army Air Force. They nicknamed it “Day’s Pay” during a dedication ceremony at Hanford Airport on July 23, 1944.

Capt. Arlys Wineiger’s jacket and radioman Allen Cohen’s headgear were donated to Richland High in 1998.

Anyone with information about the stolen jacket or flight headgear is asked to contact Qualheim at 942-2519 or the Richland Police Department at 628-0333. Cobb said anyone who sees someone wearing the jacket should call 911.

I have never understood what prompts people to do such things. It cannot be the money - like stealing stereos from cars? I mean the things cost $100 to buy new - and are pretty much worthless when ripped out of a dash. And then it costs $500 to fix the car to replace a $100 stereo.

For more information about the Day’s Pay check out my Day’s Pay GeoCache

Jeffrey J. Meyers, pastor of Providence Reformed Presbyterian Church in St. Louis, MO, writes about paedocommunion in an article at Salem Reformed Church. The article is now rewritten and appears as a chapter in his book: The Lord`s Service: the Grace of Covenant Renewal Worship.

He makes some very good arguments that communion is for the whole Body of Christ.

Is the Table only for the strong and intelligent?

The admonition, “let a man prove himself” (1 Cor. 11:28) means: let a man show that he rightly judges the unity of the body of Christ as he comes to the Table. Let his actions demonstrate to all (especially to the elders) that he is one who lives in a manner that manifests his unity with the brethren.

Thus Paul indicts the church for eating and drinking “unworthily” (1 Cor. 11:27). “Unworthily” (anaxios) is an adverb that modifies the verb “eat.” Paul is not talking about checking to see if you are a worthy person before you come to the Table. He is talking about how you partake of the Supper.

And then he makes the strong statement:

Now, who really are those who are guilty of not “discerning the Lord’s body”? Are they the little baptized children of the church who have not yet attained intellectual maturity or are they those who bar such children from the Table? Who really is guilty of sinning against the “body of Christ”? Our covenant children? Or our theologians and pastors who deny them a place at their Lord’s Table? Who really ought to be fenced from the Table? Christ’s little ones or traditionalist Presbyterians theologians who continue to oppose the unity of the entire body of Christ, adults and children, around his Table? I am, of course, overstating the case somewhat. But not much. If while he was on earth Jesus was “indignant” with his disciples when they tried to hinder little covenant children from being brought to him (Mark 10:14), why should we think that his attitude has changed toward the little ones that are members of his body today? If Paul’s fundamental concern is the unity of the body of Christ around the Table, and if his admonition to “prove oneself” is directed at those who divide the body at the Table, then, in my humble opinion, traditional Presbyterian theologians have some serious self-examination to perform before they come to the Lord’s Table.

I used TestDisk the other day to recover a hard drive that all of a sudden my system was ‘unable to read’. I was amazed how quickly this worked! It found the ‘missing’ partition table, rewrote it, and I was back in business.

The programs description of itself:

TestDisk is a powerful data recovery utility! It was primarily designed to help recover lost partitions and/or make non-booting disks bootable again when these symptoms are caused by faulty software, certain types of viruses or human error (such as accidentally erasing your Partition Table).

TestDisk can run under DOS (either real or in a Windows 9x DOS-box), Windows 32-bit (NT4, 2000, XP, 2003), Linux OSs, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD and SunOS; precompiled binary executables are available for DOS, Win32 and Linux.

TestDisk queries the BIOS (DOS/Win9x) or the OS (Linux, FreeBSD, Windows) in order to find the Hard Disks and their characteristics ( LBA size and CHS geometry). TestDisk does a quick check of your disk’s structure and compares it with your Partition Table for entry errors. If the Partition Table has entry errors, TestDisk can repair them. If you have missing partitions or a completely empty Partition Table, TestDisk can search for partitions and create a new Table or even a new MBR if necessary.

However, it’s up to the user to look over the list of possible partitions found by TestDisk and to select the one(s) which were being used just before the drive failed to boot or the partition(s) were lost. In some cases, especially after initiating a detailed search for lost partitions, TestDisk may show partition data which is simply from the remnants of a partition that had been deleted and overwritten long ago.

TestDisk has features for both novices and experts. For those who know little or nothing about data recovery techniques, the command line parameters /log and /debug can be used to collect detailed information about a non-booting drive which can then be sent to a tech for further analysis. Those more familiar with such procedures should find TestDisk a handy tool in performing onsite recovery.

Well, finally a reason to play golf! This looks like a great prank. Just be sure to stand far enough away from your golfing buddy not to get a putter wrapped around your head!

Golf - a good walk ruined, unless of course you have a remote-controlled golf ball, and then it’s hilarious. Just as your partner reaches their backswing apogee (or whatever it’s called) you set the ball trundling off the tee! It’s exceedingly stupid and great fun.

The ball has a little spinning gyro in it, and when you activate it from the remote it spins off in random directions. The acceleration varies depending on the ground, and due to its small size it obviously works best on smoother surfaces such as green and tees. All you have to do is make sure you’ve completely charged the golf ball in its neat little charging cradle, switch on the transmitter, and select the frequency band shown on the ball. Push or pull back the control shaft on the transmitter to drive or vibrate your golf ball and wait for the inevitable laughs. Utterly daft, and it’ll probably even improve your handicap.

Found the U.S. Department of Labor site which shows the statistics for economy of the Tri-Cities.

I am amazed to see the growth over the last 5 years! No wonder they are building apartments all over the place. If I am reading this right, the workforce here is growing at a good clip over the last 10 years. Clicking the Back Data button gives some graphs over the last 10 years for the labor force, employment, and unemployment.

Will want to come back to this site and explore some more.