Is this a new Swiss Army Knife tool?

The big space tidy-up has finally begun! The Swiss have put a cleaning tool into orbit to grab old non-functional satellites and push them into orbit to burn up. Watch this video for details.

So how do we get them to make more of these?

Everyone who puts stuff up into orbit should have one. It should be one of the essential Swiss Army Knife tools that space focussed countries should have. It would go really well with the cork-screw and scissors. Something you won't miss until you really miss it, so you should have one with you at all times.

Did the Soviet rocket hit some space debris?

Another one is coming down!

The Soviets launched a space ship meant to go to a Mars moon, gather some dirt, and send it back to Earth.

It never left orbit. Our orbit. The one around the planet we know as Earth.

As a matter of fact, it will actually be leaving orbit sometime in the next 3 days. It will be crashing back down onto the planet Earth. So once again we go on the "where will it hit?" guessing game. Some reports guess the Atlantic Ocean, others are betting on the Indian Ocean. That sounds familiar. It's good we have so much water here... but the oceans are going to get as polluted with space junk as the space above our heads soon.

So what caused the failure? No one is really sure. Could it be that some of the space junk flying around in orbit hit it? Do people planning to launch space ships have to develop a cushion mechanism for their rockets to get them through the space junk field now? Have we fenced ourselves in?

Update: It hit in the Pacific Ocean, to the west of Chile.

Anyone for a round of catch the elevator?

Typically, when you catch the elevator, it's to get in it and have it take you to another floor.

We have a new game in my condominium apartment building. We catch the elevator and lock it off, so it won't go anywhere.

This is due to the recent fire in our elevator room. See my blog entry on that!

We now have one of two elevators kinda working. It takes pressing many buttons, seemingly almost at random, to summon the elevator, and then there may be floor numbers lit up at random inside the elevator... but it will (likely) get you to the floor you want. And we only have a temporary license to operate it, so we are working on replacing the controls as soon as we can. But it beats using the stairs.

One of the functions of an elevator is to return to the ground floor, open the doors and turn itself off whenever the fire alarm goes off. Our elevator will not do this anymore. The fire department is not happy, but the temporary license lets us still use the elevator, and we have a couple of dozen warning signs telling people not to use the elevator if the alarm sounds.

But we're not relying on people to read signs if the alarm sounds, that's where the "catch the elevator" game starts. Each member of the Strata Council has a key that can be used to turn the elevator off if the alarm sounds. We're all on different floors.

So if the alarm goes off, we all try to summon the elevator to catch it and lock it off!

And then we run downstairs, and the one who caught it gets bragging rights.

Actually, the one who caught it then has to tell everyone, including the arriving firemen, where the elevator is.

It sounds like it could be a fun game, but we all still hope we don't have to play it!

Would you get rid of a Friday?

Samoa has decided to place itself on the other side of the international date line. To do this they had to skip a day. They picked December 30 - a Friday - to skip!

Who would skip a Friday? Friday is a good day - it's the run up to the weekend.

A Monday - most people who work a Monday to Friday workweek would gladly lose a Monday.

Tuesday - that's a good day. Monday is over, and you have time to get stuff done on a Tuesday.

Wednesday - that's the day I would get rid of. It's "hump" day. Once you get through Wednesday you are on your way to relaxing on the weekend. Getting it over with in the blink of an eye sounds like a marvelous idea to me!

Thursday - that's another good day. You can still get lots of stuff done, and the weekend is almost on you, so you have something to look forward to.

Friday - if you have mindless stuff to get done, Friday is your perfect time to do it. I've never been able to do anything solid after noon on a Friday. Anything I write is basically a write-off on a Friday. (What time is it now... oh, maybe I shouldn't be blogging right now... oh well, it's just for fun.)

Saturday - hands off. No one skips a Saturday.

Sunday - lazy sleep-ins and indulgent breakfasts at mid-day. No one in their right mind would get rid of a Sunday, and if they did, they would find themselves alone in taking on Monday before they have to.

Fire? What do you mean there's actually a fire?

I've been living in apartment buildings for a good 25 or so years now. I've lived through dozens of false alarms in these buildings. The alarms go off. Depending on your state of mind, and how high up you are, you either:

• curse the noise and wonder who set it off this time
• run to your kitchen to make sure you aren't the one on fire
• go out onto the balcony and look to see if there are any flames
• get out of the building, then find out if any of your neighbors who are outside know where the fire is

I find as we get older, the more cautious we are. We now choose to get out of the building, and then try to find out what, if anything, is on fire.

Of course, I use a wheelchair when I'm not in my home now. Getting out of the building takes on a whole new dimension now.

Luckily, my spouse is a runner of marathons and trail races. When we hear the fire alarm he runs downstairs and outside on an advanced scouting mission to see if there really is a fire, and reports back to me.

This morning he reported back yelling "Get up! There really is a fire!"

So much for the nice sleep-in I was having.

I can still walk short distances, slowly. Somehow my spouse had found 2 guys I may know in the building, they looked familiar - probably some maintenance guys doing work in the building. They did offer to carry me down, but that's just not appealing, and I can walk short distances, slowly. So I grabbed some clothes and threw them on, and they grabbed my manual wheelchair and one of them took it downstairs for me. OK, so when I make it downstairs, I'm good. Now it's just a matter of me making it downstairs.

So slowly, grabbing the railings, with one guy in front, and my husband behind me, I made it down a flight, then stepped aside to rest and let others get past on their way down. Then I started on another flight, and when I was almost down, half a dozen axe-carrying fire fighters came up, so I grabbed one railing with both arms and said "OK, go around me!" The fire was on the roof.

My goodness, firemen are large examples of the human form aren't they? One of the firemen offered to call in other firemen to carry me downstairs. I was doing OK, so I declined.

Thankfully, we are only on the fourth floor - or actually just three floors above the lobby, which has a ramp down to ground level. I made it down, and was very happy to see my wheelchair. Then outside we went.

Luckily it wasn't raining, but it was cold, and I didn't have shoes on - only socks - because I walk better when I can feel the ground with my feet. One of our neighbors manages the apartment building next to ours, so he let anyone who wanted to stay warm sit inside the lobby of that building.

Once the fire was out, we were told we could go back home. What started the fire? The elevators. The terms being used were "melted" and "you can't see much because of the smoke damage" in the room on the roof with the elevator controls. So none of the apartments were burned, which is good. But now we have no elevators. Probably won't have elevators for at least a week - and that's a hopeful evaluation. So we can all go home now... back up the stairs. 

Oy Vey.

I just looked up the term Oy Vey in Wikipedia. I'm using it in a very appropriate way. It means "oh pain".

Long story short, I made it back up to my home, but my arms are very tired, and the muscles of my best leg have complaints and grievances to discuss with me and the other leg.

So yes, we actually had a fire. And I have to report, after 25 years of false alarms, all the thinking "what will we do next time if it isn't a false alarm..." does make it easier to deal with when it really is a fire. So maybe the false alarms aren't just annoying. 

And man, are firemen huge, or what!

PS - my horoscope for today said: "If someone says you should not be concerned about what is going on in your immediate environment that means you should be very concerned indeed. Go out of your way to find out what it is – then act."

Did I really just alphabetize my roses?

Some people alphabetize their books on their bookshelves.

Some people wonder if it was the book titles or the authors that were alphabetized... because they're wondering which way to do it themselves. Others know that it's by author first and then book title. Yet others feel that it should be by author and then date of publication... 

... and that is one true sign of insanity.

But I just alphabetized the roses on my Flickr set. Does this put me a step closer to insanity than anyone with an organized bookshelf?

It's not as bad as it sounds, really. I was "pruning" my roses. My photographs have gotten better over the years, so I do occasionally remove some of the older, less appealing photos. Then I noticed an option to "alphabetize" the set of photos in one of the menus, so I chose it. Simple, really. Not that insane.

Of course, then I went and changed the titles on some of the roses so that they would sort properly. And "alphabetized" them again. That may have been the step over the line to insanity.

Then I had to fix the blog entry that was muddled from the reorganizing in Flickr.

No, I'm not trying to avoid doing other things that really need doing. Honest.

Am I addicted to photographing roses?

Roses, a set on Flickr.

Roses, a set on Flickr.
A rose by any other name would smell as sweet... Shakespeare

But most of them don't actually have much scent any more. The hybrid tea roses in particular are less than forward in the scent arena these days.

So why do I have 81 photos of them on my Flickr site? Why do I have at least 2 more batches of them to process and add to my Flickr site (probably 4 or 5 new photos to add from that)?

I'm not actually that attracted to roses... but I feel a compulsion to take photos of them!

When I'm in Stanley Park's Rose Garden the flowers just sit there looking picture perfect and daring me to go by without taking a shot. I can't resist.

The only way I can resist taking photos of more roses is when they don't have name posts letting me know who they are. "Lovely flower, but I don't know the name, so I won't bother taking a shot." is the only thing that saves me!

Sounds like an addiction to me.