Coffee Klatch

I just sent a birthday greeting to Buzz Aldrin!

On January 20, 2010, Astronaut Buzz Aldrin turns 80 years old. To honor the man who has contributed so much to space exploration and the world, The Planetary Society will be presenting him with a giant birthday card — a card with the good wishes of people from all over the world!

These birthday wishes will be delivered to Buzz at a party being held in his honor on January 23, so don’t wait!

You can send Buzz Aldrin a birthday message online at:
http://www.planetary.org/special/fromearth/buzz

Celebrated choral and handbell conductor, loving family member, and loyal friend to many David R. Davidson lost his courageous battle with cancer in the early morning of Saturday, September 5, 2009.  I personally know many people who have worked with David as clinician and conductor and have only heard ever the best of him.

A wonderful tribute site has been hosted by the American Guild of English Handbell Ringers.

Has anyone else noticed how many celebrities have died in the last few weeks? The last week of June was certainly busy. Here’s a list of those I’ve heard about:

• David Eddings (fantasy author) – June 2
• David Carradine (actor) – June 3
• Ed McMahon (TV personality) – June 23
• Farrah Fawcett (model & actress) – June 25
• Michael Jackson (singer & pop superstar) – June 25
• Gale Storm (actress) – June 27
• Billy Mays (pitchman) – June 28
• Fred Travalena (comedian) – June 28
• Karl Malden (actor) – July 1
• Mollie Sugden (British actress) – July 1
• Steve McNair (football player) – July 4
• Robert McNamara (Sec. of Defense during Vietnam) – July 6

Sure, people die all the time, but it never seems to impact us as much as when they are people we know. While not many of us can claim to have “known” these or other celebrities, we know enough OF them that it can still affect us. There are articles starting to pop up about how regular people, especially young people, are being impacted by so many celebrity deaths. Especially so many so close together.

I’m sure this happens all the time, where a week goes by with several famous people dying. It seems these were just a little higher profile this time. Still, it does make you think about the impact you are leaving on the world.

What do you want to be remembered for?

If you were to die this week, what would people remember most about you? How successful you were? How driven you were to make money? How you were a dedicated parent? How you helped other people? Would you be remembered for always having a ready smile or a helping hand?

As I’ve said for many years now: “Invest your life in people; that’s the only thing that will last.”

Billy Mays, the pitchman for OxiClean, Kaboom, and Orange Glo, was found dead in his Tampa, FL, home today. Here’s a link to one of the many articles about him, this one from CNN.com.

Recent research has discovered that long-necked dinosaurs held their necks horizontally rather than vertically. As this article says, more like a horse than a giraffe (see the picture).

There are quite a few reasons why scientists have concluded this, but a couple quick summary reasons are that their hearts would have had to have been tons larger and stronger to pump blood up that high, and that they would have had to spend half their energy just holding their heads up.

To generate high enough blood pressure to keep its head held high [over 36 feet higher than its heart], the dinosaur’s heart would have needed to have been five times thicker and 15 times heavier than that of an animal with more average blood pressure, according to the study.

Discovery News has the whole article which is really interesting. It’s only two pages, so you really should read it. They also state that we can probably expect to see these long-necked dinosaurs changing their appearance in future movies, books, etc.

This is a very cool thing. Take the principles of Distributed Computing, social networking, and people’s free time and combine them with a need that takes a lot of money and work to fill and you have BlueServo. NPR ran a story on it a couple days ago, which is how I found out about it.

The Texas Border Sheriff’s Coalition (TBSC) has instituted the Texas Virtual Border Watch Program to enlist the public’s assistance in preventing crime along the Texas-Mexico border. This initiative provides real-time streaming video over a web-based network to enable the public to report suspicious activity to the appropriate law enforcement agency via email. Day and night surveillance cameras have been placed strategically throughout the border region to deny drug and human smugglers unobserved access to the U.S. by placing high-threat areas under public surveillance. The numbers and locations of these cameras will constantly change based on threat.

The short version is that you can help monitor border crossings of the Texas-Mexico by becoming part of the Virtual BorderWatch and signing up as a “Virtual Texas Deputy.” All you have to do is watch one of their many webcams. If you see anything they tell you to be looking for, you click a button and report it. Local county sheriffs respond to the reports, conduct investigations, and take whatever actions are needed, if any. All you need is an email account and you can begin helping monitor our border. There’s no time commitment or anything–you just watch when you can.

A Virtual Border Fence! What a great idea! Already over 48,000 people have signed up as Virtual Texas Deputies.

The CNN website has a regular video feature called News of the Absurd. This week’s talks about someone who is allergic to cold, a town that used GARLIC SALT on their roads, and a “Don’t Try This At Home” story involving a homemade blowtorch.

Do you think you know the geography of the Middle East? How about the broader region including North Africa? Try out this fun little game. It’s on an education-based website and they don’t score you per se, but give you as many tries as you need to drag the country names onto the map.

Check it out: http://www.rethinkingschools.org/just_fun/games/mapgame.html

Michael Crichton died on Election Day. He was one of my favorite authors. I always appreciated how well he researched topics before writing a book about them. Evidence of his compelling stories, characters, premises, and plots lies in the number of his books that have been made into movies. Here’s the list:

The Andromeda Strain (1971)
The Terminal Man (1974)
The Great Train Robbery (1979)
Jurassic Park (1993)
Rising Sun (1993)
Disclosure (1994)
Congo (1995)
The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997)
Sphere (1998)
The 13th Warrior (1999)
Timeline (2003)

This isn’t counting original screenplays (e.g., Westworld, Twister, and others) or materials he wrote under pseudonyms while he was a med student. Pretty impressive. The literary and film-making worlds will mourn him.

His official website
Bio and Trivia from IMDb