This morning at 4:14am Eastern Time, I got to see something I’ve never seen before, a space shuttle launch.  It was STS-130, and probably the last night time shuttle launch ever.

I was about 3 months old when Apollo 12 went to the moon, and about 11 years old when the thing we now call the “space shuttle” first flew.  For the next 10 years of my life, I thought I would become an aerospace engineer.  Back then, scientists and the media predicted there would be regular commercial space travel by the year 2010 or so, and I imagined I’d go into space.  Well, my personal interests changed and Challenger put a big damper on things.

Time passed, and somehow when I got to age 40, I still hadn’t seen a space shuttle launch (or any rocket launch bigger than an Estes model).  The space shuttle program is being retired later in 2010, with only 5 more missions planned, so time was running short to see one.  I took off a few days from work and made travel plans to visit Florida with Beth.  The main point of the trip was to see the shuttle launch, but we also went to do some birding (the area all around Kennedy Space Center is wildlife refuges, national seashores, and so on).

STS-130 is a shuttle mission to deliver one of the remaining major pieces of the International Space Station.  It was scheduled to launch at 4:39am on February 7.  I heard we could get VIP tickets by asking our Congressional representatives, so I arranged through Senator Udall’s office to get 2 Congressional VIP passes.  I was surprised to learn that you have to show up about 4.5 hours before launch time in order to go through security and take the bus to the viewing site.  So I could tell this was going to be an all-nighter.

Saturday night, after a long day of birding, walking on the beach, bar-hopping, and visiting Beth’s ex-boyfriend (along with his wife and step-daughter), we showed up at a parking lot near Sears on Merritt Island.  We stood in line for over an hour before getting checked in.  The long line was the first indication that this wasn’t exactly the “VIP” experience I was hoping for.  It was several hundred people, and although we were told to not bring coolers or bags, everyone else had sleeping bags, folding chairs, backpacks, camera tripods, blankets, etc.  We eventually boarded bus #6 and they drove us to Kennedy Space Center.

At KSC, the bus had to then wait in a long line of buses for about another hour.  Once our bus got to the front, we all had to get off, leaving everything on the bus, so we could go through the metal detector.  While we were off the bus, a bomb sniffing dog inspected it.  That went quick, and we were back on the bus in no time at all.  Then, it was another 15 or 20 minute drive to the viewing area.

As Congressional VIPs we got free admission, but the bus dumped us off at the same place as everyone else.  You can go through a tour company and pay about $58 per person to get a bus ride to the same place with the same amenities as we got.

The viewing area was a long narrow man-made island with a road called the NASA causeway.  Amenities included access to a port-a-john, a souvenir stand, and a snack bar.  And if you get there early enough, you can grab one of NASA’s white plastic chairs.  Otherwise you sit on the ground.  About this time it was 2:30 in the morning, so everyone was cold and it was dark, so the mood wasn’t really jovial.  Many people were asleep.

As we were getting off the bus, though, I’d gotten a bad feeling about the weather in the form of a Tweet on my cell phone saying that weather conditions were now “no go”.  They improved later on, but then they got worse again.  So, by launch time, there was a layer of low clouds that caused the launch Sunday morning to be scrubbed.

So we got back on the bus, went back to the parking lot, and then drove back to our hotel in the dark.  Unfortunately, about 30,000 other people were trying to drive back the same direction, and it took us over an hour to get to our hotel.  We arrived just as the sun was rising, and then tried to rest up for another day of it.

NASA told us they were going to reschedule for the next day, only this time we should show up at the Sears parking lot half an hour earlier because the second attempt was going to be at 4:14am instead.  So Sunday night we arrived at 11:30pm.  We knew the drill from the previous night, and so we made a few improvements.  This time we brought Pepsi, Starbuck’s Mocha Frappuchino, some chips, and a turkey sandwich.  Also, I studied the road map to find a way to get back to our hotel without hitting traffic.

About 25% of the people from the previous night couldn’t attend the second night.  And NASA didn’t feel they needed to recheck people’s IDs.  So getting through the line was only about 15 minutes instead of 75 minutes.  And our bus was the first one to the security checkpoint, so we didn’t have to wait there, either!  It was smooth sailing, and we were one of the first buses to arrive at the causeway, so we were even able to get two chairs.  We staked out our space in the front row, with an unobstructed view of the launch pad.

From the end of the causeway we were on, it’s about 7 miles to pad 39A, which is where this shuttle was set up to launch from.  Turns out there’s a pad 39B that shuttles can use, too, but that one is a little more distant, I guess.

The view was amazing.  Even though it was 7 miles away, there are the biggest floodlights you’ve ever seen that bathe the entire shuttle and pad in light so you can see it in the middle of the night.  I had good binoculars borrowed from my brother Kent, and could see it really well through those.  Beth set up her tripod with her camera because she wanted to get some photos and knew she’d need a tripod so the camera wouldn’t shake around.

The downside of the quick travel to the viewing area was that once we were there, we had to sit and stand around in the cold breeze for about two and a half hours.  It was around 45 degrees, with a cool moist breeze blowing right in our faces from across the water.  So we entertained ourselves with some ballroom dancing, random jumping around, and occasional walks down to the big countdown sign by the bleachers.  Anything to stay warm.  The people who brought sleeping bags and blankets?  Well, they were warm enough to sleep, but I don’t know how they did it, with the NASA announcer talking through the loudspeakers all night.

One thing I learned about shuttle countdowns is that when they say it’s at “T minus 2 hours” or whatever, that doesn’t really mean it’s going to launch in 2 hours.  There are several planned “holds” in the countdown.  I don’t know what they’re doing during these holds, but it’s essentially like a timeout on the game clock for your favorite sporting event.  The big one was the “T minus 9 minutes” hold.  Once the clock resumes with 9 minutes to go, it’s pretty much a done deal that the shuttle is going to launch.

T minus 9 minutes is where the launch was scrubbed Sunday morning due to weather, so you can imagine the cheering on the causeway when the SRO (Superintendent of Range Operations) made a “GO” call this morning, meaning he was satisfied with the weather at all abort landing sites, including Kennedy.  Once they started the 9 minute clock, things happened fast, and just like you’ve seen on TV and in the movies.  Of course, most of those are daytime launches, and this one was in the dark, which made it interesting.

At T minus 6 seconds, the three main engines turned on and all the water that’s part of the noise suppression system turned to steam.  That cloud of steam rose up so I couldn’t see the orbiter anymore.  Then there was this super bright light behind the white clouds.  That was the solid rocket boosters lighting.  Once those are lit, there’s no coming back, so they blew the explosive bolts holding the shuttle down.  Six seconds later, the shuttle rose above the cloud of steam and cleared the launch tower.  I was still looking through the binoculars at this point, but that didn’t last long.  That’s a brilliant light with all five engines going full blast at once, and I couldn’t look straight at it.

So I put down the binoculars and enjoyed the rest of the show with the naked eye.  At this point, there was no way I could make out the orbiter.  All I saw was the brightest man-made light I can imagine.  We were 7 miles away, and the whole area lit up for miles around like sunrise.  I could see the other islands, the water, all the buildings in the distance, and everyone around me.  At twelve seconds after the main engines ignited, the sound hit.  That’s something I hadn’t thought of until this trip.  Being 7 miles away, the shuttle was already way up in the air by the time I heard it.  Then 3 seconds later it got even louder, as the sound from the solid rockets hit.

As Endeavour was continuing up into the sky, it passed through a cloud that made a really cool halo effect around its bright light.  The night sky was so clear this morning that I was able to watch the shuttle continue on up and up for a few minutes.  Through the binoculars, I saw the solid rocket boosters separate and fly away from the rest of the shuttle.  Then the light from the shuttle shrunk to the size of a distant airplane.  Then to the size of a star.  And then I couldn’t see it any more.

As we packed up our things, I noticed that the intense light and sound from the launch woke up all the birds in the area.  The causeway was swarmed with dozens of sea birds that we hadn’t seen until then.  I continued to listen to the PA system, wanting to savor every last second.  I heard them call that they could now make it to orbit on only two of the three remaining engines.  And then, that they could now make it on just one engine.  And finally, I heard them announce “nominal MECO” – main engine cut-off.  That means the main engines were turned off, the big liquid fuel tank was separated, and Endeavour was coasting to orbit.

So with Endeavour successfully launched, we got back on the bus, and headed home.  My alternate route back to the hotel paid off and we didn’t get stuck in any traffic.  So we stopped at IHOP for a very sleepy breakfast, and then to a warm cozy bed for a few hours.  I think I finally woke up at about 1pm.

Here are a few links if you want to learn more about all this.

First, the generic Wikipedia article on the Space Shuttle.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_shuttle

Here’s a Wikipedia page specifically about the shuttle mission we saw launched.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-130

NASA, of course, has their own web page about STS-130.
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/shuttlemissions/sts130/index.html

Here are some photos from a journalist who got to watch the launch from the top of the Vehicle Assembly Building.
http://blogs.nationalgeographic.com/blogs/news/breakingorbit/2010/02/sts130-launch-coverage-launch.html

Here’s a YouTube video of the launch, taken from NASA’s TV station:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_M4mxgCwXk

For the past year, I’ve been working on a film called “Kung Fu Sushi Chefs.” It’s the biggest film project I’ve ever been involved with, and has a cast and crew of about 50. We did a “test shoot” to try some things out and learn from our mistakes. Now, that test shoot is a short film of its own, and it’s going to premiere on Saturday January 30 in Denver at 7:00pm. If you’re around, you should come check it out. Here is a link to the flyer:

http://www.kungfusushichefs.com/files/BirthdayGirlFlyer.pdf

I’m currently spending two weeks in Austin, Texas for my job.  I decided to stay in town for the weekend, mainly to avoid the hours of travel back home just to turn around and spend hours to travel back to Austin.  But I decided I might as well take advantage of the weekend.  Here’s the story of my Saturday.

—-

Friday night I turned in early so I could rest up for Saturday, the day of my hajj to the Mecca of Texas barbecue, a town by the name of Lockhart.  Lockhart is about an hour’s drive south of Austin, and has the reputation of being the center of the universe of BBQ in Texas.  Though there’s only a population of about 11,000, there are at least 6 barbecue joints, and 3 of them are world famous.

The drive south, once I left the Austin burbs, was fairly scenic.  It goes through a few small towns and skirts farm and ranch land, with low forests.  Then the roadsigns started to appear – Lockhart 20, Lockhart 10, Lockhart 4, and then I was suddenly there!  The town has a really cute little old downtown area, exactly the sort of thing that Broomfield lacks.  In the center of the town square is the courthouse, and on all four sides are a variety of struggling shops – a barber, a defunct coffee shop, a realtor, a cleaners, etc.  I later learned that to the south of the downtown area is where all the more modern development and shopping is.  As you see so often in American small towns, it’s a steady stream of “same shit everywhere” businesses.  Beth calls that sort of development SSE, and all the usual suspects are here: McDonald’s, Sonic, gas stations, motels, and so on.  I’m sure if I kept driving I’d eventually hit a Wal-Mart.  But I didn’t, because I wanted to savor the old town of Lockhart.

My first food stop was Kreuz Market, considered by many to be the best barbecue in Texas (Tripadvisor users have voted it #1 restaurant in town).  They outgrew their old digs downtown and built a huge building closer to the edge of town in 1999.  It seats hundreds.  Here, you get your meat in one room, and then, optionally, get your sides and drinks in another.  It’s a little weird, but makes it simpler for people who just want to pick up some smoked meat to take home.  At Kreuz, everything other than the meat really is considered optional.  They’ve got a variety of side dishes like sauerkraut, beans, cheese, onions, and so on.  But they don’t have barbecue sauce.  That’s on purpose.  When you eat barbecue this good, why mask the flavor with a sauce?  You know how you can tell the quality of a steak restaurant by whether they put steak sauce on the tables?  A good steak doesn’t need any, a bad one does.  Well, same idea here with the smoked meats.

I decided to order one original link sausage and a half pound of beef shoulder.  They cut this up to order and put it all, along with a few slices of white bread, on a double layer of thick butcher paper.  I paid in the meat room for the meat (about $7, I think), and then made my way into the side dish room, which is where the tables are.  There I bought a (glass) bottle of RC Cola (about $1.80) to wash it all down with.  And then I sat, savored, and reflected.  The meat was excellent.  The sausage is unusually peppery, but the beef shoulder was awesome.  In keeping with the “less is more” theme, Kreuz supposedly only uses salt and pepper as their rub for the beef.  I ate without a fork, ripping off chunks of meat and either stuffing them directly in my mouth or putting them on pieces of bread to roll into a little sandwitch.  I didn’t finish it all, since I wanted to save some room for later.  But on the way out, I had to stop by the souvenir and dessert register to get a Kreuz Market t-shirt, a pecan praline, and an apple snack pie for later.

Outside, I sized up the wood pile.  As you can imagine, it’s huge.  They’ve got an entire part of the yard fenced off just for their wood, with barbed wire at the top of the fence to keep out would-be wood thieves.  A car club of Buick owners happened to be there, and I checked out all the classic cars before leaving.

One important thing I noticed from my visit was the crowd timing.  I got there about 11:35 and there were only about 5 people in front of me.  But by 12:05, the line was all the way out the door.  Even with 4 registers going, I bet it took 20 or maybe 30 minutes to get through the meat line.

My second lunch was a trip to Black’s.  It’s about a block and a half from the town square, and sits in a much older building.  Compared to Kreuz Market, it’s a newcomer to town, being established in 1932.  Black’s Barbecue seems to be more oriented as a restaurant.  It’s definitely smaller, but they’ve got the flow of things set up on the assumption you’re there for a meal.  After standing in line, I got to the side dish bar, which is self serve.  I grabbed a plastic plate and decided my only side dish was going to be a half a dill pickle.  The line then wound to the meat area and the cash registers.  Here, I ordered one slice of beef brisket, one slice of turkey, and a jalpeno cheddar hot link.  I should have tried a pork rib or two, but figured that would just be too much.  They sliced the meat, weighed it, put it on my plastic plate, and then took my money.  I decided to just drink ice water this time.

The dining room is made up of a bunch of long tables.  The day I was there a TV or film crew was also there interviewing customers, which was a little interesting to watch.  But then I brought my focus back to the task at hand, enjoying my barbecue.  And now, I thought, comes the time I have to do the inevitable comparisons between Black’s and Kreuz.  The brisket I had at Black’s was even better than the beef shoulder I had at Kreuz.  Maybe it was because of how the extra fat absorbs the smoke flavor, but I could eat that brisket all day long.  The smoked turkey was just so-so, but I’ve got to admit I’m not a huge fan of smoked turkey anyhow, except when it’s in sandwiches or some other dish.  I could definitely tell the turkey was brined before it was smoked.  I may be the only one in the world who feels this way, but I don’t really like brining; I’d rather taste more of the natural flavor of the bird.  Finally, the jalapeno cheddar sausage wasn’t as good as the sausage at Kreuz.  I wasn’t a huge fan of Kreuz’ sausage, either, so I guess either I’m not a sausage fan or I just haven’t found the right one.

On my way out of Black’s I stopped to pick up a souvenir t-shirt, as I did earlier at Kreuz.  Near the souvenir display case was a framed copy of a Texas state assembly proclamation from 1999.  It declared Lockhart as the official Barbecue Capital of Texas.  And with that in mind, stomach distended from eating two lunches of mainly meat in one day, I drove back to Austin.

Kreuz Market

http://www.kreuzmarket.com

Black’s Barbecue

http://www.blacksbbq.com

Today at the office, the receptionist, known only as JH, sent out an all-hands email:

I couldn’t help but think maybe someone took the headset in the interests of good taste.  It reminded me of this Wired cover from a few months back.  Here’s an interesting commentary on it:

Marketing Actuary: Brad Pitt, Bluetooth Headsets and You
DITCH THE HEADSET. He can barely pull it off and you are not him.
— Wired, Issue 17.08

I just got this email from Google:

It’s finally here: Google Chrome for Mac. Available today in beta!

Hi there,

Thanks for signing up to hear from us regarding Google Chrome for Mac! We’re excited to let you know that Google Chrome is now available in beta for Mac OS X.

Here are a few fun facts from us on the Google Chrome for Mac team:

• 73,804 lines of Mac-specific code written
• 29 developer builds
• 1,177 Mac-specific bugs fixed
• 12 external committers and bug editors to the Google Chrome for Mac code base, 48 external code contributors
• 64 Mac Minis doing continuous builds and tests
• 8,760 cups of soft drinks and coffee consumed
• 4,380 frosted mini-wheats eaten

Thanks for waiting and we hope you’ll give Google Chrome for Mac a whirl.

Google Chrome Team
www.google.com/chrome

I’m glad that Chrome for Mac is finally available, even if it’s just a beta.  Of course, what software by Google isn’t “beta” anyhow?

But I’m even more concerned, as a software quality professional, by the numbers they posted.  They say they only wrote 73,804 lines of code and fixed 1177 bugs.  In the QA field, there’s a measurement we use to gauge the quality of source code for a product, and we call it “defect density.”  In short, it’s the number of bugs per thousand lines of source code.

Good software has a low defect density, and bad software has a high defect density.  Typically you see numbers in the range of 0.1 to 1.0 bugs per thousand lines of code.  One study of several open source software applications showed an average of 0.3.  But judging from Google’s own numbers, their Mac code has a defect density of 15.9.  That’s a higher defect density than I think I’ve ever measured at any company I’ve worked for.

So now I’m wondering if I really want to download and install Google Chrome for Mac.  With a defect density this bad, is it going to crash at every turn?  What’s your opinion?

Here is some much-needed GOOD NEWS from the War on Terror:

After a long two days of legislative battle, the House Judiciary Committee just finished its second day of debate on Chairman Conyers’ PATRIOT reform bill, HR 3845 (see our wrap-up of the first day). Thanks in no small part to those of you who used our action alert, the Committee rejected almost all amendments that would have weakened the bill’s reforms and voted to recommend the bill to the House floor by a vote of 16 to 10.

Even better, the Committee kept going after it was finished with PATRIOT to consider Representative Nadler’s State Secret Protection Act (HR 984), which would reform the state secrets privilege that the government has repeatedly used to try and throw EFF’s warrantless wiretapping cases out of court. After an impassioned defense by Mr. Nadler, who described how the government has used the privilege like a “magic incantation” to cover-up wrongdoing and warned that state secrecy “is the greatest threat to liberty at present,” the bill passed with even better numbers than the PATRIOT bill, 18 to 12!

Two Battles Won: PATRIOT Reform AND State Secrets Reform Bills Pass House Committee | Electronic Frontier Foundation

I’ve seen a lot of Hong Kong action movies.  Certainly not as many as the very dedicated fans, but way more than 99% of the American population.  This segment from an action scene in a film with the English title “A Chinese Torture Chamber” takes “action” in a whole new direction.

Warning: You are probably not going to enjoy this unless you (a) know and appreciate the traditions of Hong Kong action cinema and (b) are not averse to explicit sex scenes.

Now, with that warning out of the way, go check out this clip.  Here is the IMDB page about the film, for completeness.

Joseph Wiseman Dies: ‘Dr No’ Dead At 91

A moment of reverent silence, please, for the passing of Joseph Wiseman.  He played the Bond villain in the very first James Bond movie, “Dr. No”.  A coworker and I were just talking about that character earlier this week.  He didn’t get all the cool evil lines that later villains got, but he started it all.

Interracial couple denied marriage license in La. – Yahoo News
“A white Louisiana justice of the peace said he refused to issue a marriage license to an interracial couple out of concern for any children the couple might have.”

The couple live in Hammond, Louisiana, which is where I had my major ear surgery back in January.  The hospital sure was nice, I can say that.

Anyone want to guess how this issue will turn out?  Think the judge will be fired?  Or not re-elected?  Or whatever they do to bad judges in Louisiana?

Derek Powazek – Spammers, Evildoers, and Opportunists

Search Engine Optimization is not a legitimate form of marketing. It should not be undertaken by people with brains or souls. If someone charges you for SEO, you have been conned.

It’s hard for me to explain, but I’ve always felt like there’s something dirty and wrong about jobs where people make a living from “gaming the system.”  Let me give some examples that may help say what I mean.

To me, these jobs are “honest work”:

• Making something of value, whether it’s a house or lunch or a shirt
• Solving problems in the world, which includes things like medicine, diplomacy, and auto repair
• Creating something that brings joy to another, like painting and music

On the other hand, these jobs don’t seem like “honest work”:

• Stock trading, which is essentially legalized gambling with other people’s money
• Government bureaucrats who oversee other government bureaucrats for the purpose of perpetuating government bureaucracy

The “not honest work” type of jobs are those where people don’t actually make a product or provide a service, but instead make money by talking about other people who make a product.  Or whose livelihood is based on some derivative of the actual work.

When I was a kid, I didn’t like peas.  I still don’t, really.  But when I was a kid, and I didn’t want to eat my peas, sometimes I’d just push them around the plate and try to mash them into other food bits.  Mom wasn’t fooled, of course.  She’d point out, “You’re not really eating your peas, you’re just pushing them around your plate.”  To me, the “honest work” jobs are like really eating the peas, and the “not honest work” jobs are like pushing them around the plate and hoping nobody notices that you’re not really eating them.

From what little I know about “search engine optimization” it seems like a “not honest work” type of job.  There are people who make good websites with useful information.  That seems like eating your peas.  But then there are others whose job is to “game the system” of search engines to get more people to visit a particular site in hopes those people buy something there.  To me, that’s just pushing the peas around the plate.

The article I linked to boils down to “make something cool and sell it.”  This is in contrast to trying to trick people into viewing things that aren’t really cool, in hopes they buy them instead of the stuff that is really cool.

Search engines nowadays, ever since the rise of Google, are very good at naturally ranking the “cool” stuff high on the page of search results.  Leave Google alone and it finds the cool stuff on its own.  So it feels most “honest” to focus effort on making cool stuff, and just let Google just do its job.