Space Station Hoopty
The ISS (International Space Station) is falling apart. Now the Russian resupply ships are having trouble. I carry in my wallet a "Space Pen". I like it because it fits in my wallet and is rugged enough to take the beating it gets. Those pens are pressurized so they will write in a weightless or vacuum environment. Someone told me it will work under water too. A friend said "The Russians use pencils. That is a cheap way to avoid th weightless problem." Well, the lead (graphite) from pencils is a conductor. The dust created by writing with pencils gets in the instruments and causes failures. This shows lack of planning and research. There are two ways to look at space travel. Do tons of painstaking, expensive, time consuming research and tests to design the best missions that are most likely to be successful. Or, throw money and deadlines at a bunch of managers and watch things blow up. Space travel is expensive. You have to do your homework. It takes ages. It is hard. You don't always make headlines.

Calender
I've found myself with too many calenders. I have personal stuff and works stuff. For a while I had two work stuffs. I may have school stuff again in the future. I own a PDA. It has all the calender, phone, address, and to do abilities. I find myself just using it to synchronize my work and home Outlooks. I never use it as a PDA for anything. I need to find a mobile phone that coves this ability. I have it with me all the time. Mobile phones are going through a transition at the moment. They are half way between a PDA or Game Boy and phone. Where the trend will stop is anyone's guess. The evolution is messy. So many systems are proprietary. Some will not be supported in a year or so. It looks like Blackbury may have some new legal troubles. Wish me luck.

Random Thought
Speed of light
300,000 km/second
300,000,000,000 mm/second
Gigahertz
1,000,000,000 click cycles per second. (1 gHz)
Computer speed approaching the speed of light.
300,000,000,000 mm/s over 1,000,000,000 click cycles a second = 300 mm (about a foot)
At 4 gHz, light only travels 75 mm in a clock cycle. (That is 3 inches)

Ivan
Well, Florida has been hit by three hurricanes so far this year. One of them hit Florida twice (once to cross and the other through the panhandle). If any of these hurricanes had hit Houston, we would be in a bad way. I know some people who left lower Louisiana, only to return to relative calm. It looks like LA dodged another bullet. One of the commentators said "There are two places in the U. S. under sea level, the other one is Death Vally." He was speaking from Baton Rouge. That is a city, literally, in the bottom of a bowl. Being bordered by a river, a lake and the ocean make for rough going in large storms. I heard it would only  take six or ten inches of rain in a short period of time to put eighteen feet of water in Baton Rouge. It looks like Alabama got a good shot of Ivan.