Taking Up Space.

The Kármán Line defines “space”, you know, everything outside of Earth’s atmosphere. The line is at 100 km, or 62 miles above Mean Sea Level. The very lowest satellite is hanging out in orbit at 104 miles. The International Space Station maintains a low orbit altitude of approximately 250 miles. The moon is an average of 238,900 miles away from the surface of the Earth.

Earlier this week, Blue Origin sent Gayle King, Katy Perry, and four other women on an 11 minute ride in one of their tourist capsules to the Kármán Line. During this 11 minute ride they were weightless for approximately four minutes. The weightlessness was not because they had escaped Earth’s gravity, far from it, but rather because of the trajectory and velocity of the Blue Origin capsule.

The same weightlessness could have easily been achieved in the “Vomit Comet”, an aircraft which performs the same trajectories between 24,000 and 32,000 feet for a lot less money.

I was going to write this Blue Origin flight as just another rabid publicity stunt in this age idiotic publicity stunts, but the news keeps covering it because there’s been such a backlash about the stunt. I did not watch the event, I mean, why would I want to, but apparently Katy Perry kissed the ground like she was just returned to the Yanks after being a POW since Vietnam, and everyone on board took selfies for most of the trip. Gayle King has been defending the trip, asking the camera, “Have you been to space?”

OK Gayle, let’s calm down. You barely touched space at the upper reaches of the atmosphere, you didn’t do a damn thing but sit in or float above a seat, and honestly, what you did was absolutely no different than piling into a Waymo and taking a ride to the edge of Phoenix to go to Safeway. In fact, the Waymo ride would have been longer.

Hell, I’ve stood in line for Space Mountain longer than that gluttenous flight.

The flight this week costs millions of dollars, money that could have been used to do some great things right here on Earth. I find it incredibly insulting that everyone is now claiming these six passengers are “astronauts”*, and that it was an “all female crew”. 

They weren’t a crew. They didn’t push any buttons, spin any knobs, didn’t navigate, nothing. They were cargo at best. 

Claiming this idiotic flight was an all female crew is insulting to the incredible female astronauts NASA is firing from its rosters and scrubbing from its websites under the direction of the current administration.

This week’s Blue Origin flight was an example of the gluttonous tendencies of the rich, the idiocy of influencers, and the dichotomy of the American public.

You’re insulted, Gayle? I’m insulted that the news wasted space on this circus, orchestrated so Katy Perry could show off her next tour’s set list.  Trying getting grounded, Gayle.

Now that I have that off my chest, I was going to link to the Wikipedia page listing all the women astronauts, however, it includes the six passengers from this Blue Origin spectacle earlier this week. While I guess they are astronauts because they ‘touched’ the Kármán Line, I find it insulting that they’re included in this list since they were simply passengers.

One woman that I will always consider an astronaut, even though she didn’t make the technicality, is teacher Christa McAuliffe, who died in the Challenger explosion in 1986. She trained for the flight, was going to conduct experiments, teach classes, and was going to be a functional member of the crew as part of the “Teacher in Space Project”.

Her participation in that fateful Space Shuttle flight was the stuff that dreams were made of during my senior year of high school. I was genuinely excited to see what Christa was going to achieve in space and incredibly saddened by the turn of events.

ChristaMcAuliffe (cropped).

(image from Wikipedia)

 

It’s the science, not the spectacle that advances humanity to the stars. What Blue Origin did this week, under the guise of “feminism”, was nothing more than a spectacle.

 

*I have since learned that the term “astronaut” was modified in 2021 to include a “non-NASA vehicle as a crewmember and demonstrates activities during flight that are essential to public safety, or contribute to human space flight safety”. This is a commercial astronaut. Not the same thing, and I would hardly call the folks that flew on Blue Origin earlier this week as crewmembers. I still maintain they were cargo.

Repetitive.

I just realized my previous two entries were about sitting outside, enjoying the back patio and Mother Nature in general, and more specifically about my love of the wind.

It was not my intention to be repetitive.

However, the recurring theme in these two blog entries give insight as to how my brain works.

  • I have a fleeting thought
  • I write about the fleeting thought
  • I publish my fleeting thought
  • I forget the fleeting thought

My brain is wired to completely forget something when I consider it done, unless there’s something remarkable about it, whether it be a large or small detail. I’m thinking most human brains work this way. Perhaps this is just a habit of mine, but if I’m making small talk or something and a response to a question doesn’t have something remarkable in it for me to latch onto, I’ll probably forget it.

This drive my husband insane. And, it’s something that is becoming more prevalent as I get older.

It still drives him insane.

For example, we’ll be eating lunch and I’ll casually ask how he enjoyed his workout that morning. He’ll usually throw a few numbers that are impressive at me, and tell me it was a “good workout”. There is no mention of men shaving in their underwear in the locker room or anything. My brain, processing a few hundred things at any given time (the freezer is making a noise, the washer is on the spin cycle, Truman is sitting in the middle of the floor, Jinx is looking at Truman, Lucky is looking at Jinx, I wonder what kind of cash registers they’re using at the one remaining Kmart, etc), doesn’t find anything to latch onto in the response so it doesn’t go into the memory Rolodex. At all. Five minutes later, I’ll ask him how his workout went this morning.

“You already asked me and I told you it was good”.

I used to be feel bad for asking repetitive questions, but now that he reminds me I’m repeating myself all the time I just tell him, “thank you for maintaining such an accurate timeline”. Then I’ll look just to the left of an imaginary camera, hold the pause, and then think about how my comedic timing must be pretty close to Bea Arthur’s abilities in the same arena.

We then continue the lunch.

It is not my intention to be repetitive. Ever. That’s so repetitive and worse yet, it’s boring as hell.

I just can’t help that my brain is wired that way.

Lunch Break.

I’m taking a few moments to get fresh air on the back patio during my lunch break. The weather is moving back into a more seasonable territory, which is making it pleasant.

I like pleasant.

The wind is gently doing its thing as well, which adds just a touch of mystery to everything going on in the area. The desert winds have such an enjoyable vibe. I’ve always been a fan of the wind. The rustling of leaves, the song of wind passing through evergreens, the sound of the breezes passing over the desert terrain … it’s all so amazingly grounding for me.

It’s important to be grounded.

Relaxing.

I’m sitting out on the patio relaxing after another Monday at work. I’m working on my Storm Chasing studies, reviewing models for my chase week in May. These models are not a forecast, but they’re starting to become an indication of how much potential there will be for severe weather. Right now there a few brightly colored blobs on the relevant days, and this makes me happy.

I’m also watching the local radar. The weather forecast didn’t talk about rain at all, but there appears to be some precipitation to the west of us. It’s just a suggestion of a sprinkle, but I’ll take whatever we can get. The wind is suppose to be pick up each day through the week.

I enjoy the wind.

Screenshot 2025 04 14 1653.

Focus.

One of the things I’ve been focusing on in 2025 is improving my focus. We’ve all heard the studies and discussions about how social media, smartphones, and the like is zapping our ability to focus. Even as the social media companies expand the number of characters allowed in a post, it’s still training use to think in 140 or 280 character snippets.

I have noticed my ability to focus waning for a while now and at the beginning of the year I decided this was something I did not want to happen. I’ve been making a point of reading books more. While it’s difficult to step away from the computer and still be an informed citizen, especially in The Age of Manufactured Chaos™, I purposely close the computer and other connected devices 20-30 minutes before I go to bed. This habit has been hard for me to maintain. As a geek I’m very drawn to buttons, blips, and lights, but there’s something nearly magical for me to actually read a book each night before heading to bed. Writing about this intention helps me reinforce my desire to get this accomplished.

This blog occasionally holds me accountable to my plans.

I’ve also been trying to write more, though over the past couple of days I haven’t been doing it as much as I like. I have a couple of blog entries that I never finished; they’re nothing earth-shattering and will be posted soon with a date stamp of the day I intended for the post to appear. But writing gets my creative juices flowing. It’s something that I need to be doing more and more.

The other thing I’m always battling is distraction, again, especially in the my technological life. This is one of my stumbling blocks to using Linux exclusively; the Linux ecosystem becomes too fiddly and I end up spending more time fiddling with things instead of doing what I wanted to do, namely writing, editing photos, or making videos. Conversely, if I focus specially on one ecosystem (like going all in on Apple), I get really bored. Finding the sweet spot of focus with distraction or boredom is a challenge for me, but I seem to have that right now.

Again, I write these things to remind me of where I need to be.

I’m hoping to jump off the trend lines of losing focus with my fellow human beings. I think it’s a good step of improving my mental health which in turn could lead to a more fulfilling existence on the back half of my life.

Video: Record Heat, Fantastic Views!

Even though there’s been record heat in the desert for the past week or so, I was still able to get a hike in this past weekend. I went up to the Mount Lemmon Summit Trailheads for the first time this year and enjoyed the beautiful views and cooler temperatures.

I captured the experience in my latest episode on my YouTube channel; I hope you enjoy it! And if you feel so inclined, please subscribe to my YouTube channel to give the algorithm a boost but more importantly, so you are sure to catch new content when it becomes available.

If you’re following my blog via the Fediverse, thank you for that as well. Boosts of this post are very much appreciated.

Parking.

We’ve lived in this house for over four years. Truman moved here with us back in 2021 and he’s had a pretty established routine for the entire time we’ve been here. He has his preferred napping, observation, and alone time spaces in the house.

Over the past 24 hours this has seemingly changed.

He’s now parking himself at the top of our back stairwell at the entrance to what we call the “Activity Room”. He’s been doing a lot of napping in this spot and he’s been staying in the same spot for hours and hours.

He seems healthy and content. He purrs and gives me cat blinks/kisses to let me know all is good. I guess he’s just in the mood to stay in this one spot as some sort of stationary observer.

He had a follow up with the vet this past Monday and all is well. His little rash is all but gone.

Maybe the medicine just knocked him for a loop for a while.

Caturday.

The locals have been quite busy around the front bushes, trees, and porch area of our home. Truman has been busying himself keeping tabs on all the activity.

Demonstrative.

I really enjoy making videos. I enjoy figuring out how to grab an interesting shot, making compelling content, and most of all, editing all of the footage I’ve grabbed and trying to make it into a visually appealing, cohesive storyline. When I mention at the end of my videos, “I hope you’ve felt the inspiration I was trying to share with you”, I sincerely mean it. Putting out inspiring content is a goal of mine and, at the very least, I just want to put a smile on the viewer’s face or give them a positive moment in the whirlwind of life.

I suppose my video “art”, if one can really call it that, is an extension of my goals from back when I was on radio. I just wanted to make the listener smile, play some good music, and make a positive contribution, no matter how long or how brief, to their existence.

I was never one to try to establish a “name” for myself and I don’t feel the need to do that with my videos. And I’m OK with being a goofball in front of the camera. I mean, how many 56 year old men flap their arms like Uncle Arthur and use 1970s style special effects to disappear in the middle of a YouTube video made in 2025?

I know there’s a drive for YouTubers to monetize their channel and build an influencer following and the like, and I guess that’s all well and good for those folks, but I just don’t feel that need. Yeah, I enjoy the feedback via likes and subscriptions, but I’m never going to make a living as a YouTuber. If I can share an experience out on The Great Plains while chasing severe weather, or show folks the beauty of hiking in parts of the country they’ve never visited, then I’m content. I like the feedback but I don’t live for the feedback.

Unfortunately, we live in an existence that is over controlled by algorithms, and apparently, if I don’t get enough subscriptions and likes on my videos, they’re never suggested to others that may be perusing or scrolling through YouTube content.

I’m not a fan of an algorithmic existence.

That being said, if I want my content to get out there for others to see, I must play the algorithmic game a little bit. So, if you enjoy my videos, please feel free to hit the “like” button and better yet, subscribe to my YouTube channel.

I do have plans on expanding where I share my videos. When I started making videos in early 2024 I was hosting them on Vimeo, but apparently folks don’t really use Vimeo that much. I know there’s TikTok, but I don’t feel my content is really appropriate for there. Then of course, there’s the Fediverse driven PeerTube, which I need to figure out because I feel like there’s a bunch of people there that might enjoy my video “art”.

In the meanwhile, here’s the link to my YouTube channel.

https://youtube.com/@thatjpwing?si=4fqLPklkBfbRoYmQ

Sunset.

The sunsets in the desert always make me happy. Even when it’s hotter than usual and it seems summer has kicked in mid April.