Please, no more Death Valley posts on this thread please. I’ll delete any more I find.

Thanks.

-cvj

http://desertoutback.blogspot.com/

You can see the 2 laptops, 1 of them is parked at Cosmicvariance.com The above 2 videos are from 2 hikes into Titus Canyon & mudhills (tried to find a place like CVJ was at). I will post QTVR panoramas later, they should be good.

If you want the iPod video version, try here & subscribe to the video-podcast, hook up video-iPod, download it, play it & show to friends. I’m doing this, to demonstrate how CVJ can video-blog & syndicate over iPod/iTunes. Joanne could do the same thing from SLAC (pretty facility), great PR tool this video-iPod.

You also see a Sony PSP, another mobile video-play device. If any of you want the PSP video files, let me know & I will post the link.

I gotta run to Titus Canyon now before sunrise to take some Milky Way astrohphotos.. CVJ goes to Death Valley to escape, I go there to blog..can’t get away from it..after all!

Hey, I’m blogging Pahrump, NV (yeah, another offroad race, it’s a nice change of pace which helps with doing Research all cooped up in a room). I’m leaving for Beatty, NV to take the Titus Canyon run to Death Valley. Have to de-compress , & re-shoot QTVR panoramas. Inspired by your recent Death Valley trip. I’ll be doing night-time astrophotography (summer Milky with Way canyon in foreground). I will blog using my mobile satellite-DSL dish on my van. 1st blog to CV from Death Valley?..with an astrophoto?

Can you tell me where you were, that killer shot of the flower against the stark desert floor? There was a trail up a mud-hill, or something. I will try to hit that place, & do a QTVR panorama. So, CV’ers can get a VR experience. Best thing, to not being there.

Made some business contacts (ex CEO of a 100 billion dollar fiber-optics company, now VC..& others), which is for my “outside the box” Research Funding. Who knows, when Sean comes to Caltech next Sept, I may have funds available & fund his projects. Do you take non Standard-Model funding sources? Cosmology & String Theory need to goto modern-day philantropists like Paul Allen (ex Microsoft founder), Richard Branson (Virgin). That’s what Burt Ruttan (famous aeronautical engr, Scaled Composites) did for that Space Ship One (privately funded space rocket). Brnason is funding a space-port in New Mexico, & Paul Allen also funds that SETI Inst (near NASA Ames), Dr. Jill Tartar, Dr. Seth Shostak, & company (Jodie Foster played her in that Carl Sagan based movie).

-cvj

Did you go thru the JPL entrance, or the above (north Pasadena)? There is some nice hiking in Eaton Canyon Park (nothing steep, just a rocky wash), I went there a few months back to fly my R/C aircraft.

Try El Prieto (going up), from JPL entrance. Take the Lower Brown Mtn Rd, & look for the El Prieto sign..take it. It’s one of the best single-track for mountain-bikes in SoCal, & is also a scenic hike. Stream crossings, cactus..you might even see deer & bear. There have even been some Mt. Lion attacks recently)

Try OTBMBC if you are into Mt Biking, they go as a group & will take along stragglers. Man, you really need to dump that folding-bike, it’s way too spindly..you’ll get into an accident. You can get a decent urban-assault-bike for like around $400. In about Sept, the local bike shops have clearance sales. I got a $550 full-suspension bike for $299. Don’t get those Wal Mart or Target bikes, they are unsafe.

http://www.witi.com/

[ found it after seeing that excellent PBS series "Discovering Women", which profiled 6 leading women scientists. Included Melissa Franklin/Harvard, & also Lynda Jordan (1st black woman to get a PhD in that dept @MIT), an African-American woman biochemist. I actually contacted her, & was going to collaborate with her on some ideas I had ]

http://www.achievement.org/

[ really good site, with good interviews from leading scientists..both male & female. It’s designed for high-school students, to give them an idea of what a science-career is like. If I knew what I had to go thru, I likely might not have done it. The PBS show “From Student to Scientist” was really good, it had a bunch of Nobel Laureates & leading scientists. It actually had a section on “Ethics”, which got into the Manhattan Project & atomic power. Dr. Edward Teller had a really good quote:

“If I should be remembered for anything, it will be the courage to work on nuclear program”

[ he was referring to the speech by someone: “if you don’t work on the bomb, then Freedom Will Be Lost”. I.e., part of the MAD (mutual assured destruction) program which had the end-effect that both sides will disarm. Unfortunately, that only works for the 2 super-powers, US & USSR (former). The proliferation of nuclear bombs among “3rd world countries” (plus the threat of dirty nukes) has now made THAT a real threat to world security. See Sean’s thread on Iran nuclear program.

-cvj

Sounds like a fun party!