Fried on the beach
It's been a long time, but still trying to to find my voice here. We'll see.
NASA made another mars landing look easy, which blows my mind. This is living history.
Spent a week at the beach recently and picked up a mild tan and somehow managed a real coup: first time at the beach without a burn. Might have something to do with being bed-ridden with a nasty cold for 3-4 days. But I still had enough time to try out our spiffy new delta kite from Kitty Hawk Kites.
The wind was low for most of the trip so getting the thing in the air was really tough. Spent many afternoons chasing the thing around the beach, hauling it in from the surf, and so on. One evening the wind picked up nicely, and I got the kite up in the air. With glow-in-the-dark pirate patterns, the kite looked really good. The wind was good because some dark clouds were blowing in and I didn't really make the connection at first. But then I felt my first good jolt, as I stood barefoot in the saltwater surf. Not wanting to accept the truth and haul it in when the wind was just right, I chalked it up to a freak vibration of the line (which was pretty moist from said surf), and I left it a few hundred feet in the air. Then I felt the second jolt, maybe a little stronger, and changed my mind. Who wants to go down in history (or outer banks headlines) as the dumb tourist who got electrocuted with a kite in a storm. So I reeled it in and lived to tell and I have to give Franklin some credit.
Then, to justify my hubris (hubris = fancy word for stupidity), I speculated about whether these discharges could be used to solve this nasty little energy crisis we're having. So just to get it on the record: I propose starting huge kite farms that collect atmospheric discharges and provide power to the grid. This could have a much better aesthetic than windmill farms. I'm on to something. IPO!
That's what I've got for now - maybe I'll go back to thinking about what a Hilbert space is since that's been bothering me for a while.