Space Shuttle Discovery (STS-119)

Space Shuttle Discovery (STS 119) launched on March 15, 2009 at 7:43 pm. I drove out to Titusville, FL to watch the launch, and it is very nice to be able to hear the noise that the shuttle makes.





As it got darker, the contrail left by the shuttle started glowing with wonderful colors from the setting sun. Of course, these could have something to do with all of the nasty chemicals that the shuttle spews out in that smoke refracting the light, but it was still nice to look at. In contrast with Titusville's older buildings, this could have provided some great pictures, but I'm not entirely happy with how they came out.



Here's a video of the launch.

Cady Way Trail's Tied Arch Bridge

I've been meaning to go bike riding along the Cady Way Trail for a while now, specifically over the bridge crossing 436, but it seems I never have my bicycle when I'm in the area. Recently, I was riding along Colonial Drive and happened to have a unicycle in the car, so I decided to see how far I could get before dark. I started at Fashion Square Mall, not quite knowing exactly where the trail traveled. I eventually made it to the bridge and made it my turn around point. It ended up being my longest ride ever on a unicycle (just over 8 miles), but I had fun!

The bridge over 436 is a basket-handle tied arch bridge. This basically means it's and arch with the roadway suspended by vertical cables. It's a very nice looking bridge that I would rate near the top of my favorite Central Florida pedestrian bridges.

Here's some of the strangely fascinating engineering details of the bridge...



And the view of the car dealers and fast food restaurants below on 436:

I need to come back with a bicycle and ride along the rest of the trail. From what I saw of Cady Way, it's nowhere as nice as Seminole County's trails, but it's still an interesting ride.

Kepler Telescope Launch on a Delta II Rocket

The Kepler Telescope launched on a Delta II rocket at 10:49 pm on March 7, 2009. Kepler sounds like a very interesting project, and lets hope it finds plenty of earth-like planets. You can read more about it on NASA's website.

I think I'll go turn on my SETI@home software now and leave you with these two fifteen second exposures of the launch:

Great Horned Owl at Flagler College

I was in St. Augustine near the fountain in front of the Lightner Museum (former Alcazar Hotel) when I spotted this great horned owl across the street at Flagler College. The bird flew to several of the windows on the upper floors of the school where he would stop and peer inside for a while before moving on to another window. He eventually made it up to a chimney where he sat for a while before flying off.

It was a very unique sight, and was a bit Harry Potter-like with an owl flying around a castle-like school in broad daylight. Maybe the owl was delivering a letter to a student...

Eating at the Crooked Bayou

In honor of today being Fat Tuesday, I borrowed a restaurant review of the Crooked Bayou in Downtown Orlando from my Watch Me Eat Blog. With Jockamos out of business, Crooked Bayou is the only restaurant that I know of in the Central Florida area that specifically specializes in Cajun food. Crooked Bayou is a tiny little place on Central Blvd that seemed to be more bar than restaurant. They had some cool stuff in the tiny space like a big tree made out of bent rebar in the center of the restaurant and a window to an old painted advertisement on the neighboring brick building.

I started by ordering a cup of Jambalaya. It was really good, with plenty of chicken, andouille sausage, and shrimp along with the rice. According to Wikipedia, this was Creole Jambalaya since it was tomato based rather than Cajun Jambalaya that is tomato free. It was definitely some of the best Jambalaya that I've eaten.

I ordered a Cajun Crawfish Po'boy to follow the Jambalaya. The crawfish were tiny, but the sandwich was still really tasty. There was plenty of seasoning on the crawfish, which were placed on pressed french bread with lettuce, tomato, and tarter sauce. A pickle and potato chips were served with the sandwich.

Sombrero Key Lighthouse

I recently found these old pictures of the Sombrero Key Lighthouse that were taken back in 2002. I was so proud of my BIG 2.5 megapixel camera back then.

The Sombrero Key Lighthouse is located off the coast of Marathon in the Florida Keys and marks a reef that is now an attraction for snorkeling tours. I personally am amazed at the engineering behind these skeleton lighthouses. All those little metal trusses and cables fitting together into a structure that can survive hurricanes...

Freezing Florida

Contrary to the northern belief, Florida does get cold. On January 22, 2009, Central Florida had one of the coldest nights of the winter. That morning, plants were covered in ice. Grass had a thin layer of frost on it. Icicles were hanging from trees, and the cold pretty much destroyed any tropical plants I was growing, as well as plenty of non-tropical plants in my garden.



Car windshields were also a problem. I don't own any ice scrapers, so pouring a little warm tea on the ice and turning on the windshield wipers did the trick.




Any water that was warmer than the air was releasing lots of steam. Every drain into the sewers was releasing a cloud as well as most lakes. Steam rising off of lakes is very strange in the early morning light. It looks almost prehistoric, like a dinosaur could be drinking out of the water.


Of course, when it's cold like this, it's a perfect time to have a fire in the rarely used fireplace.




I love the cold weather!

Lenticular Clouds

Lenticular Clouds are a rare sight in Florida. They seem to only occur in cold weather, and Florida doesn't get cold that often. These strange looking clouds take the form of very smooth concave shapes. The best lenticular clouds are ones that are perfectly round and resembles an upside down bowl. I've only come across one of these perfect "UFO Clouds" on one occasion, but I've seen lenticular clouds like the ones on this page more frequently. These clouds don't have as much of a spherical shape and are more like several overlapping upside down bowls.

These lenticulars were seen over the cities of Casselberry and Longwood in January 2009.

Wolf Moon

January's Wolf Moon, which occurred on the 1/10/09, was the biggest and the brightest of all of 2009.

Light Show on the Vue

The Vue in Downtown Orlando has a rather interesting light show on what appears to be the building's stairs. I imagine this must get old quick if you live in one of the condos with windows next to the lights...

Christmas in Celebration, FL

I happened to pay a visit to Celebration, FL when I decided to eat at the Market Street Cafe. In December, Disney's planned community has some interesting stuff downtown. This includes snow machines that pump out fake snow every hour and nice Christmas decorations all over town. These are pictures taken in Celebration from that evening:










This is a video of some of the fake snow in Downtown Celebration, followed by a house with Christmas lights synchronized with Christmas music and music from Epcot's Illuminations show.