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[23:29] Yuri's Night
We had the opportunity to attend the Yuri's Night celebrations at nearby Moffett Field on Friday night (as a charming friend of mine pointed out, if there's a "hot" war then we're going to be the first to go since we live practically next-door). Yuri's Night is a celebration held every year on the anniversary of Yuri Gagarin's space flight (the first manned (peopled?) space flight in history) in 1961. Specifically we attended the NASA AMES hosted event.
It was a fun event, we turned up pretty early (around 1830) while the place was still deserted so we didn't have to line up or undergo the rigorous searching that the later attendees scored! As sold to me it was meant to be a selection of technical presentations based on the theme of space travel and exploration. The reality was an amalgamation of Burning Man, a giant rave, a NASA recruiting drive (with schwag!), a telescope and coconuts - all topped off with a keynote address from Anousheh Ansari. The keynote was interesting, although plauged with technical difficulties (there were quite a few comments in the crowd regarding inability to project a slideshow and lack of flying cars in the world today). Anousheh was the first female space tourist and her talk described why she spent so much money for a joyride and was followed by a video she shot on-board the ISS (including a scene quite reminiscent of the Simpsons episode "Deep Space Homer" - specifically this).
After the keynote the music started and we wandered around checking out the flashing lights, illuminated budha, perspex bicycles, NASA airplanes and assorted merchandise stores. There were a couple of talks but for the most part it was an eat, drink and be merry kind of affair. We didn't learn a lot but it was fun, we got to check out a 200x magnified Saturn, I got several foam aliens, a world globe stress-ball and a NASA paddle ball! You can check it out in static form at Flikr or see the magical moving pictures over at YouTube!
[Posted at: 13:01 14/04/2007]
[18:53] California Road Rules
I was riding home this afternoon when I had a slight altercation with a local bus driver. Here's what happened:
The road on which I was travelling has 4-lanes, 2 each way. I was riding on the far right-hand side, in the bike lane (a smaller third lane). Approaching a set of orange traffic lights, I moved out of the bike lane and into the furthest right lane so I wouldn't be obstructing traffic, since you're allowed to turn right at any time here in California (land of the ridiculous road rules*). So far so good.
A bus pulled up behind me and, after a few moments, the driver beeped his horn and started gesticulating through the window at me. I got close enough to hear him tell me that I should be in the bike lane, I pointed out that I would be obstructing traffic and he pointed out that I should be in the bike lane some more. At this point the lights went green and we couldn't debate the finer points of who was correct. Whilst pedalling onwards I pondered on whether or not what I was doing was actually legal. I had been considering chasing the bus down at the next stop but since I didn't know if what I was doing was something I'd made up or actually a law I'd read in the handbook whilst swotting for my drivers license I didn't.
Turns out it is a law and I did read it in the California Driver Hndbook, on page 54 and 55 - with pictures no less! More formally, it's Division 11, Chapter 1, Article 4, Section 21208.4 of the California Vehicle Code. So there Mr Bus Driver, *thbbbt*.
* OK, so that doesn't seem so ridiculous when you read it but DAMN you should see the chaos caused by a pedestrian just walking near a road!
[Posted as: 18:53 25/04/2007]