Holi, Colours, New Arrivals and A Boat Trip with Eagles – Travels with Allie.
We were up and ready for the 944 launch of the SpaceX Falcon 9 delivering 40 odd satellites to space. It was a brilliant day for it, light breeze and very few clouds. Fi was feeling much better this morning – it must have been a 24 hour flu.
We set up our cameras on the deck all ready and had the countdown going on the tablets at the same time. We just got to about 14 seconds and my camera battery inexplicably shut down!! Panic as I got my phone camera set up and then had to find the launch site on that!!!! Just got there a second or 2 after liftoff and managed to track the rocket as it burned its way upwards. An amazing sight and a living science lesson. Some notable time after we saw the rocket going upwards, we heard the noise of the rocket. It disappeared eventually and all that was left was the smoke trail. The first stage detached and landed on a drone barge somewhere off the Bahamas. What a feat of technology!!!!! I attach my video below. Excuse the wobbly start till I get on track….
I have never had a particularly high opinion of Elon Musk. He’s always appeared like a bit of an a****le to me, despite all his money. HOWEVER…. I have been forced to re-evaluate a bit because of his Mars missions but also, and most of all, I watched a long presentation from him where he was speaking to an audience of Starlink investors and the tech press. He talked first without notes for a long time about plans and strategy and then he took random and detailed questions from the floor. I have never seen a CEO at his level who could talk in technical detail off the cuff like he did. Most that I have ever worked with, couldn’t even do it for 2 minutes even with detailed notes, because they weren’t detailed people, let alone technically detailed people. He was. It was beyond impressive. I still think that personally he is an overgrown teenager, emotionally immature and a bit of an … well, you know…. but I also think he is a genius and I hope he is is very well protected because, without him, these programs will sink back into the swamp. I know that people thought that when when Steve Jobs died, Apple would sink, but that wasn’t the same, because although Jobs was a visionary, his contribution was largely marketing, not technical detail. It was a vision, others could deliver, and did. Musk is not only the driving vision of his projects, he is the engine too and the technica brain.
After that Bob and Stuart went off to play 18 holes at the Cocoa Beach Country Club. Bob hadn’t played 18 holes in a while…
Fi and I headed to the beach. We got beach lounger chairs with our apartment so we carried them down to the high tide mark and pegged out. Absolutely lovely and relaxing day. We read our books, chatted, watched the cormorants diving, the pelicans flying and gliding overhead, the skippers hopping along the sand….. the surfers of all types in the water, even a couple of “influencers” taking selfies as they pouted and sometimes turned backflips (trying out for cheerleading???)….. I went in the water and jumped the waves…. Fi went for 2 walks….. the day passed very pleasantly. You’ll be pleased to know my tan is now at Aztec Gold level 🙂
We chatted online to Fran and Mike about arrangements this week. Bob and Stuart got back about 430. Bob looked a bit tired…. 🙂 It did him good. They are going to play again at least once this week. Definitely Thursday with new friend Bobo and his daughter. Maybe Wednesday as well. Tonight we ate dinner in the apartment. Salad, salsa, avo, amazing thick beef, swiss cheese and mushroom burgers.,,,,
Good news: The UK…. or rather England… is abolishing covid restrictions from this week. How ironic that as that depresser is lifted, the Russian bullies move into the Ukraine as the next stage of regaining the Russian Empire…… Tragic that as we look to the stars, we may once again be plunged into war….