Three Crows

Crows and Peanut

Been throwing out peanuts out for the local crows; a few times some have gotten bold enough to land on the railing with me still standing there. I’ve had as many as eight in one morning, but sadly so far they have not reciprocated with shiny gifts as I’ve heard crows sometimes do.

Snow Alien

Six year old child beside a little snow figure with sticks forming squinty eyes and short arms

Ezra and I built a little snow alien at Baker Drive Community Park in Dartmouth. This one’s kind of a grey.

Halifax Across the Harbour

Views of Halifax from Dartmouth Ferry Terminal Park Views of Halifax from Dartmouth Ferry Terminal Park

Last day of 2022 was clear and relatively warm, with nice views of Halifax across the harbour from the park by the Dartmouth ferry terminal.

On the Costley Farm Trail

After we scattered Martha’s ashes, we tried hiking the Costley Farm Trail, a rocky, hilly trail connecting Cole Harbour Heritage Park to the Salt Marsh Trail.

Cole Harbour Heritage Park

Along the way we found this nice picnic area, apparently built by crew from the HMCS Ville de Quebec.

Cole Harbour Heritage Park
Cole Harbour Heritage Park

Also found some Witch’s Butter fungus growing out of a tree stump.

Witch's Butter mushroom

From the Salt Marsh Trailhead, I did a brisk hike back up along the smoother Heritage Trail to pick up the car — first really strenuous walking activity since my bout with covid a few months back. Happy to report I did not keel over from fatigue or multiple organ failure, so I think I’ve rested sufficiently since recovering.

Artemis 1 Launch

Launch of NASA’s Artemis 1, first uncrewed flight of the full SLS stack to send Orion around the moon.

This launch gives me *feelings* because back when I worked with NASA OHCM, a big part of my job was editing internal video interviews with engineers and other staff working on, among other things, SLS and Orion. I got really familiar with 3D animated B-roll of SLS as it evolved to its current form, and over time I built myself up a little collection of SLS preview videos to watch how the plans for the rocket changed over the years.

Three views of the Space Launch System in various stages of its conceptual evolution, first with the plain painted first stage, then in shuttle orange with SRB racing stripes, then with the NASA worm logo and SRB motion tracking markings

Feels good to now cap off that playlist with a real-life SLS launch video — bit later than scheduled. I still remember walking along Playalinda Beach in 2014 and thinking “I should come back here when SLS is ready to launch in 2017.” That, uh, didn’t happen in 2017.

(Some of those video interviews I worked on, not all SLS-related, eventually made their way to the public as a recruitment series called “#NASAProud”. I had to re-edit those with public domain music — with help from FreePD — and make sure they were ITAR and Sec508 compliant.)

If you want to see more (and don’t mind hearing the NASA PAO announcer flub “ignition” repeatedly): Isolated Artemis 1 Launch Views from various cameras on the pad and around KSC.

Now onward to Artemis II, first crewed lunar flyby.