The New Pornographers
Back stage, The Paramount, Sat March 26, 2006
Photo by Jeff

Friends The New Pornographers played the Paramount in Seattle last night to a sold out crowd, while yours truly watched from side stage.






Side Stage Pornos
Photo by Jeff

The band opened up for Belle and Sebastian for the last show of their tour. The New Pornos continue on with dates into May and April, in Canada, the US and Europe. Hard workin' folk, I tells you!





Fancey-man
Photo by Jeff

Todd Fancey plays guitar (among other intruments). He's fancy.





Hey— Who's that?! Kurt Dahle?!
Photo by Jeff

Kurt Dahle a.k.a. Deet plays the drums. Hey, I know you! He's funny. For those of you scoring at home, check your liner notes for "DELUXE."

Good times!

Air Force One
Photo by Jeff

One of the many interesting exhibits at the Museum of Flight at Boeing Field in Seattle is Air Force One. These Boeing aircrafts (with the military designation of VC-25A) carry the President and his staff with all the tools and resources needed to continue to be in communication with and run the affairs of government. The 707 model on display even has a traditional, wall-mounted pencil sharpener in the communications seat. High tech!





Commander in Chief
Photo by Jeff

Here the President can make air to land calls on his personal telephone, upon which a sign states that all communication through the phone will be monitored.





Communcation Control
Photo by Jeff

This is where the communications operator sat, plugging in wires and pushing buttons. This is also where the pencil sharpener lives.





Air Force One—The Cockpit
Photo by Jeff

Jump seat, anyone?

The Concorde
Photo by Jeff

The Concorde holds the record for the fastest trans-Atlantic crossing, at 2 hours, 59 minutes, 53 secs. The first supersonic commerical jet airliner, the Concorde began its' life in 1976, until retired in 2003.

Here's a look at the interior seating of the Concorde:


Interior Seating of the Concorde
Photo by Jeff

The Concorde seated 100 passengers.

Although the Concorde has been retired, there has been some discussion about the research and building of "Son of Concorde," a joint effort by Japanese and French governments. Although the research is ongoing from these two countries, it should be noted here that British billionaire Sir Richard Branson is hard at work on his own brand of travel, Virgin Galactic.

Elliot Bay
Photo by Jeff

Part of the waters of Puget Sound, Elliot Bay is the main shipping lane into Seattle, and the hub for water travel, whether it is by ferry to Alki Beach, or to Victoria, BC on the Clipper.





Space Needle—Day/Night
Photos by Jeff

The Space Needle is one of the Pacific Northwest's finest landmarks, attracting more than one million visitors each year. The structure stands 605 feet tall, and is capable of withstanding an earthquake of 9.1 in magnitude.

Note the crumpled soda can inspired architecture of Frank Gehry's "Experience Music Project," just to the right of the Space Needle.

These photos were taken 43 floors above sea level in downtown Seattle, looking North.

Calgary, Alberta

Spent the last couple of days in Big Sky Alberta. That Calgary cowtown sure knows how to snow! If you ever get the chance, go check out the ski jump on the outskirts of town. Calgary's one and only ski hill.

The final contact attempt to reach NASA's Pioneer 10 satellite fell upon the probe's deaf ears, according to a report issued March 6th, 2006, by the Pioneer Anomaly Team.

Slava Turyshev, Pioneer Anomaly Team Member, writes:

"We carried out the observations of the Pioneer 10 spacecraft, per a proposal that was approved by NASA earlier last week, on Friday and Saturday nights, March 3 and 4, 2006 (local time). Sadly, there was no real-time detection of a carrier signal from the spacecraft."

The Earth and planetary bodies were best aligned for contact for the last time on March 3rd and 4th, leading scientists to believe that despite the aging electronics on board, the extreme coldness of outer space and the dwindling power left in the space probe's communication systems, there was a chance to decipher Pioneer 10's faint output. Despite no obvious signal, the team plans to analyse the data further:

"We did carry out open-loop RSR [Radio Science Receiver] recordings of the two passes for archiving. We will process the recordings using parameters that would increase the resolution over the real-time spectral reporting by the receiver, and search for a signal."

The data collected over the two day period has now been assembled and ready for further analysis at JPL.

Is this the end of existence for Pioneer 10? We think not. Shine on, you crazy diamond!

Jeff Booth

BlackBerry 8700r

Finally got the phone out of the shop. So now I have no excuses, since it's an all-in-one phone, email, text, calendar, contacts, memos, web browser for the Inter-Web‚Ñ¢, alarm clock and general consolidated noise nuisance -- in that anytime anyone, anywhere, in anyway wants to get a hold of me, the thing goes off. I think I might get a doctorate in geekdom.


Jeff Booth, PhD., Illustrious Technorati