Clearly I was jumping the gun a little when I said that I'd have to retire the tag "house hunting" soon. I mean, yeah, it is going to be soon, like a little over a month, but on the other hand there is still plenty to write about. Today for instance I have been in contact with titling companies, and an insurance company, all for quotes. Some have arrived, some I'm still waiting on, and time is ticking.

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So there's this matrix (car) ad that shows up on Yahoo now and again. It starts off showing an attractive woman and says "meet singles looking for love." Then the orange colored matrix rolls into the ad and its headlights turn on, and the woman is replaced by someone in a raccoon costume and the tag line changes to "meet singles looking for trouble" then there is the fade out and fade in to show the matrix with the new tag line "All new Matrix 2009 – Get in touch with your dark side" Does this mean furries are both trouble and the dark side? I just find it a rather strange ad, and I can't quite grasp what their message is. I mean your average joe probably doesn't even know what a furry is, and wants to know why this woman is dressed in a school mascot costume.

Actually I kind of want to know why this woman is dressed in a school mascot costume too.

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I feel so zonked today. I blame the fact that it's Tuesday. It seriously has to be the worst day of the week. Don't get me wrong, Mondays kinda suck too, but there is always the promise that this week will bring something new and exciting. Tuesday on the other hand is still at the beginning of the week, and the promise of Monday has disappeared. Wednesday is hump day, so you know your half way done. Thursday is exciting because Friday is right around the corner. Friday itself isn't too bad, cause you know once you're done, you're done!

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Humanity is doomed.

That's ok. Every form of life is doomed. Eventually the universe will fling itself apart, the stars of the galaxies will cool and darken, and life will cease. But back to humanity, presuming we don't kill ourselves, or get blasted into nothingness by some stray rock, or wiped out by some alien life form (probably one that's microscopic) we're not really designed for long term survival, not like the cockroach or shark. We've only been around for a little less then 200,000 years, and at a guess we've got another 200,000. Eventually (sooner rather then later) our technology will develop to the point that we'll be able to mess with our DNA to the point where we're no longer homo sapiens, and if that doesn't happen, nature will do it for us. Being the self interested species that we are though, it's going to be a fight. So what do we need to do to survive? Well, we need to get off this planet. Being confined to a single biosphere is very dangerous. Our local stellar cluster seems to be relatively quiet, so there isn't too much of a rush to go out further then that, but we do need to get away from Sol. At least some of us. So what's involved in actually sending enough humans to matter to a local star with a habitable planet? (This is of course presuming that there is such a planet). Well, the Ultimate Project is probably a good place to start.

There's a science blog that I read, called Centauri Dreams. Its charter, as taken from the website:

In Centauri Dreams, Paul Gilster looks at peer-reviewed research on deep space exploration, with an eye toward interstellar possibilities.

He usually updates at least once a day, and it's a nice way to keep up on what's being looked at out there. Mostly he focuses on extra solar research, but he does make note of interesting things going on within our star system.

Today he wrote about extra solar terrestrial planets, and it makes me wonder what I'll see in my lifetime. Will I, by 2050, see a picture of an extra solar planet? Will we have launched a true interstellar probe? Or even an extra solar one? To reach even the nearest star, Proxima Centauri, at the speed of the fastest man made object (Voyager 1) would take 74,000 years. That's at 1/16,000 the speed of light. We need something that goes at least 1,000 times faster then that to be at all useful. And even if we had something that would go that speed, how to slow it down so that it doesn't just shoot through the system and keep on going?

So what then, if interstellar exploration will be limited to telescopes within the solar system during my lifetime? Well, there's still a lot of mystery about our own system. We've only scratched the surface of our own little rocky planet, and have at best stirred up a little bit of dust on the other worlds of the Sol system. Mars is still a tempting target, and I expect I'll live to see humanity set foot on it. Exploration of the asteroid belt I'm willing to bet will turn up some unexpected finds. I also think I'll see some international regulation about space trash, after a tragic loss of life from a stray piece of metal. We'll also find a couple of objects that will pass us closer then the moon.

In the last 2 hours of work the temperature climbed from 22.5 degrees to 25.4. I was sitting there sweating. In scrubs! Ug!!

tigergladys actually called out sick today, and went to the clinic! We'll see if the prescriptions actually work. She has bronchitis with fluid in the lungs (walking pneumonia? they didn't test to be sure) and an ear infection. Lucky her, and guess who gets to go to rally tonight. Lucky me.

You went trick or treating as CorranHorn.
SimonTam gave you FancyImportedBeer.
Snarf gave you ARustyRazorblade.
Dax gave you TheGobletofFire.
Horatio gave you TheRedPill.
You had a ace time until SallyBowles burned down the church.

What's Your Trick-or-Treat Haul?
Shiver My Timber--A Pirate RPG

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I got told today, about an hour before going home, that my position at Johns Hopkins will be coming to an end as of the end of work on Friday. The official explanation is that with the return of an employee from FMLA that TPTB want the department to trim their temp staff. So far tonight I have applied to about 40 different jobs. Most of them I am overqualified for. Unfortunately my BA in History and Political Science makes me overly qualified for a whole lot of things, and qualified for nothing. Expect more posts in the near future about job hunting...

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November is the month of thanksgiving, so I'm going to begin a series of posts about things I am thankful for. This is something I've been thinking about for a while, and I think that writing it down, putting the thoughts to paper (or LJ), will further my effort to be a better person. So, without further ado, day 1!

I am thankful that I have a home. Home to me is some place that is yours, some place that you can go and be safe from the world, even a little. Home to me is a place where no one can tell you you don't belong, and where the people in it love you. Home is the place where they leave the light on for you, where the door is always open to you. I had this originally (and where I developed my concept of home) in my childhood with Mum, Dad, Anna and all our pets. Now home is a place I've created with tigergladys and our rodenthoarde. Without home, the roof over my head would be only that; shelter. I can have shelter anywhere, but to have a home takes effort, it takes being there for the other members of home, and I have been blessed with people who have and people who now love and care enough to make where I live a home.

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NASA has announced that the mission to service Hubble will launch sometime in mid 2008. This should extend it's lifespan to 2013 or so! My computer backgrounds (which are mostly pictures from the Hubble) are safe for a while longer!