Google Earth

Similar to the previous post about Slowly Down the Ganges, I am mapping the places from another book: Blue Highways by William Least Heat Moon. Reading these travel tales excites me -- I want to know where the authors went almost as much as why they went and what they did there. I want to see the places they saw. I want to follow the roads they followed. Perhaps I should see if there is a local chapter of Geographaholics Anonymous.

Last week at the Pollard Memorial Library I picked up Slowly Down the Ganges by Eric Newby. Usually I pick up books based on recommendation from friends or from Goodreads. This one I just happened to pick up because it was in the travel section of the library where I had gone to pick up Blue Highways by William Least Heat Moon.

First, the National Hurricane Center is tracking Tropical Storm Edouard at nhc.noaa.gov.

In my spare time -- since SAIC is contracted to NASA, and NASA called off work at Johnson Space Center after noon today and all day tomorrow -- I did a crude conversion of the Tropical Storm Edouard 3-day forecast from the nhc.noaa.gov site to Google Earth.

Courtesy NASA:

The 15th Great Moonbuggy Race was held in Huntsville, Alabama on 4 to 5 April 2008. High school and university students were challenged to develop human-powered rovers that race around a simulated lunar course.

The two winning teams were:

• Erie High School Team II, Erie, Kansas - Erie High School Prototyping and Problem Solving Class [cusd101.org]

28 March 2008 was my last day at Orbital Sciences Corporation in Sterling, Virginia; 31 March 2008 was my first day at Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) in Houston, Texas.

Listen. The Taj Mahal is awesome in the true sense of the word: inspiring awe. The pictures you've seen before, and that you see in this set of photos, are just a taste of what it is like in person. I mean, it looks big and majestic in images, but when you walk in the gate from the south and the Taj Mahal swings into view -- amazing.

I visited India for three weeks in December 2005 and January 2006. The time I spent there was outstanding -- it was my first opportunity to spend an appreciable amount of time with Megha, and her family were very excellent hosts. (Granted, she and I weren't an item then, and I don't think I would have visited like that if we were, but that's a song from a different opera.) Also, further down the tracks, I met some friends that I had known online only, and I also met with one of my classmates from Illinois -- Palash Basu -- and his family.

I'm long, long, long overdue on making a post about my wonderful girlfriend, Megha. But, to be fair, I was trying to give her anonymity as long as I could; just because I like to write in public doesn't mean everyone else wants to be dragged along for the ride. So, we'll see how this goes...

Slowly over the last two years, I have been writing a book about the time I spent driving to, living in, and leaving Mojave, California in Spring 2005. The prospective title for this project has always been Mojave Road in the Sky, inspired by this photo I snapped in Death Valley National Park.

Here's the blahblahblah: Joe and I and others were going to watch Illinois play in Orlando at the Capital One Bowl since it was (1) on the same side of the country as us and (2) it seemed more likely that we would qualify for the Capital One Bowl than the prestigious Rose Bowl in Pasadena. If Illinois qualified for the Rose Bowl... too far, too expensive, etc.