h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Thanks, anancygirl. On my side, he lived to 94 and the memories must have been crowding in on him for his last 10 years, many a silent tear.

Nsbe: yes, gone probably for ever - anyway, it's of less interest now that they're common as buses (but not as easy).

I remember taking off one dark, cold February night from Montreal in a North Star (four props) heading for Halifax. I was looking out the window at the stars and the receding lights of the city and the countryside below when the inboard port engine exploded.

Back then people didn't scream they way they would today and no jack-ass wannabe heroes tried to take over and save us all from certain death. The stewardess (oh they were pretty back then) just sighed and said, "Oh we're on fire. I guess we'll be heading back to Montreal."

Before we landed the outboard starboard engine also burst into flames. But both fires had blown themselves out by the time we made a very smooth and safe landing on the snowy runway.

After, a very few hours of mumbling and grumbling in the lobby (there was very little overnight activity in airports in those days and no coffee) we were marched out to another plane at dawn and tried again.

We ran into snow before reaching Halifax and were forced to make a very slippery and scary landing in Moncton where we spent another day in upright plastic chairs until finally another plane was dispatched to take us the last 200 miles.

Once again we were 'unable to land in Halifax' because of snowstorms and had to make an emergency landing at an old half-abandoned Royal Canadian Air Force base about halfway between the two cities since both of these were 'closed'. We sat on the plane for a few hours until the air force woke up and came on duty and found us sitting in front of their control tower, engines idling to keep us from freezing.

It took them quite some time to find a gangway tall enough to reach the (then modern and new) aircraft's doors. And then we were finally put into taxis and volunteered jeeps and assorted four by fours to fight thru the blizzard to our various destinations in Nova Scotia.

Our cabby, a lady, actually got us within a half mile of our house before she got bogged down in the drifts. A total of four feet had fallen in three days and once off the barely plowed main roads it was pretty much hopeless.

Oh Canada, you used to be so much more fun when I was young.


~jwf~

PS: One can drive the 1000km from Montreal to Halifax today in less than half the time this entire journey took. And there's coffee available every hundred feet or so.

~jwf~

Are these all going to go into an Entry?

~jwf~ - aye, them were the days! Good one. Thanks.

Clive - All? maybe, maybe not. It'll depend on the number and type of experiences we get. So far, it doesn't seem we have enough, but there's time yet as I don't have a timescale in mind.
Anyway, the stuff we're getting makes me wonder if it shouldn't be a democratic event - vote for those you think suit (but not your own) that way we might even find out what interests most people.
(Do I get a QI or a DGI or a klaxon for that?)

Opinions?

But don't forget the tales, eh?

Nsbe - my post 21... Sorry, I didn't mean it's of no interest here, of course it is ... just that today I imagine fewer people have that fascination anyway - familiarity breeding, , , whatever...

One of the things I was a little (very little) there for, but isn't part of my memory is something that people say that everybody knows what they were doing, when they were doing it, and where they were when they found out: The assassination of President Kennedy. This affected me when I was delusional and thinking my cruddy life was because of the way my life ended last time around. (Why else would I hate Republicans so much (and other quite little things) than that I'm him re-born?)

Aside from that, I saw Hank Aaron's 700th home run or my memory is totally off. Henry "Hank" Aaron took the USA career home run total record from Babe Ruth, and had it taken from him by Barry Bonds in turn.

I can't think of anything else to answer the question. Sort of dull.

Not-so-bald-Eagle: That's honestly a coincidence. I just read your post 8.

I hope you skipped post 19, not boring it just breeds ......

*goes off to form contempt-breeders clan*

Nsbe: tomorrow I might get it right... if I dare try again

- -

Mid 1950s: Leaving school (which I detested, so no uni). First job, on the Duke of Northumberland's estate, working for the local sawmill. The site boss, a big man in his late twenties probably, teaching me to use one of those two-handed saws that was longer than me, then making me keep up with him.
Cutting pines to make... pit-props for the local collieries (yes, in living memory!).
. Trees snedded (branches off flush with the trunk with an axe, another training exercise).
. Dragged out of the woods by an older man with his horse, thick end first.
. Three sizes (part memory, part guess): about 6 foot by 10 or 12 inches (1.8m x 275mm), 4 foot x 7 to 10 inches (1.2 x 200) and little ones say 3 ft x 4 to 6 inch (900 x 125).
. Being trained to use the bark-off machine, small props first then the medium. I wasn't allowed near the biggies before I left.

The sawmill offered me, via my uncle, a sandwich course (part work, part uni) as a tree surgeon. To my eternal regret my *integrity* turned it down 'cos I'd already accepted a job as laboratory assistant with a big chemical firm.
What a fool (as my uncle told me!) - it was another several years before I realised my attraction to (love of) wood.

<>

We weren't allowed to watch it. I was so glad the weeks my father wasn't home on a Thursday night as my mother wasn't so strict about that and we could watch it and join in the conversations at school the next day.

Both my parents have written "memoires" including the war years. But also describing their home lives in the 1920s in some detail.

TOTP was on Thursdays?
Is that the real secret of Life, etc?

~jwf~

Anybody who has any recent memories of Yellowstone National Park?

the tube was on a friday teatime, and was live, i think that was the start of the death knell for TOTP

then came the chart show on a friday evening for about 2 hours with all the different charts, dance, indie, rock, and that was another nail in TOTP coffin as suddenly the bbc chart was not the only chart

The umanned spaceship Cassini has just sent some holiday pics of
what they are calling 'Old Faithful' on Enceladus, a moon of Saturn.

http://news.softpedia.com/newsImage/Enceladus-Geysers-Erupt-in-Beautiful-Show-2.jpg/

These water spouts are blowing more than a hundred km into space.
Makes Jellystone National Park look kinda Mickey Mouse.


~jwf~

cant see the link from here

are the spouts falling back to 'earth' or are they forming some sort of ring structure in orbit???

~jwf~: That's interesting, but wait until "Jelleystone" does its regular kaboom.

julzes why not apply your own rules about topic drift???

yellowstone has not gone boom in living memory, and might not???

what do you think of TOTP???

Apparently neither. It's water vapour and is dispersing a hundred km above the surface. Cassini flew thru it but they haven't released any close-ups yet. Whether it falls back down as weather isn't specified but it doesn't appear to be going into orbit either.

I'm guessing you're at work and can't access much.
But here's a closer view:
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/11/enceladus-plume-flyby/

There was also an artist's concept somewhere which I've lost. It's kinda like a scifi paperback cover, so I'm waiting for the real pics of the close-up fly-by.


~jwf~

if its not going into orbit??
it must be falling back???
if not it would be leaving a 'tail' like a commet????