The DirecTV office building is next to the Los Angeles Airport, and my window looks out on the runway. As a result, when the new Super-Jumbo Airbus A380 came into town on part of its world tour last week I got to watch its takeoff. Since the plane is a double-decker it doesn’t look that huge until you can see the full wingspan, which is enormous. Unfortunately for Airbus, two years of delays have cost them orders, money, and credibility, and as a result the new Boeing 787 has put Boeing back in the lead in the commercial aviation world.
At exactly the same time as the A380 was taking off, SpaceX was shooting its new rocket into orbit for a fraction of the price that anyone had previously launched a rocket for. Their rocket made it about 200 miles into space before encountering a problem, but the company’s founder (and JB’s boss) noted that for a test launch they had proven 95% of what they needed to prove, and their next launch would be for a paying customer in the Fall. The video of the launch is worth watching.
In less geeky news, Aaron ran his first triathalon two weeks ago, and despite getting beat by an eleven year old girl (quote when she passed him: “Grandpa, this race is fun!”) managed to hold his head high as one of only two participants to do the swim portion of the race in a speedo. The following week I suggested that we go for a nice, easy run, and Aaron of course chose one of the steepest canyons in LA. After spending nearly an hour in the car demonstrating how three lanes of traffic can stay almost perfectly still we arrived at the canyon, and after traveling basically straight up hill finally called it quits and walked when our “running” had degraded to a sort of weird wobble-type thing.
And as always, for no particular reason, here’s a pretty picture:
