Watched another launch

Was it last night, or was it the night before?  I can't remember.  Events have been moving so quickly lately that I'm getting things muddled.

Anyway, SpaceX put another satellite in orbit and successfully brought the booster back to Florida for a vertical landing.  Man, I love those.  Right out of the old SF pulps from the early twentieth century.

Keep up the good work, SpaceX, and put a man on Mars already!  :D

Best wishes

My thoughts go out to all those affected by Hurricane Laura.  Wikipedia says it had the strongest sustained winds of any hurricane to hit Louisiana since 1856.

2020, man... what a horrible year.

Double hurricanes?

Probably not.  Marco has been downgraded to a tropical storm.

But both Marco and Laura are still projected to hit the Gulf coast the same week.

Article from the South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Now, ordinarily I wouldn't worry too much about this.  After all, these are relatively weak storms, and I live in the northern part of Georgia anyway, so any hurricanes that come this way will have been weakened enough so that they're not much different from any other heavy rainstorm.

However, this is 2020.  We've already seen all kinds of crazy stuff.  Biblical stuff, like "ten plagues of Egypt" stuff.  I'm not discounting anything right now.  Aliens could arrive and ship us all off to work in the salt mines of Zeta Reticuli, and that wouldn't surprise me one bit.

So we'll see what happens.  Maybe it'll be no big deal, and we all escape with minimal damage.  Or maybe these two storms will join together to make a giant Sharknado.  Even odds either way, I figure.  Because 2020.

That's no moon...

...or is it?

Our little blue planet has apparently captured an asteroid called 2020 CD3.  It's between three and six meters wide.  We now have a temporary second moon.  Or we did, anyway.  According to predictions, it's probably gone already.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_CD3

I imagine our world's gravity captures all kinds of things like this.  We just don't know about them because we don't have the technology to see things that are that small at those distances.  As the tech improves, though, we'll notice a lot more clutter, I'll bet.

Mostly good

I put some polyurethane on the wood project I'm building.  It's been a long time since I've used this stuff on anything.  Last time--decades ago--I used a brush.  This time I used a rag.  I'm convinced that the rag is the way to go.  You get a thinner coat and less dripping.  Multiple thin coats are better than fewer thick coats.

I still ended up with a couple of drips.  I'll see if I can sand those down.  For the most part, though, I didn't have any drips, and I'm pleased with that.  The first poly coat is mostly good.

No, I'm not posting any pictures.  I'm not a woodworker, and the results of my labors leave a lot to be desired.  But I'll have a functional--and hopefully waterproof--piece of furniture soon, and that's all that matters.

Cool Georgia libraries

A friend brought my attention to this link, a list of the most beautiful libraries in Georgia, so I checked it out.

A few of them are just "meh," in my opinion--I don't care much for modern architectural trends--but a few are pretty awesome-looking.  My three favorites are the Mary Willis Library in Washington, the Carnegie Branch Library in Savannah, and the Dog River Library in Douglasville.

The Carnegie Branch Library began as the Carnegie Colored Library, a place for black residents during segregation.  It's a rare example of Prairie-style architecture in Savannah.  Even more interesting than its appearance, though, is that it was the local library for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas back in the day.

The Dog River Library is a new one, built in 2011.  What makes this one interesting is that it has an architectural "theme," and that theme is "library in the woods."  That theme isn't terribly clear on the exterior, but when you check out the interior, you can't miss it.

Here's the architect's web page for the library.  It's pretty neat, and you can see the "woods" theme in the interior photos.  You can also read about all the "eco-friendly" stuff they incorporated as part of the theme.  Check it out.

http://www.ponder2.com/govt-dogriver.php

I saved the best for last.  The Mary Willis Library is the oldest one on the list, built in 1888.  It's done in the Queen Anne architectural style, and it has a stained glass window made by the Tiffany Company at a time when Louis Tiffany was actually alive.  Authentic Tiffany glass, folks.

Another author has some pictures of the interior, including the Tiffany window, so check out her blog post about it.  It's just a gorgeous place.  I definitely need to pay it a visit someday.

Thanks to notthatamanda at Writer Sanctum for pointing me to the list.

R.I.P., Kamala

James Harris, a.k.a. Kamala the Ugandan Giant, has passed away.  He was 70.

I used to watch wrestling when I was a boy back in the '80s, and Kamala was one of the wrestlers who was active during that time.  I was young enough to believe it was all "real," and I sincerely thought the wrestling promoter had ventured into the heart of the African jungle to recruit a real-life cannibal.  I actually thought Kamala would start munching on his opponents at any moment.  The man absolutely terrified me.

From Wikipedia:

The character was a vicious Ugandan headhunter with face and body paint copied from a Frank Frazetta painting. His backstory was that he was a former bodyguard of deposed President of Uganda Idi Amin who had been discovered by J.J. Dillon during an excursion to Africa. A promotional vignette aired on WMC-TV featuring a spear-wielding Kamala seemingly emerging from a steamy African jungle; the vignette was actually filmed on Jarrett's farm in Hendersonville, Tennessee, with the steam effect created using dry ice. To establish Kamala as a monstrous character, Jarrett instructed him to wrestle in a brawling style with chops and biting. To preserve kayfabe, Harris wore robes and refused to speak English while in public in Memphis.

Kamala wasn't just a gimmick, though.  Don't let the fat belly fool you; the man had some real muscle.  He body-slammed Andre the Giant, no easy feat.

Later in life, of course, I learned about the reality of the wrestling business, and I grew to have more respect for professional wrestlers as performers rather than as just athletes.  I especially gained some respect for the villains, because they have to endure all the negative crap they get from the kids day in and day out--kids like me who believed it was all real--and that's got to really wear on a man's soul.

Mr. Harris suffered health problems later in life, particularly diabetes.  He would eventually have his legs amputated.  There's a short documentary on YouTube about his struggles.  It has over two million views.  It's only seven minutes and change.  You won't regret watching it, I promise:

R.I.P., Mr. Harris.