Where were you when man first walked on the moon?
Where were you when the space shuttle first launched into space?
Where were you when Felix Baumgartner jumped from 128,100 feet and broke the sound barrer with his body?
I was three years old when man walked on the moon. I have no idea where I was, or even what my Dad was doing. (Dad, care to answer that one in the comments?) Im not even sure where we were living at the time…..
Space shuttle? Easy. I was a 13 year old living in Darwin. The time zones were such that it was going to be hard to see it live. (Ah to think there was a time in my life when I actually slept!) At the time, we did not own a VCR (Google it) and so I went into the school library the next day and asked to see the tape.
There was a common room and a buch of kids in there at lunch time, I was the only one watching the TV. I got goose bumps. All the other kids just kept on talking with their backs to the TV.
To think that the Hubble space telescope would be launched from the platform years latter, and I would end up giving tours on the telescope that Hubble used to strengthen his case of the expanding universe is just amazing.
Felix? I was parked in a servo at Lake Arrowhead, watching it on my cell phone.
Its been months since Freddy and I went for a drive. It was a beautiful day and for ages I have been wanting to take her up theresince Terry and I did it on the Goldwing. (Yeah, sad that it took 4ish years, but there you go, busy, not dead).
I knew Felix was due to jump, I got up at 3am a few days ago to watch his first attempt that was canceled due to weather…. So I started watching at home before we left (actually, before Freddy got out of bed).
The drive up there was interesting. We took a different way than Terry and I went, more back roads… Great roads, but enough to say, my cell phone data coverage was not so good, so the YouTube stream kept cutting in and out. Aghh!
We got to Lake Arrowhead just as he was reaching 120,000 feet and had to get some petrol. Perfect. We just pulled forward of the bowser and parked it for a bit.
Freddy was antsy to say the least. Me? I was in raptures. Both for what was going down (Felix) and for the amazing technology that was allowing me to watch it live.
I remember reading about Kittinger’s jump when I was about 8 or 10. I was totally blown away from the pictures I saw in the book of a man and the earth and nothing in between. It was nothing like I had ever seen before.
The cell phone coverage was okish, but YouTube was totally overloaded so I had to refresh the page a few times, which just drove me mad, but I saw him step off the ledge live.
It. Was. Amazing.
I watched it till he landed and then we just kept driving.
Well done to Felix and the whole team.
Thanks Freddy for putting up with your geek.
It was nice to get out and see the blue sky from 8000 feet. Pretty amazing that I can get to that altitude in an hour and a half drive from our house. (I stil want to get up there on a moonless night in fall/winter/spring and take some photos of the stars).
Speaking of photos, I took my camera today and did not take a single photo……
Oh, and we are never taking a long drive in the Rangie again.
(We will save that one for another blog another day).