A spatial moment...

Today, we drove down to the Boise State University campus for the annual Engineering Day. Colin, Sidney and I witnessed a lot of experiments: Launching catapults, seat belt demonstration, 15,000 volt board, electricity transfer, vacuums, wind turbines... But, by far, the most exciting part of the afternoon was the presentation by NASA Astronaut Barbara Morgan. She shared with us a slide show of her time at the International Space Station and some incredible out of space anecdotes...

BSU Engineering day

Later in the evening, we stepped out in the backyard hoping we could see the International Space Station fly over our house. With clear skies and a little help from technology, the expectations were high. According to NASA, the station was scheduled to jet across our part of the sky starting at 7:08pm for 4 minutes. Sure enough, a bright dot appeared in the North-East on time. The ISS perfectly followed the predicted trajectory. It was quite inspirational to witness with our naked eyes an object the size of roughly two football fields race in space at 5 miles per second (8kms/sec).

Kevin Kirk concert

Friday night, I had the chance to attend a Jazz concert at the Egyptian theater in Boise. Thanks to Lynn, I was able to witness a great performance by Kevin Kirk & Onomatopoeia from a front row seat. In addition to being talented musician, these guys are great performers. They were accompanied by the Treasure Valley Youth Symphony orchestra and the show was filmed by Idaho PTV and will air in May. I only wish Laura and the boys could have attended...

Above the clouds

Boise has been drowned under a gloomy cloud cover for the last 5 days. Locally, it is commonly referred to as an inversion. Due to topography and weather patterns, Boise is occasionally subject to wintertime inversions. Colder and heavier air settles into the valley while warm air sits above. This causes air stagnation as the cold air and accumulating air pollution is trapped. The local sources of air pollutions such as wood burning smoke, vehicle exhaust, and local industrial emissions will build up under the inversion until a strong weather system moves through and mixes the air. Boise annually endures these winter inversions for an average of 20 days. As bad as it is to breath in the smog, a quite beautiful byproduct of the inversion can be found if one drives up Bogus Basin road to the local ski resort. This is exactly what we did this Sunday. At about 5,500 feet high (1,676m), the fog suddenly cleared up to blue sky and bright sunshine.

Above the clouds

We were literally standing on a mountain island surrounded by an ocean of white clouds. It was very tempting to dive onto that fluffy looking blanket... Laura, the boys and I enjoyed a great day of spring-like skiing in the middle of January. Once again, our Church of the Wilderness was a great inspiration.