Keep It Simple, Stupid!

By now you have probably noticed the new title of this blog. In a previous post entitled "The Name Game", I solicited my readers to submit ideas for a new title of this blog. After a record number of submissions, and after reviewing the best entries (0 entries were submitted), I have decided on mcfro.blogspot.com. My reasons were simple: It would likely be easier to remember the web address. Just simple marketing, nothing more.

X-Prize Won

A few days ago, the Ansari X-Prize was awarded to SpaceShipOne. This was more or less expected, though it is unfortunate that the DaVinci Project came so close, but had unforeseen delays. DaVinci Project may not have won the prize, but I suspect that they will continue to develop their technology, and become the first Canadian endeavor to have launch capability. Heck, even the Canadian Armed Forces don't have the capability to launch a rocket!

Music, Music, Music

I have spent an incredibly large amount of my spare time dedicated to music this week. Late Thursday night, I received a phone call from a gentleman who was in desperate need of a drummer. He had a gig to play the next night, and (to say the very least), he was in a bit of a pickle. I offered to help him out and play the gig with him. It was then expressed to me that there would be no time for rehearsals, and that most of the cover songs would be changed to a point just beyond recognition. I thought it might be interesting, could very well be disastrous, but I would end up earning a few bucks.

It was one of the strangest gigs I have every played. We played music from the 1960's up until today. We took rock songs and turned them country, we took country songs and turned them punk. We took every song and turned them rock, ska, funk, blues, disco, or reggae. I certainly had to be on my toes to play any style the bandleader commanded. Due to the lack of rehearsal time, we sounded a little rough around the edges, but there were no major train wrecks. It was fun nonetheless.

So how did it go? Well, we're playing again on Friday. Same bar. I'm looking forward to playing gigs again.

Grease rehearsals are taking up the rest of my spare time. Things are coming together, albeit slowly. There is still al large amount of work to be done for this production. But it's going to rock!

NEWS FLASH! Presale of Grease tickets commence on October 24th. Ticket prices and vendors will be posted on this website when I have the details.

I'll Take Potpourri For $100, Alex

Tuesdays Are Murder

I often wonder if I take on too much. Below is a synopsis of what Tuesday looked like for me.

• 0620 hrs: Alarm goes off. I get up, feeling the circles under my eyes burn.
• 0630 hrs: Hit the shower in a futile attempt to wake myself.
  
• 0700 hrs: Lay down for thirty minutes in an attempt to get a little more rest
• 0730 hrs: Cursing at MY96's idea of quality programming. "Very Exciting and Worth Listening to" is the least accurate description of Chris Savages' DJ abilities.
  
• 0735 hrs: Getting dressed, packing a snack, and reading the headlines of the news.
• 0745 hrs: Mad dash to work in traffic. Cursing at idiot drivers.
  
• 0800 hrs: At work.
  
• 1200 hrs: Driving home for a lunch break
• 1230 hrs: Watching 20 minutes of "Win Ben Stien's Money" in an attempt to make me smile for the first time that day.
  
• 1245 hrs: Cursing at construction zones and backed-up traffic in an attempt to make it back to work on-time.
  
• 1300 hrs: Back at work.
  
• 1700 hrs: Mad dash home for dinner.
  
• 1800 hrs: Loading equipment for Grease rehearsal.
  
• 1815 hrs: Putting fuel in my car so I don't run out of gas on the way to practice.
  
• 1830 hrs: Loading and setting up equipment for Grease rehearsal at the rehearsal studio.
  
• 1900 hrs: Grease rehearsal
• 2130 hrs: Rehearsal finished. Breaking down equipment and loading it into my car. Also being coerced into going to the pub for a beverage with the rest of the cast and crew.
  
• 2200 hrs: At the pub, partying like you never have partied before -- for 20 minutes.
  
• 2220 hrs: Leave the pub and drive across town, find a Kwik-E-Mart to pick up a few groceries, and go home to unload equipment.
  
• 2240 hrs: Home at last, and unwinding with a few beverages before going to sleep.
  
• 0000 hrs: Finally made it to bed. In about six hours I am going to have to go through this again.

It appears that I am a victim of my own demise. I seem to recall something in one of my previous posts about not going into detail about what I did that day. I apologize to those who were bored or offended, but it's my blog; I can write what I like. I just wanted to demonstrate that my days and nights are full. You can probably understand that when I have a night off, all I want to do is as little as possible.

There are a great many things I wanted to discuss in this entry, but I am afraid I am going to have to discuss them in utter brevity. Details will have to wait for other postings.

Beam Me Up, Scottie
The Space Race is underway. Yesterday, the first commercially-funded spacecraft had its first successful flight to the edge of the atmosphere. Scaled Composites' craft, SpaceShip One, traveled to a height of 100 kilometers above the Mojave desert. They have to successfully duplicate the flight within two weeks to clinch the X-Prize. In related news, the DaVinci Project's maiden voyage has been postponed until further notice. The X-Prize may be awarded to Scaled Composites, after all. It has been brought to my attention that in order to develop SpaceShip One, Scaled Composites has had to spend over $20 million dollars for a prize that is only $10 million. Kind of defeats the purpose, no?

Another Canadian Sports Team Goes Yankee

The Montreal Expos are migrating south to Washington DC. Although I am not a fan of baseball, it is saddening to see another major league sports team migrate south of the border. What I found most disheartening about the sale of the team is that last year's attendance record averaged 8000 spectators per game. Only 5000 spectators attended the Expos' final game on Tuesday. I found this unbelievable given 1) a city the size of Montreal, and 2) the capacity of the Olympic Oval. The place must have looked deserted. It was also stated on the Radio that the poor attendance and performance of the team was due to ownership issues. Don't quote me, that's just what I heard on CBC Radio.

Gimme Some of That Black Gold

Imperial Oil is migrating their head office to Calgary. All this likely means is another office tower downtown, more traffic, more smog, and a stronger Alberta economy. That is, until all the oil and gas wells go dry, which will likely happen within 50 years (read about life after the oil crash for doomsday predictions). Then we will be up the creek. In related news, the price of oil hit $50 per barrel, and I expect it is going to stay there for some time.

Buh-Weet Sez: "Wookin' Pu Nub In All Da Wong Pwaces"

The Dating Game is a blog written by EmGee, a thirty-something New Yorker looking for love in a city where there are 4-million Mr. Wrongs. I stumbled on her little blog while surfing the web, and found her writing to be quite entertaining. If you would like an humorous read about dating in the Big Apple, I suggest giving her blog a try.

My eMail Account Does Work!

Surprise, Surprise! I have been contacted by an old friend who stumbled onto my little corner of cyberspace. Getting a message like this made my week. One of the purposes of this blog is to find out who really is out there, interested in my humble life -- and those who manage to identify me. Congratulations! Your $32,000 check is in the mail. It is also post-dated January 1, 2063.

Cape Kindersley, Canada

This is what I would consider to be old news, but it is worth mentioning. For those of you who do not know what the X-Prize is, it is a ten-million dollar (US) reward to the team that manages to launch a space vehicle 100 kilometers into space, and completes a second successful flight within a two-week period. It is an incentive to jump-start space flight for civilians, in a market that is currently monopolized by governments.

Headlines were made in June of this year when the Scaled Composites team (USA) completed the first successful privately financed manned spaceflight with their vehicle SpaceShipOne. They have yet to complete a second successful flight, but they have announced that they will attempt to clinch the prize with their next launch scheduled September 29, 2004. They will have to successfully duplicate a subsequent launch on or before October 13, 2004 to win the prize.

Now that the 60-day warning has been issued, the remaining contending teams are scrambling to beat Scaled Composites and clinch the prize from under their noses. The DaVinci Project is considered to be the runner-up in the race, and is the only other team (out of 26 contenders) to have announced a launch date to compete with SpaceShipOne. Their vehicle, Wild Fire, is scheduled to take her maiden voyage on October 2, 2004 at Kindersley, Saskatchewan, Canada.

What is so intriguing about the Canadian contenders, is not only that the launch site is a hop, skip and jump from where I live, it is also the fact that the DaVinci Team is using an unconventional method to launch their space vehicle. Most of the other contenders, including Scaled Composites, are using a one or two-stage rocket to propel their craft and crew into space. This is based on technology that was developed for the NASA space program over half a century ago. The DaVinci Project, conversely, is using technology that is centuries old.

Wild Fire is set to be launched atop a reusable helium balloon. The balloon is set to take the craft to an altitude of 24,400 meters above the surface of the prairies, where the craft will then be launched into the edge of the atmosphere. The reasoning behind this is that the force of gravity is (marginally) less, there is far less air resistance, thus the craft would have to carry less propellant. It is an ingenious and economical idea. After the flight, the balloon would deflate to the surface for future use, and the spacecraft would float to Earth on a large parafoil.

Up to the present, manned space flight has not been economical. The United States government has spent billions (if not, trillions) on their manned space program. The leading contenders for the X-Prize, Scaled Composites, have allegedly spent in excess of 20 million dollars in developing their spacecraft. When so much money already invested, the prize may be regarded as rather frivolous. If these test flights for the X-Prize wind up successful in the upcoming months, it could usher in a new era in manned spaceflight -- one that is hopefully safe, economical, and available to the masses. I would certainly suspect that launching a vehicle atop a helium balloon would cost far less than currently accepted launch practices. Even if the DaVinci Project does not win the X-prize, it may just give them the cutting edge in the future.

"From now on we live in a world where Man has walked on the Moon. It's not a miracle; we just decided to go." -- Tom Hanks (Jim Lovell), Apollo 13.