Discovering Discovery...

(Borrowed the pic from the NASA site, click on the pic to link there... not my work folks) I am so stinking jealous! I have just heard from a good friend that he is on his way to the Kennedy Space Center to watch the launch of the STS-120, Discovery, which is scheduled for lift-off at 11:38 this morning. The Discovery is headed for the International Space Station. Guess where I would like to be right now...? I will make it to a launch, one of these days, mark my words. My friend is planning to try to get some pics and/or video, so if I get that, I will try to figure out how to load that to here from my phone... (I haven't gotten that far in the manual...) Overcast and hazy skies will prevent me from seeing even the fireball in the sky that I have seen in the past from here. Looks like despite isolated convective cells off the coast of Florida, the launch should not be scrapped on the basis of the weather. I am streaming NASA TV now. Did I mention how jealous I am? I want to see a launch! (Thick ice on the shuttle's liquid hydrogen umbilical on its outboard side being inspected attm. Liquid hydrogen... can't imagine how cold it would need to be to liquify hydrogen... Observed go for weather concerns... cool. Gaseous nitrogen has been pressurized. They are doing comm checks.) I will make it my goal to be at the next launch.

Onto local stuff... looks like the weather expected for today has been beaten down by Alabama... weather hogs. The line that came through overnight, produced some damaging winds, heavy rain and even some tornadoes (though only one was reported to the SPC) in Alabama, but it has mostly fallen apart, leaving me with a very unlikely shot at severe weather. I can anticipate rain and possbily some rumbles of thunder. Cool thing is that yesterday, I had the pleasure of seeing a sun dog. I actually saw one on Sunday, as well, and I "thought" I took a picture of it on my phone... but I can't find it... (haven't gotten that far in my manual either... lol) Sun dogs are among my favorite sky occurences. I pointed it out to Mini-Dew who said, "cool." Not to be outdone, I also saw some beautiful towers climbing yesterday (which Mini-Dew actually took pics of... proud mommy moment), didn't get anything locally, but I heard about lightning south of here. Nothing but Dewvoid. Anyway, the towers were especially beautiful against the striking blue sky. Awesome stuff...

Fires in Southern Cailfornia... I haven't talked about that, but there are numerous fires devastating Southern California as they receive fuel from strong Santa Ana winds. The fires there are 0% contained (yes, as in ZERO containment). Hundreds of homes have already been destroyed. The fear now is that the many fires will merge into one super fire. Scary stuff. My thoughts and prayers go out to the people being impacted by those fires. Watched one report where a reporter was standing outside his home reporting on it burning down. That was tough to watch, don't know how he kept his composure.

That's all I have for now. Waiting for the shuttle launch. My friend just called to let me know that he was getting into position. Awesomeness!

11:20 update: Ice issue cleared. Weather a go. All systems are a go. Looks like we might just have ourselves a launch. T minus 9 minutes and holding. Pretty awesome stuff.

Carolina Mike posted this on his blog... I loved it so much, I just had to share. I told you the Dewvoid was real, Mike. ;-) Just wait until you get here, you'll see.

OK, here is my friend, Bill's pic of the Discovery launch. Awesomeness... I will go to one of those.


Toodles,
~Dewdrop