All posts by kleucht

NASA wants YOUR input on the future of the space program!

June 11, 2009 kleucht Leave a comment

nasa-meatball

NASA Press Release dated: June 5, 2009

NASA LAUNCHES HUMAN SPACE FLIGHT REVIEW WEB SITE FOR PUBLIC USE

WASHINGTON — NASA is inviting the public to make its voice heard as a panel of experts undertakes an independent review of planned U.S. human space flight activities.

NASA has created a Web site for the Review of U.S. Human Space Flight Plans Committee to facilitate a two-way conversation with the public about the future direction of the agency’s space flight programs. In addition to providing documents and information, the site will allow the public to track committee activities, receive regular updates and provide input through Web 2.0 tools such as Twitter, Flickr, user-submitted questions, polls and RSS feeds. Additional features and content may be added as the committee’s activities continue.

“The human space flight program belongs to everyone,” committee chairman Norman Augustine said. “Our committee would hope to benefit from the views of all who would care to contact us.”

Anyone may use the Web site to submit questions, upload documents or comment about topics relevant to the committee’s operations. The committee will conduct public meetings during the course of the review. The first will be held June 17 in Washington, D.C. An agenda for this meeting will be announced soon. Time will be set aside for public questions and comments to the committee members. No registration is required to attend.

To learn more, visit the committee’s Web site at:

http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/home/index.html

For information about NASA and agency activities, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov

Activities, Travel, Vacations, Computers, User Interfaces, Miscellaneous

A quick online tour of my home town: Mackinaw, IL

June 7, 2009 kleucht 2 Comments

I was playing around with Google Maps today and realized that the Google Street View folks have driven through my tiny little home town of Mackinaw, IL. They didn’t drive all over the place … they just made a beeline down the main drag. But still, very cool. So enjoy your online tour of Mackinaw, Illinois!

Click on any image below to view and interact with it. Click and drag to “look around”. Click on the street arrows to drive up and down the street.

[All street view images are copyright and owned by Google.]

Welcome to Mackinaw, Illinois where the population is around 1,500 very nice folks. It’s only 30 minutes from Peoria to the West and 50 minutes from Bloomington to the East.

This is the old historic Mackinaw Train Depot. It sat empty and in near ruins for many many years when I was growing up. When I was in high school, the historical society paid me to mow it. They also paid me to paint the historical sign that was displayed out front for many years. Some very smart entrepreneurs came up with the idea to make a tea room and a gift shop out of it and it’s been thriving now for many years.

Here is Mackinaw’s downtown park. It’s also very historic. I have some photos from the Mackinaw Sesquicentennial in 1976 of my family dressed up in Sesquicentennial garb and watching the time capsule burial ceremony here. That should be fun to open up someday. There is an historic naval ship gun turret displayed here in this park. You can see it on the left in the photo. It’s pretty cool and fun for kids to play on. Last summer I got photos of my boys climbing and playing on it, just like I did when I was their age!

Here is the only grocery store in the area … the Mackinaw IGA. I worked here during high school and Junior College along with many of my classmates. Sadly this store burned down last year. Here is another photo. The owner says they’re gonna rebuild, though.

Here is a view looking downtown. It’s a very small and friendly little town.

Mmmmmm. Ice cream. This ice cream stand wasn’t quite this big when I was growing up. It’s good to see that business is good and they have added on to the original little shed building.

The Christian Church in Mackinaw. It’s a beautiful building inside and out. This isn’t the church my family attended, but some of my friends attended here and I visited occasionally and have good memories from it. My United Methodist church didn’t get photographed by the Google Street View cameras or I’d include it here too.

Mackinaw Grade School. It looks quite a bit different than when I was attending. I attended here from Kindergarten all the way through 8th grade. The Junior high was in a different area of the building than the lower grades. I don’t think any of the original building remains anymore.

The Mackinaw Grain Elevator. When you live in the middle of corn country, you can’t hardly throw a rock without hitting a grain elevator.

Well, that’s about all the Google Street View folks were able to capture by driving down the main drag. There’s way more to Mackinaw than what you can see from these few photos, though. If you’re ever in the area, drive on through and stop by one of the nice little restaurants or stores. You’ll be glad you did.

Kurt

Health, Home, Property, Safety, Miscellaneous

Kurt’s New Car: PT Cruiser

June 5, 2009 kleucht 1 Comment

I’ve been keeping my eyes open for a few months now looking to replace my work vehicle (an old Ranger pickup) with something that I could haul the whole family in … or at least myself and the boys. The Ranger still runs okay and still looks okay, but when school starts in the Fall I plan on taking both boys to school in the morning before I go to work and the Ranger only holds one driver and one passenger.

I considered the extended cab small pickups for a while but I quickly realized that those little jump seats just aren’t very safe in crashes. So I started looking at small cars and mini-SUV style cars. I wasn’t looking specifically for a PT Cruiser, but this one popped up on Craigslist (free online classified ads) and the price was right so I bought it. It’s a 2005 base model dark blue Chrysler PT Cruiser 5 speed manual transmission with under 50,000 miles. It’s in really good shape and it’s a very nice looking car too! I’m very excited! [Click the photo for a larger version.]

Midlife crisis? Possibly.

Cool looking car? Definitely!

Cool looking, but also a very practical car? Absolutely!!!!!

So, does anyone want to buy my old Ranger pickup truck? 🙂

Kurt

Nature, Photography, Videos

Mockingbird Nest with Eggs

May 31, 2009 kleucht Leave a comment

While trimming our landscaping yesterday, a mockingbird surprised me and flew out of our Bougainvillea bush right outside our front door. Turns out there was a nest in there with three eggs. I snapped a couple photos and went on with my yard work. Those mockingbirds are pretty fearless. When I was edging and trimming with my gas powered trimmer, she stayed in the nest and did not leave the eggs. That’s pretty brave for a bird, because that trimmer is really loud! So I was able to snap another photo with momma mockingbird sitting on the nest.

Click on these thumbnails to see larger versions:

Art, Graphics, Woodworking

Pictures and Media from AIDA the musical

May 30, 2009 kleucht Leave a comment

I finally sat down and created an AIDA page on leucht.com containing photos that I took during the production along with links to photos taken by others along with a couple of videos that were produced for marketing purposes.

The leucht.com AIDA web page can be found here: http://www.leucht.com/aida/

Enjoy. And if any cast members or crew has any more photos from the production that they’d like to share with the masses, feel free to contact me via http://www.leucht.com/email/ and I’ll be happy to add more links.

Kurt