Jonathan

Iceland’s South Coast

February 25, 2020February 25, 2020 by Jonathan Comment Closed

Today saw us taking Highway 1 along the south coast of Iceland. Fog and low clouds covered much of the landscape, but thankfully they burned off as we headed east toward our first stop, the Lava Centre. Hekla, Iceland’s most active volcano The Lava Centre opened about three years ago to educate the public on Iceland’s volcanic past and present. Interactive exhibits, creative use of multimedia, and real-time data made for a very informative visit. You could see the location and magnitude of the dozens(!) of earthquakes in Iceland in the past 48 hours, including graphs of how many millimeters the crust has risen or fallen in the past several years at various places around the island. One room contained a large hemisphere with a projected view of the area where Iceland now exists. Everyone stood around in a circle and collectively rotated a giant ring, which advanced the time from hundreds of millions of years ago to the present and...

“Pristine Iceland” – Feb. 24, 2020

February 24, 2020 by JonathanNo Comments

“Pristine Iceland - February 24, 2020” During our Viking ocean cruise in 2018, Jane and I booked another trip, “In Search of the Northern Lights” for this month and into March. We also booked a short pre-cruise extension with Viking, “Pristine Iceland,” which highlights some of the natural wonders of the southwest side of the island. A year an a half later, and it was finally time for us to make the trip! We left Greensboro yesterday and flew into Reykjavik this afternoon (Iceland time), just short of 24 hours since we left home. I watched out the window during our final approach to Keflavik Airport, and saw this massive rectangular mountain plateau just east of Reykjavik. I learned from our driver that it is Ingólfsfjall, named after Ingólfr Arnarson, the first documented settler of Iceland, who legend has it is also buried on the mountain. The weather was cold but not bitterly so, at right around freezing. We drove through a few snow...

Working on Apollo at Kennedy Space Center

July 8, 2019July 8, 2019 by JonathanNo Comments

It was my great privilege to be asked to help the NASA Alumni League – Florida Chapter kick off their month-long celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the launch of Apollo 11. I attended their June 18, 2019 meeting at the Debus Center at Kennedy Space Center. NASA Alumni League lunch, June 18, 2019 (Photo by Al Koller) Rather than giving a speech or showing a PowerPoint presentation, Roselle Hanson and I thought this would be an excellent opportunity to have the attendees talk about what it was like to work on the Apollo program at KSC. I polled several Facebook interest groups, “If you could ask a question to someone who worked on Apollo at KSC, what would you want to know?” I got some great questions and used those as conversation starters. The questions and answers below are transcribed directly from my recording of the event. Where I can identify the person who spoke on the recording, I’ve indicated their name. Q. What...

Recollections of Robert Shaw, 1916-1999

January 25, 2019January 24, 2019 by JonathanNo Comments

Twenty years ago today, the world mourned the passing of conductor Robert Shaw. Shaw was a towering figure of the American classical music scene beginning in the early 1940s when he prepared choruses for Arturo Toscanini. I had the great good fortune to sing with Mr. Shaw on two occasions in the 1990s. Those two periods were among the most profound experiences of my musical career and my adult life. Carnegie Hall, January 1995 Despite having only three years of experience as a choral singer, I somehow passed an audition to participate in one of Mr. Shaw’s annual workshops at Manhattan Center Studios, capped with a performance at Carnegie Hall. The program included two short Brahms pieces—Nänieand Gesang der Parzen(Song of the Fates), as well as Paul Hindemith’s When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d. Making the week extra special was that my wife Jane and our good friend Dina Weiss were also at the workshop, as were several of our choral conductor friends from...

Capturing an Asteroid

January 7, 2019January 7, 2019 by JonathanNo Comments

Sometimes the happiest results happen by accident. This is the story of how I unintentionally managed to image a small, distant asteroid with my Nikon camera and a wide-angle lens! Shooting Orion with a Guided CameraSaturday night, January 5, 2019 brought North Carolina the first clear skies in what seemed like ages. I planned to shoot some nebulas with my telescope and specialized camera. But tonight I also wanted to try out a new wide-angle lens I recently purchased, a Rokinon 24mm f/1.4 lens for my Nikon D5500. My goal was to point the Nikon at Orion and see how much detail I could capture if I kept shooting exposures as long as I was in the field. I set up the Nikon on my iOptron SkyTracker Pro mount and a sturdy tripod. The SkyTracker is a motorized one-axis equatorial mount. Simply put, once you've pointed it at the celestial pole, it will follow the Earth's rotation all night long. This prevents...

2019: The Year of Impulse Control

January 1, 2019January 1, 2019 by JonathanNo Comments

Every visionary leader knows of the art of motivating peak performance with audacious, challenging goals that are nonetheless achievable with great effort. Setting appropriate New Year’s resolutions is the equivalent activity for the rest of us. How do we push ourselves to do better, but not set ourselves up for failure? After deep pondering, I decided that 2019 will be my Year of Impulse Control, things I resolve not to do. And if I do slip up and succumb to temptation, I am setting backstops that will keep me from going too far. Okay, here goes. Ten things I resolve for 2019: 1. I will not purchase a jet ski. 2. If I fail at #1, I will resist the temptation to drive the jet ski in my koi pond. 3. I will not build a ziggurat (Babylonian step pyramid) anywhere on my property. 4. If I fail at #3, said ziggurat will be no larger than 50% scale. Maybe 75% scale. Definitely not full-scale. 5. I will not tell you...

Cambodia pt. 4 – The End

September 26, 2018 by JonathanNo Comments

After they’ve seen Angkor Wat, how’re you gonna keep ‘em on the farm? After we left the temple complex, sopping wet with sweat and tired in every bone, we had one more stop to make before lunch, at Theam's House in Siem Reap. This is a home and gallery of a local artisan who commissions and trains young artists in traditional Cambodian handicrafts and art. It’s an attempt to sustain local culture that was badly decimated during the Khmer Rouge period, and also to give opportunities for disadvantaged but talented Cambodian youth to develop their skills. Our last souvenir shopping completed, and the local economy duly supported, we moved on to an invigorating and delicious Cambodian lunch at Palate Restaurant. Pomelo salad with shrimp, sour fish soup, grilled marinated beef skewer, tamarind chicken, baby bok chow with oyster sauce, and a selection of Khmer custards, accompanied by Angkor beer. A can of beer: $2.58. Change back from a $5 bill was $2 in...

Cambodia pt. 3 – Angkor Wat! September 25, 2018

September 26, 2018September 26, 2018 by JonathanNo Comments

We were ready for the capstone event of the trip! This was the fitting way to end a journey that included the Parthenon, Delphi, Agamemnon’s palace, the Wailing Wall, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the Pyramids of Giza, Luxor and the Valley of the Kings, Petra, the Royal City of Bangkok, and so many points in between. I need to mention that we became very worried about two weeks ago, when Viking dropped off in our ship's stateroom the updated itinerary for the Cambodia portion of the trip. It was now entitled the “Siem Reap Extension” instead of the “Angkor Wat Extension,” and all mention of Angkor Wat by name had been removed from the day-by-day activity descriptions. We were prepared to raise holy hell if we didn’t get to Angkor Wat one way or another. Our guide Mr. Muy reassured us that we had a lot of time set aside to explore the temple complex on Wednesday. Angkor Wat We set...

Cambodia pt. 2 – September 24, 2018

September 25, 2018 by JonathanNo Comments

I think with my stomach. I was waiting to find out what the included breakfast at our hotel would look like. Man, was I not disappointed! Dim sum!! It was a great start to the day. Angkor Thom Our first stop of the morning was the ancient Khmer capital city, Angkor Thom. We approached the city gates from the south, walking over the moat along a bridge lined with statues of the many faces of Buddha. Angkor Thom was a huge city, which was founded in the late 12th century. The city walls are roughly 3 km long on each side, and at one time it’s estimated that somewhere between 100,000 and 150,000 people lived there. All the people—even the king—lived in wooden buildings. Only gods could live in stone buildings (the temples). All the wooden structures have long since disappeared. We proceeded to the Bayon Temple, perhaps the most widely-seen structure in the complex. It’s famous for the smiling faces of Buddha on...

Cambodia pt. 1 – September 23, 2018

September 25, 2018September 25, 2018 by JonathanNo Comments

Wow, it’s been an intense several days! No time for blogging, so I’ll have to catch up over the course of the next several days. We got up at 3:30 a.m. Sunday to depart the Orion for the last time. After confirming that we had the right suitcases in the port terminal, we boarded the bus and headed for Bangkok’s international airport at 4:45. Viking handled everything for us at the airport, and it was a smooth flight on a turboprop to Siem Reap airport in Cambodia. We flew in over a vast lake surrounded by flooded rice paddies stretching as far as we could see. The airport at Siem Reap was modern and uncrowded, and the customs and immigration process was amazingly fast. Soon we were on the bus to our hotel, the Park Hyatt Siem Reap—a beautiful hotel!--to drop off our bags and head out immediately for lunch. Lunch was at Mahob Khmer restaurant, a converted old wooden house. We’d...