In other better news

Given that almost everything I read online comes from or is somehow connected with the SF/F community, I cannot quite understand how I missed this (yeah, okay, I was working up to getting married round about then, and may not have been paying attention) - but the Philip K Dick Award was announced a month ago. And went to my Tyneside friend and old First Monday buddy, Simon Morden, for his Petrovich books of the mind-numbing covers. So yay!

I shall use his wedding-gifts hereafter with extra reverence and thoughtfulness...

Aerogeekery: a question!

When I was a kid, my dad would take me to the airshow held every year on a local military airfield. I seem never to have grown out of the excitement of planes and all that they imply. [Also, yes: Biggles. Of course Biggles, how not?]

So here where we live, Moffett Field is just over there. Literally a short walk away. We're right under the approach; we get a lot of aircraft coming in over the garden, big transports and incredibly loud fighters - always in pairs, the fighters - low enough that they have their wheels down already.

But, alas, I was downtown yesterday when I saw something I have never seen before, so I didn't get the view that my own house would have afforded.

A question, then: what aircraft has wings like a plane, but helicopter rotors rising above each wing? There were two of them, and they looked like something out of science fiction.

[EtA: they were Ospreys! A huge thank-you to lifeofglamour, who was first to call it home...]

My head may not be where it's at

That last post was brought to you by a Chaz who has just dashed home unexpectedly, having got as far as downtown on his quest for more gardenstuff only to see a FedEx van and remember that he's supposed to be waiting in for a delivery, hopefully before the cleaners arrive and the cats have to be corralled, because cats and cleaners and the front door open? Eek.

Also, having decided that having come home I might as well make more coffee and do some work, I have now tried to make coffee with cold water. No, it's not that hot a day, I just forgot to boil it. This is ... sub-optimal, I think is the word.

Also also, it is apparently impossible for me to transfer coffee grounds from the grinder to the French press without spilling some on the counter, however hard I try not to do that. I keep evolving strategies, but some effects supersede strategy.