Happy Slightly Belated Birthday - "WebLog"

According to these two articles from Ars Technica and the BBC, December 17, 2007 was the 10th birthday of the word "weblog".  The BBC article cites a Technorati estimate that 1.5 million blog posts are added to blogs each day.  Well, here's my contribution for today. :)

Curse you, Galactic Empire!

I can't believe the Stormtroopers got to him. What are my kids going to do?

Photo Courtesy of Gizmodo (NOTE: Gizmodo sometimes has PG-13ish content in its posts. I don't recommend regular visits by younger kids and is the reason I don't directly link to this story, but the picture is way cool.)

You mean, this isn't how to do laundry?

It might explain why Alisonwonderland doesn't let me do it...

Now that's the way to start a December!

December 1:

It was snowing when I took Jelly to her orchestra rehearsal at 8am.

It snowed during her entire rehearsal.

It snowed the whole drive home (which took 50 minutes instead of 30, by the way).

It snowed while Sugar Bear and I shoveled the driveway and sidewalk at noon.

December 2:

And here are the results...(I just love winter much to the chagrin of Alisonwonderland...)

All creatures great and ugly

Are you a Star Trek fan? I am. I pretty much like all of the different series. I especially like the original series -- not for the great special effects, but rather for the lack of them! And that includes the creatures. Here's an online article from Wired showing off their picks for the 10 Cheesiest Creatures. Do you have a favorite not on this list?

Nerf & Doom: what more can you want?

When I was growing up...  Okay, maybe not.  Maybe a few years ago, I would play the original Doom video game on my PC.  What a great first-person shooter that was.  And totally separate from that, I loved (and still do) anything Nerf.

Well, now someone has combined them!  Check out this video.  Pretty funny stuff.  (As it turns out, a search on YouTube turns up any number of "Doom Nerf" videos...)

You want me to do what?!?...

My company provides software for the insurance industry.  It comes in versions for the desktop and the web.  Apparently, we have a little bug in the display code because the desktop version displays the correct instructions, but the web version...  well, you have to see it for yourself.

I don't care how much the commission is, I am NOT licking any participant's anything!

Weather or not I'm old

I saw this article on the local paper's website a few days ago.  It talks about a weather beacon being reinstalled on the Walker Center in Salt Lake City.  That in itself didn't do much for me since I didn't grow up here, but it did remind me of the weather beacon I did grow up with in Fresno, CA.

For years during my youth I remember the giant "G" glowing various colors on top of the Guarantee Savings bank building.  I don't even remember what they all meant, but the colors would  be red, green, or white, and it could possibly be flashing.  You could see it for miles around, even from my farm.  (Yes, Fresno is a pretty flat place.)

You should be able to see it in this picture below.

According to this article on Wikipedia, it no longer works.  However, this website referred to by the Wikipedia one seems to say otherwise.  I hope it's true that it works.  There aren't too many around and although these days you could just fire up weather.com to see what the weather is, there was nothing like that big "G" slowly turning on top of that building.

So let's say you want your own way to see what the weather is going to be.  According to the Salt Lake City paper, it's going to cost $500,000 to put the Walker sign back up.  You could do it for a lot less.  Go ahead and look out a window at a tall building in the distance like the Guarantee Savings building I could see while growing up.  I'll wait.  Got it?  Good.  Now if you look around the building and see blue, the weather is clear.  If you see water, it's raining.  If you see white, it's snowing.  If you see nothing but black, it's night.  If you see...

Update to my airports list!

Check out my airports post.  I am now up to 44 airports in 25 states.

One thing I must say, though.  I've always had this romantic notion of John F Kennedy in New York as being some amazing place.  The other week, my dream was shattered.  The Delta terminal, at least, was rather old and showing its age.  Oh, the shops were fairly nice, but the walls, floors, and interior was just generally... "dirty".  It definitely could use some modernization and spiffying up.

Another new airport

Last week I added Minneapolis/St. Paul and Minnesota to my ever-growing list of airports and states.  I've decided to also keep the original post updated so that I can have it all in one place. :)

Busy, Busy, Busy...

Wow, that is quite a lack of updates on my site.  I'm going to have to do much better at that...

As posted previously, I've been traveling quite a bit.  My last trip was to Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey.  I can now add Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR) to my list.  That brings airports up to 41 and states I've landed in/taken off from to 22!  I'll be adding another one next week, and probably a couple more next month.  What a collector I am. :)

I am also a major procrastinator.  I should probably start a local chapter of the procrastinators' club, but I think I'll wait until later.  Anyway, I signed up for an independent studies class last year, and it's almost due!  I only have a little over a month to get it done and I've barely started.  Back to the books now...

Take to the skies!

Google has an update to its Google Earth app.  It's really cool for two new features it has.

First up is being able switch from looking down to looking up!  From Google Earth's own "What's New?" page: "Switch your view to see the sky above your Earth location, and explore far-away galaxies, nebulae, and more.  Zoom in to see imagery from the Hubble Space Telescope, learn about the lifecycle of a star, or even view the constellations.  After all, the Earth doesn't sit in a vacuum...  that would be an awful waste of space."

The second is what's really cool.  It now has its own flight simulator!  As the GOS blog states, it’s not quite Microsoft Flight Simulator, but it is pretty good. And just a whole lotta fun! I started out by flying around in the prop plane. It made it a lot easier to learn to fly and I buzzed my house and all that fun stuff, but the real challenge, at least for me, is learning to fly that F-16! Now that is cool! I still don’t quite have turns down yet, so I practice at 25,000 feet so I have a little wiggle room. 

Anyway, if you want to waste some time, download the latest Google Earth!

Added an airport!

Last month, I added an airport to bring the total airports I've been to up to 40!  I also added another state to bring that total to 21.  (But alas, it was not Hawaii...)

And the lucky runway belongs to... drumroll please... Des Moines International Airport, IA (DSM)!

It's been awhile

Wow.  Guess I've been a little negligent in keeping this blog updated.  But don't worry, I've got plenty of material now, so if you haven't been here for awhile, or ever, there will be plenty to read.  And with that, off we go!

Oh, the places you'll go!

Since I'm in the travel frame-of-mind, I thought I would create my own post of airports I've been to.  Alisonwonderland did a post like this a while back, so I'm just stealing her idea here.  I thought it would be interesting.

BTW, I don't know why, but the Dr. Seuss book was the first thing that came to mind when I was thinking of a title for this post. 

"You'll be on your way up!

You'll be seeing great sights!

You'll join the high fliers

who soar to high heights."

--Dr. Seuss, "Oh, the Places You'll Go"

Airports I've flown into and/or out of, in alphabetical order...

• Atlanta Hartsfield International (ATL)
• Austin, TX (AUS)
• Baltimore Washington International (BWI)
• Boston - General Edward Lawrence Logan International Airport (BOS)
• Burbank Bob Hope (BUR)
• Calgary, Canada (YYC)
• Camarillo, CA (CMA) 
• Cancun, Mexico (CUN)
• Charlotte Douglas International, NC (CLT)
• Charlottesville VA (CHO)
• Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International (CVG)
• Cleveland (CLE)
• Colorado Springs (COS)
• Dallas Fort Worth International (DFW)
• Denver International (DEN)
• Des Moines International (DSM)
• Detroit, MI (DTW)
• Fresno Chandler Field (FCH)
• Fresno-Yosemite International, CA (FAT)
• Heber City Municipal - Russ McDonald Field, UT (36U)
• Houston George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH)
• Indira Gandhi International (DEL)
• John Wayne-Orange County Airport (SNA)
• Kansas City International (MCI)
• Las Vegas McCarran International Airport (LAS)
• Los Angeles International (LAX)
• Louis Armstrong New Orleans International (MSY)
• Louisville, KY (SDF)
• Miami International (MIA)
• Minneapolis/St. Paul International (MSP)
• Narita International (NRT)
• New York - John F Kennedy International (JFK)
• Newark Liberty International, NJ (EWR)
• Oakland, CA (OAK)
• O'hare International (ORD)
• Oklahoma City Will Rogers (OKC)
• Omaha, NE (OMA)
• Ontario International, CA (ONT)
• Orlando International, FL (MCO)
• Philadelphia International (PHL)
• Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX)
• Portland International (PDX)
• Reno/Tahoe International (RNO)
• Richmond International, VA (RIC)
• Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA)
• Sacramento International (SMF)
• Salt Lake City International (SLC)
• San Diego-Lindbergh Field (SAN)
• San Francisco International (SFO)
• San Jose, CA (SJC)
• Seattle Tacoma International (SEA)
• Twin Falls, ID (TWF)
• Washington Dulles International (IAD)
• Windsor Locks - Bradley International, Hartford, CT (BDL)

Some interesting facts (to me, anyway)

• Now totaling 54 airports spanning 31 states and 5 countries. 
• Although the city renamed its airport Fresno-Yosemite International, going by "FYI", at the FAA it's still "FAT". :)
• Did you know that the airport commonly known as Logan International (Boston) is really General Edward Lawrence Logan International?
• Why haven't I been to Hawaii?!?! :(
• I still haven't been to Hawaii... (3/25/22)

UPDATE 3/25/22: Added Burbank, Charlottesville, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Louisville, Narita, Chicago.

UPDATE 12/3/08: Added Portland International (PDX)

UPDATE 5/23/08: Added Indira Gandhi Intl, Delhi, India

UPDATE 10/16: Added Boston (Logan) and New York (JFK), updated facts.

UPDATE 9/29: Added Des Moines, Newark, and Minneapolis/St. Paul, updated facts.

Where's that Plane? Part II

Here it is: FlightView in action. At this very moment (or at least a few moments ago depending on how fast Blogger uploads my post and how long-winded my typing is...) Alisonwonderland's plane is somewhere over Kansas (West of Kansas City, North of Wichita).

Where's that plane?...

One of the sites I found during my many trips this past month is a place called FlightView. With it, you can track a plane that's in flight. Normally, you wouldn't be able to track yourself, but if you know someone who's flying, and know the airline and flight number, you can see where they are in real time (most of the time...).

What you do is first go to http://www.flightview.com. In the Flight Tracker box enter the airline and flight # you know is in the air, or try entering info in the By City tab. If you want to just try it out, select "Sample Flight" down at the bottom right of the window and it will bring up a random flight in the air.

This shows a picture of a plane in the air at that moment and some info on the flight. You can also click on the "Launch Live" button and it will show the location of the plane as it flies. See the pictures below. Anyway, pretty cool. Oh, there was one instance where I couldn't see the progress of the plane. The window said to contact the airline and didn't give any realtime information.

What a long strange trip it's been...

This past month has been the craziest in my life, travel-wise. In fact, from May 26 to June 21 I was in the office a total of three days! I know that may not sound like all that much to those of you who are true road-warriors, but I'm really not one of them. During that time span I went on three business trips and a week-long family vacation. (Probably) Needless to say, I've spent the past week doing mostly catch-up work at the office since I wasn't really too productive while at those various airports.

Now that the crazy travel time is past, though, I can get settled into a sorta normal life. I plan to get back into doing a little bloggin', so be sure to stop on by every now and then. I know I'll never get the hits some blogs get, but I gotta try to make my hit count somewhat respectable. :)

The worst McDonalds ever...

Okay, not that McDonalds is good, but still, at least they have some okay salads.

I'm in Houston at Bush Intercontinental Airport, waiting for my flight. I thought I better get something to eat before I go since it will be a few hours until I get home. Not finding anything else that really caught my fancy, I head to the McDonalds in Terminal A for a salad. "No salads," I was told. What?!? How can they not have salads. "You have to go to the one in Terminal B." Okay, no salad. What else? Oh, what the heck. I ordered myself a Big Mac meal (I hope DaltonGirl's not reading this). I pay for the meal. The girl hands me my medium soda. No lid. "Can I have a lid?" "We're out." Okay, first no salad, now no lid. This is not good.

While I'm waiting for my food, the next guy steps up and orders a large Hi-C soda. She hands him a Coke. When he points this out to her, she shoots him a look that seemed to me to say "What? I can't believe you're making me fix my mistake." You've probably seen that look before. I have.

Eventually I get my food. My Big Mac was all over the box, as in, some assembly required (make that a lot of assembly required). My fries? Limp as overcooked spaghetti. I wonder if there's even a manager there. Doesn't look like. Oh, well. I'll see if I can find them online. They should be expecting an email from me.

Okay, I'm off. Got a plane to catch. Just thought I would write about this lovely experience. :)

Bathroom Humor, Part II

Seen on the inside of a restroom at a hotel I stayed at recently.




I just must be tired. This struck me as just really funny for some reason...

I think this says it all...

...at least as far as being the parent of teenagers and tweeners goes...

DaltonGirl's Open Letter to Her Kids.

The Psychology of Vegas

I just returned from a business trip to Las Vegas. Yes, that Las Vegas. Yes, it was strictly business. A few co-workers and I went there for a company meeting.

Anyway, I had never stayed in Las Vegas before. Way back when, when I was in college, some buddies and I would drive up on a Friday evening, eat a $5 steak dinner, gamble away all night, then drive back home. Ahhh, the silliness/folly/stupidity (take your pick) of youth. Back then, I never noticed certain things, or maybe things have just changed.

Before I go on, I thought I would just throw out that I do not gamble, drink, nor smoke, so my observations are based on a strictly Vegas non-fan point of view. It appeared that most everyone was doing at least one of the three above activities, and usually all three. So without further ado, here are my observations...

The City
I would have to say that the entire Las Vegas strip is a surreal place. I'm sure this is intentional. After all, if it's surreal, then the money you're losing to them can't be real either, right? So let's start with the arrival by plane. Have you ever had one of those dreams where two scenes that should not be together are right there together? For instance, I grew up on farmland as flat as can be, yet in a dream I could turn the corner from my house, and there would be the mountains. You get what I'm talking about, right? Well, that's what happened when I got off the plane. Here I am in your basic airport. But along with the jetway, the podiums, the arrival/departure monitors, etc., is basically a mini-casino. No roulette tables or poker games, just slot machines, but it's complete with all the sounds, lights, and so forth. What's wrong with that picture? Just two scenes that didn't belong together in my mind...

Next is the hotel/casino we stayed in. We were at the MGM Grand, which has either 4,000 or 5,000 rooms depending on who you ask. Anyway, so I check in and start rolling my suitcase, well, me and a hundred other people, toward the elevators. A scene like checking into any other busy hotel. But what's right beyond the concierge desk before you get to the elevators? That's right, a real casino! Together with a hotel! There's that weird combined dream thing again. I guess it didn't seem "right" to me because when I used to go in college, a lot of these fancy places didn't exist, and we never slept in any hotel.

More Surrealness
A co-worker and I decided to take a walk the afternoon we arrived. As we deftly avoided men handing out flyers to, ahem, questionable "shows", we went from New York to Paris in a matter a minutes, watched a short water dance (at the Bellagio), and a few other things. Surreal...

The hotel room itself
It was fairly nice. The bed was pretty comfortable. However, I think they don't want you spending your time in there. There was one window, and not very big at that, so the room seemed kind of dark even with all the lights on. There were mirrors everywhere. Maybe you like looking at yourself all evening in your room, but I don't. Just about every other hotel I've stayed in has some movie channel like HBO or Showtime, but not this one. A coffee maker? Forget it. See? Don't stay in your room.

The Casino
However, they don't want you to leave the building. When I checked in, they gave me a $25 credit to eat in the hotel restaurants, so you don't have to leave. Just have a free meal, then get back to giving them the rest of your money. Another of my co-workers, who does gamble, tells me that if you gamble enough, they come and give you more vouchers for free meals. Very nice of them -- you give them your $1,000 and you get a $10 meal. (He was up 'til 3am gambling, by the way. Not a judgement call, just the facts.) Also, they don't have any windows either. Not one. I was told it was so you can't tell that it's night out or that you'll get otherwise distracted from giving them your money. The casino itself is in the middle of the building. If you want to get out, you have to walk a ways to any doors, past restaurants, shops, bars, etc.

All in all, it was an interesting experience. Las Vegas is not my first choice for recreation or entertainment. Maybe it's yours though. What do you think of it?

A Stranger is in the House...

Yes, there is. A presence not seen in our household before. Shiny. Silver. And way cool. (At least to me...) What is it?

As you may well know, I am just your basic neighborhood computer geek. AW can attest to that. My kids will agree. And as a bona-fide geek, I lust after all things electronic. The object of my desire? A Macintosh. Yup, an Apple computer.

And to help me on my journey, I've created a new blog. You can read my first official post here. There will be many others. I even have a link to it on my sidebar. Go take a look occasionally. Whether you're a "switcher" or not...

This is a test, this is only a test...

I just wanted to see if anchors work in blogger. Click the following link. If it works, you should end up where my sitemeter is on the sidebar.

I'm going to MIT...

Well, okay, not really.

However, I will be able to take every one of their classes online because by the end of the year, MIT will have all 1,800 of their classes available for free.

So what, you say? So What?!? I'll tell you what. I just love learning new things. 1,800 classes should keep me busy for at least a few years. Hek, i mae evn lern 2 spel gud.

Three new airports...

A while back, alisonwonderland blogged about the airports she's been in. I don't really know exactly how many airports I've been in myself (I'll have to count them one of these days...), but I did just return from six days on the road, err, in the air, and I can add three new airports to my own list:

• Washington DC - Reagan National (DCA)
• Richmond, VA (RIC)
• Philadelphia, PA (PHL)

Boy am I glad to be home!

Backstroke or Butterfly?

Those funny folks at Google...

Go to Google maps and get directions from New York, New York to Paris, France. It actually looks pretty reasonable (at least as reasonable as it could be) until you get to the end of America. Then it says... well, here's a snapshot of the directions...

Tanning Beds and Cancer

If you read my blog at all, you'll know that it's not very serious most of the time. However, this is one time I thought I would post a warning.

According to an article in Insurance Broadcasting, the International Journal of Cancer published an article about the relationship between tanning bed use before age 35 and skin cancer. Quoting the Working Group on artificial UV light and skin cancer of the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), "Young adults should be discouraged from using indoor tanning equipment and restricted access to sunbeds by minors should be strongly considered."

The most disturbing statistics from the article says that "Men and women who ever used sunbeds were 15 percent more likely to develop melanoma, the researchers found, based on 19 studies they reviewed. A review of seven studies found that exposure to tanning beds before age 35 boosted melanoma risk by 75 percent."

75% more risk!! I mean, I know a lot of you young people think that having a golden bod is important, but do you really think it's worth the risk?

Good thing I'm old, flabby, and not worried about showing off my body...

I just KNEW I had healthy eating habits!

It says so right here...

"Boosting Brain Power -- With Chocolate"

So it was a special drink... and from dark chocolate... It's still chocolate!

Are you my type?

My wife, an INTP, had me take a quick quiz to see what type I was. Here is my result.

ENFJ - "Persuader". Outstanding leader of groups. Can be aggressive at helping others to be the best that they can be. 2.5% of total population.

Free Jung Word Choice Test (similar to MBTI)
personality tests by similarminds.com

What's yours? (Just click on the link above...)

Happy Easter everyone!

Hey, if I can't wish everyone a Happy Easter, who can? It's just about my favorite holiday, and it's not even for the chocolate eggs (although chocolate should have a holiday all to itself, in my opinion).

Yes, I AM a computer God Geek!

I went and took the Computer Geek test referred to at Patrick's Weekender blog (It's the Saturday Six - Episode 155). I am proud, yes proud, to say that I scored out as a 100% bona-fide Geek.

See, here's the proof, even.



Think you can live up to that? Go ahead, try the test. I dare you. Make my day.

By the way, my wife, who's a much better blogger than I, and apparently a much more normal human being, came out as middle-of-the-pack for geekiness (lucky for her).

Geek word of the day

From Wikipedia, Grok "is a verb that connotes knowledge greater than that which can be sensed by an outside observer. It is an understanding beyond empathy and intimacy. In grokking, one experiences the literal capabilities and frame of reference of the subject."

I grok Blokus. (Okay, not really. But I wish I did...)

Bathroom Humor

Roto-Rooter's Pimped Out John. I don't think any more needs to be said.

Now YOU can beat Serena Williams at Tennis

The voice wasn't quite synced up, but you'll get the idea. And amusing to boot!

Serena vs. Conan

Countdown to July 21, 2007

Anyone who's a Harry Potter fan probably already knows this date, but for those of you that don't, that is the day the seventh and final book in the series is expected to be released! Woo-hoo!

What's up with Blogger?

Or rather, What's DOWN with Blogger?

If you're actually reading this post, blogger has somehow managed to come back online. If you are seeing the screen below, then it doesn't matter because you can't read this anyway! (I bet somehow, in some way, the preceding actually made sense to you, huh? Admit it.)

The iPhone Shuffle

If you know anything about Apple, the iPod, and the iPhone, you will find the iPhone Shuffle pretty dang funny!

Quote of the Day

As a leader and manager, I think this is now my favorite quote...

"If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea."

- Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Life imitates "Art", yet again

A little while ago, I wrote a post about a big chunk of ice shelf breaking off, just like in the movie The Day After Tomorrow. (By the way, have you noticed all the weird weather that's been happening this winter all over the world? Maybe it's not totally like the movie, but still, you have to wonder...)

Now, we have something right out of the movie The Italian Job. (The best part of this movie are the Mini Coopers! Oh, yeah!) One of the characters in the movie is a computer hacker who claims he can control the Los Angeles traffic control system. Well, now we have two traffic engineers who have been accused of hacking into the L.A. traffic control system.

"Curiouser and curiouser," a friend of mine would say...

The end of an era?

The other day I uninstalled my Visual Studio 2003 environment. So, you say? And just what the heck is VS2003?

Well, for the past twenty-some-odd years, I've been a software developer by trade (I graduated college when I was six and started working right after that, by the way). VS2003 is a development environment. It allows us programmers to write the applications you use every day on your computer.

Even when I became the "manager" of a software development team, I programmed. I thought I would always write code.

Then last year, I became the senior manager of our little group of software products (developed and supported by about 25 people). Since then, I've been so busy managing people, technology, and the office, I haven't been able to help out with any of the coding! Since the development environment takes up a number of gigs of hard drive space, and since I haven't used it in over 4 months, I decided to uninstall it.

It was a sad, sad day. Maybe I'll whip out an editor and write some C++ code at home just for old time's sake. Maybe.

Yummy deal...

Buy one Baskin-Robbins Sundae, get one free!

(Oh, daltongirl is not going to like me this week...)

Happy Third Anniversary!

I never thought this pair would make it this far.

In fact, "experts" believed they'd only go 90 days. Hardly three months!

But here they are still going strong. They're both kind of short and ugly. And they really aren't very smart, but people keep trying to teach them new things anyway. They're both pretty slow, though. Heck, in three years, they've only gone 10.4 miles. Combined!

Yes, Spirit and Opportunity are celebrating three years on the Red Planet! Spirit actually landed on Jan 3, 2004 and Opportunity on Jan 24, 2004, so they're a little apart, but I think we can celebrate their anniversaries at the same time.

Go Spirit and Opportunity!

Geek word of the day

Okay, it's more like a phrase, but here it is...

Data Deduplication: a process designed to make network backups to disk faster by eliminating large amounts of redundant data. Also called Data Reduction, Commonality Factoring, Capacity Optimized Storage.

Whadev... I just like that word... Deduplication. Ain't it cool?

Feliz Navidad

Yes, I know it's not Christmas anymore.

But in the door I come after a run, and my son is singing "Feliz Navidad." Oh, cool. An interest in something besides Pokemon! Wait! That's not "Feliz Navidad" he's singing... it... sounds... more... like... what is that?...

"Fleas on my dad." Yes, that's it. That's what he's singing. "Fleas on my dad" sung to the tune of Feliz Navidad. Try it. It's kinda catchy. It just falls apart when it gets to the "Prospero ano y felicidad" part. Oh, well.

Anyone interested in a slightly beat up 7-year old? Just kidding. No children were harmed in the making of this blog post.

Now THAT's forward thinking!

If I haven't mentioned it here, I've mentioned elsewhere that Google is taking over the world. Well, it appears that Earth just isn't big enough for Google. They want the moon as well, and they've got a long-term plan in place already. The following quote is from this web page:

"Glad you asked, and yes, the development of our lunar hosting and research center continues apace. We usually don't announce future products in advance, but in this case, yes, we can confirm that on July 20th, 2069, in honor of the 100th anniversary of mankind's first manned lunar landing, Google will fully integrate Google Local search capabilities into Google Moon, which will allow our users to quickly find lunar business addresses, numbers and hours of operation, among other valuable forms of Moon-oriented local information."

They've also got some amazingly detailed pictures of the lunar landscape. In fact, go over to http://moon.google.com/, zoom in to the closest possible, and you'll see some amazing details of the surface. (Mouse on over, you won't regret it.)