After delaying the launch for 2 months because of faulty sensors in the fuel tank, Space Shuttle Atlantis blasted off yesterday, February 7, 2008 on its 11-12 day mission to deliver Europe's Columbus Laboratory to the International Space Station.

The good news about this is that pending any other technical problems, NASA should be able to fit in 5 more launches this year as they are trying to complete the ISS by the 2010 deadline. One of the 5 missions left for this year, will be Atlantis' final mission, and the final servicing of the Hubble Telescope, tentatively scheduled for September 2008.

Tags: nasa, atlantis, spaceshuttle, iss, sts122, news

So I just dropped off my XBOX 360 at UPS today to be shipped back to Microsoft for repair or replacement. I'm kind of hoping they end up giving me a new version of the 360 as a replacement. The new chips run cooler and of course with the new ones, you get HDMI output as well. Looking at it from a business standpoint it makes sense as well. The new systems have a lower failure rate which would mean having to replace fewer systems. It's gotta be cheaper then sending out more of the 1st gen 360s that are said to have as high as a 30% failure rate.

Either way, it does kind of suck and I'm hoping I get mine back soon, I want to play some Vegas, COD4, and I definitely want to start up Mass Effect. In the meantime though I have plenty of other options. I still need to beat Uncharted and of course Super Mario Galaxy, and of course World of Warcraft. But even outside of gaming world, I got other stuff I would like to work on. I'm looking into redoing my blog manager for this site, I just sstarted setting up my media database and web portal for my games, movies, music, etc. I decided for that I'm going to use ASP.NET and Microsoft SQL Server to switch things up as well as delve more into the technology. I'm also going to be delving a bit into game design so even without the 360, I'll have plenty to do.

Tags: thoughts, xbox, rrod, projects

I got back today after camping with my Boy Scout Troop up at Camp Trexler in Jonas, PA. It was a lot of fun, but very icy. I kid you not when I say that the entire camp was pretty much a giant sheet of ice. People and cars were sliding all over the place and even I had trouble maintaining my footing when I stepped out. Hurt my hip too trying to balance myself when I slipped once, but I was able to stay up. I'll be fine though, nothing serious.

I left straight from work Friday, picked up my Dad and headed up. Weather Friday was lousy, rain rain rain. Roads weren't too bad until we got to Camp Trexler I start going up the hill and think "hey, they paved this!" That thought was cut short when my Dad said "no they didn't". I quickly realized that the road up was a thick layer of ice. I managed to get up the hill simply by keeping my momentum and just going.

Friday night we just hung around in the cabin, Memorial Lodge, played cards, RISK, and had a dessert competition.

Saturday was the big day of events. In the morning we had a scavenger hunt set up for the scouts where they had to find playing cards scattered around the camp. In the afternoon there was a competition set up with events ranging from log throwing, caber tosses, a compas course, log splitting and others. I helped my Dad run the compass course and pretty much took over once he went off and ran the stations himself. Saturday night, there was a firebuilding contest which was pretty cool, scouts had to build a fire, and then transport the fire to another location (a 3-5 minute walk away) and restart the fire and burn through a dowel. 3 out of the 5 patrols were able to do it successfully so good for them.

Sunday wasn't much of an events day, just had breakfast, packed up, cleaned up, and hit the road.

Saturday also brought the fun of trying to get my parents' van back down the road after Eric (my brother) didn't heed the warnings and tried to drive up the hill, needless to say, he got stuck halfway up and we all had the task of bringing the van back down safely. The ice had re-frozen and it was almost impossible to drive up the hill, it was so bad there was a slight fender bender earlier in the day. Fortunately the van made it down without any damage.

Eric, the senior patrol leader for Troop 72 did a great job at setting up and planning the weekend. He organized all the events and really did a good job mixing in various different activities for the scouts to participate in.

Here are some links to the photos and videos of the weekend:

Winter Camp 2008 Photo Album

Tags: camping, life, bsa, fun