The big news of the day (well, I guess yesterday, since I missed posting this by a few minutes!) was that a meteor, the size of a bus, flew over the Russian city of Chelyabinsk and exploded in the sky. The resultant shock wave from the explosion shook up buildings, shattered glass windows and injured about a thousand people. Images and video captures of the event were spectacular and terrifying. I wish I had recorded them.

Within a twenty-four hour period of this occurrence, the Earth was scheduled to have a close fly-by with another space rock, this one about half the size of a football field. Object “2012DA14″, came within about 27000 Km of the Earth’s surface. Normally, this is a huge number, but in astronomical terms, this was REALLY close – the closest known approach for something this big.

While I do not work in the field of astrophysics, studying it has given me an appreciation of how big and nasty the Universe can be, and how much we do not yet know about it.  The Earth’s orbit around the sun is encompassed by a ring made up of thousands of asteroids and space rocks.  As the planets orbit around the Sun, gravitational perturbations can dislodge any number of these objects and start them moving throughout the solar system. Sooner or later one of these objects will intersect with the Earth’s orbit, and impact with the surface.  The resultant devastation would be unimaginable.

With this inevitability in mind, it seems logical to monitor the skies intensely, and to develop a plan to counter these threats.  As far as I am aware, we do not have any plan in place or the technology to deal with something like this.

Everyone was aware of the big asteroid’s close fly-by, but the smaller one caught everyone off guard. If today’s meteor had reached the ground intact, it is believed that it was travelling fast enough and had enough mass to level a city. Any city is fair game to these meteors, so it has worry everyone. As a species, we need to come together on this issue, and provide the necessary resources to avert this pending catastrophe.

I started thinking about where we could divert such resources, and with the recent announcement of the Pope’s resignation, religion caught my eye. Religion must be the most useless and wasteful of all human inventions. I believe that if everyone in this world can give up this fantasy of an imaginary sky daddy who will grant them eternal existence, we will have found the resources we need.  Churches take in billions of tax-free dollars annually.  So with this in mind, I say we need fewer places of worship and fewer hocus pocus religions and we need more organizations like NASA and more telescopes monitoring the skies.

I have a friend who is currently watching every episode of Star Trek The Next Generation series. I have been following his progress on Facebook as he updates his status with which episode he is watching. Of all the Star Trek series, this one is my favourite.  The show is entertaining, and has something to say.  Anyways, it’s made me recall some of my favourite quotes from Picard.

“Oh, I know Hamlet. And what he might say with irony I say with conviction: ‘What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god!’”

“Beverly, the Prime Directive is not just a set of rules. It is a philosophy, and a very correct one. History has proved again and again that whenever mankind interferes with a less developed civilization, no matter how well-intentioned that interference may be, the results are invariably disastrous.”

“Shall I tell you what true evil is? It is to submit to you. It is when we surrender our freedom, our dignity, instead of defying you.”

“Your honor, Starfleet was founded to seek out new life: well, there it sits! Waiting.”

“Horrifying… Dr. Barron, your report describes how rational these people are. Millennia ago, they abandoned their belief in the supernatural. Now you are asking me to sabotage that achievement, to send them back into the dark ages of superstition and ignorance and fear? No!”

“There are times, sir, when men of good conscience cannot blindly follow orders. You acknowledge their sentience, but ignore their personal liberties and freedom. Order a man to turn his child over to the state? Not while I am his captain.”

“With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably.”

“A person’s life, their future, hinges on each of a thousand choices. Living is *making* choices! Now, you ask me to believe that if I make a choice other than the one that appears in your history books, then your past will be irrevocably altered. Well… you know, Professor, perhaps I don’t give a damn about your past, because your past is my future, and as far as I’m concerned, it hasn’t been written yet!”

“They invade our space and we fall back. They assimilate entire worlds, and we fall back. Not again. The line must be drawn here. This far, no farther!”

“Attention all hands. As you know, we could outrun the Klingon vessels. But we must protect the Enterprise-C until she enters the temporal rift. And we must succeed! Let’s make sure that history never forgets… the name… Enterprise. Picard out.”

Happy new year again! Now back to business.

For the new year, I only have a few simple goals. The biggest one on my mind is getting my running routine back on track. Hopefully I do not get stuck with too many time-demanding projects at work. November and December were killers as I was pulling a lot of ten hour days and even lost a few weekends. The weather is cooler now, so I am looking forward to see what I can do without the heat inhibiting me.

Another one of my big goals is to keep up my thriftiness, so that I can continue to build up my down payment for my upcoming purchase.  Thankfully I have someone nagging me to keep my gadget addiction under control. My current MacBook Pro, cameras and lenses will just have to last a little bit longer. I have been wanting to get an iPad to play with, but I guess I can go a little bit longer without one.

Photography-wise, I wonder how much of the fashion circuit I want to spend my off time covering. I have been away from the office since December 21, doing absolutely nothing, and I like it!  All the vacation time I took off in recent years have been used towards attending fashion events. Sometimes I think I work harder at these events than my own day job, with little or no reward. It might be time to rethink all this.

Vacation time is almost over. Time to return to the grind tomorrow.

Every now and then I like to give my bedroom a really good cleaning. This usually involves moving everything out of my room so that I can wipe off the dust accumulation on my shelves. This time though, I wanted to rotate my rug, because the rug near the computer has completely worn away, so EVERYTHING, including furniture, had to be moved out of the room.

The entire process started on Friday, and at the time of this posting, I still have a few loose items scattered about the house, but it is all looking pretty good.  It is very satisfying to get rid of all dust that was hiding behind the furniture. I also managed to pick off a few silk worms that were hiding under the rug. I swear, moths are the new cockroach.

A few nights ago, on Wednesday, Toronto got its first major dumping in almost two years (around 640 days). Just thought I would note that. I have not had to drive in the snow yet, but my car has been prepped for a couple of weeks now.

A few weeks ago, an E-Mail was circulated around my office letting everyone know that flu vaccinations were being offered throughout the city. The flu season was upon us again.

On Tuesday morning, I felt a tingle in my throat that usually signals to me that I had contracted a bug. By Thursday evening I had positive confirmation of this, so I turned to every source of anti-histamine I had available to me. Right before I went to sleep, I took a Claritin, drank a cup of Neo Citron, and doused my nostrils with Otrivin. I went to work on Friday with my symptoms contained, at least for most of the day. By about three o’clock, the shields had fallen, and my nose was starting to run. Oh the indignity of dealing with a cold while at work. I felt it unfortunate that I could not shake hands with my co-workers as we all split off for the holidays, but it was better than infecting them and ruining their days off.

I was expecting my symptoms to worsen on Saturday, but instead, I could feel that things were already starting to improve.  This cold was relatively mild, so what gives? My only explanation for this quick recovery is that for the past year I had been taking public transit again to work. Perhaps my immunity got a boost by exposing it to every little germ in the city. I honestly do not know. I have no scientific evidence to back this claim, but it is an interesting thought. Christmas with the family is looking good for me this year.

I guess there is no coasting quietly into the holiday season for me this year. At least I got most of my heavy shopping out of the way before this latest grenade got dropped in my lap. Hello, again, sleepless nights.

The blog I started earlier this year sucked – yes, plain old sucked, so I mothballed it and am starting again.

Here’s hoping that 2013 is the year I get my writing juices flowing again.