Ya know the astronaut with the dogs in his photo? His name is Leland Melvin. He’s from Lynchburg, VA.
When I lived there, the city declared April 7, 2008 “Leland Melvin Day” and because I have a weird affinity for weird days, I put it on my calendar.
Happy Leland Melvin Day. pic.twitter.com/zJIvVoVyI8
— [kimerrikin] (@kimerrikin) April 7, 2020
A man who has professional experience working in confined conditions, now sheltering in place with his doggos…
Pop up dance tribute to Bill Withers and a lovely day. #Goodnight #LRZ?. (Thanks Britt for filming 10 feet away.) pic.twitter.com/DCLbNddcuf
— Leland Melvin (@Astro_Flow) April 5, 2020
Plus, a note for later tonight!
This is how much bigger the Full Moon will look tonight – closest of the year. A chance for everyone, unified, to look up. https://t.co/Uxz0axBeYM (image C. B. Devgun) pic.twitter.com/ERYAZunar9
— Chris Hadfield (@Cmdr_Hadfield) April 7, 2020
Currants
Oh that’s wonderful! LOVE the video, even more with the photo above it. Thank you!
Adam L Silverman
West of the Rockies
Is this what is called a “super moon?”
Adam L Silverman
@West of the Rockies: Yes. When it is not being super, it works as a mild mannered orbiting planetary body at a great metropolitan newspaper.
SiubhanDuinne
For someone my age, I suspect my mad crush on Cmdr Chris Hadfield may be a bit … unseemly.
Don’t care. I think he’s awesome and amazing.
SiubhanDuinne
@Adam L Silverman: LOL, nice.
VOR
IIRC, that’s Leland Melvin’s official NASA portrait. Yes, with the dogs and the big smile.
Yutsano
@SiubhanDuinne: I see absolutely nothing untoward here. Crush away dear lady!
danielx
Mother and adoptive daughter, approaching cuteness event horizon.
Lyrebird
Okay it’s also gonna be Ronald E McNair day on here…
MomSense
@Currants:
Even in the low light, the man has moves!
West of the Rockies
@Adam L Silverman:
So the moon is moonlighting at The Daily Planet? Super!
Jeffro
(waiting for the next thread so I can have a really nice laugh at TCNJ dad’s expense…)
Had no idea Leland had written a book so off to Amazon Smile I go! Funny that he is just down Rt 29 from us.
SiubhanDuinne
@Yutsano: Appreciate the permission. Off I go to crush!
J R in WV
i see this headline on Google News / NBC news:
With all possible respect to Mr Kuperstein, his father died with someone willing to risk their own life to be there to hold his hand. Someone who has empathy for the plight of others past what most of us can understand. Not a stranger, a nurse.
He is taking his pain out on the health care workers who are all risking their lives — in many cases giving their lives — to help the strangers in their hospital beds.
And, amazingly, those health care workers forgive him for his bitter words, which I am sure they have heard before from families who can’t believe their loved one couldn’t be saved by modern medical miracle science.
ETA: Actually, Mr Kuperstein is taking advantage of his father’s death to reap a headline as well as disregarding the bravery of the health care folks who cared for his father, and is in all probability a self-centered ass, but I’m trying to cut him a break. It’s hard, tho.
khead
You know, I have no idea how many laws I broke yesterday but I managed to make sure Mrs. Khead got some flowers and a nice dinner for her birthday while being in close contact with only about three people. Just had to tell someone. Hope all of you jackals are doing well out there.
MisterForkbeard
@J R in WV: You missed this key line from Kuperstein:
He’s regretting the circumstances and not blaming anyone beyond (obliquely) the national handling of this. But he specifically credits the doctors/nurses and wishes he could have met them.
charluckles
I’ve got a grade-schooler with a brand new telescope. Birthday gifted from his beloved Grandmother. Bring on the moon!
JCJ
@SiubhanDuinne:
I know you are more of an opera fan, but this is a video posted recently by the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=234&v=E8T7Y-E6E_w&feature=emb_logo
Not everything in Wisconsin is horrible!
germy
NEW YORK (AP) – Convicted former drug company CEO Martin Shkreli, known as “Pharma Bro,” wants to get out of prison so he can help research a treatment for the coronavirus, his lawyer said Tuesday.
Defense attorney Ben Brafman said that he will file court papers asking federal authorities to release Shkreli for three months so he can do laboratory work “under strict supervision.”
His client – best known before his arrest for drug price-gouging and his snarky online persona – is housed at a low-security prison in Allenwood, Pennsylvania.
“I have always said that if focused and left in a lab, Martin could help cure cancer,” Brafman said in a statement. “Maybe he can help the scientific community better understand this terrible virus.”
Jay
mrmoshpotato
@charluckles: Make sure to let us know your guess for what kind of cheese the Moon is.
Roger Moore
@germy:
Sorry, but there’s no indication Shkreli knows jack squat about researching treatments for anything. He’s just an asshole who knows how to make a lot of money by working the system. That’s not who we need looking for cures.
Besides, he disrespected the Wu-Tang Clan. He stays locked up for his whole damn sentence.
mrmoshpotato
@germy: BWHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!! How about a dickpunch for Pharma Bro? Would he settle for staying in prison and a dick punch?
germy
Roger Moore
@mrmoshpotato:
Wensleydale. I have it on good authority.
Jay
Is noticing karma a semi respite?
Jay
khead
@germy:
I want to enter the contest and win just to say “Go fuck yourself Paul Broun” while taking the gun. Hey – we’ve won several giveaways since this whole thing started so it might happen.
germy
Roger Moore
@Jay:
Unfortunately, that’s not how it works. It’s clear from reading the prophets that God punishes the whole of Israel for allowing sinful behavior to continue; He doesn’t limit the punishment to the sinners.
rikyrah
A wonderful surprise for a 9 year old Hamilton fan ???
https://youtu.be/oilZ1hNZPRM
Dorothy A. Winsor
Oh holy moly. A cart just came around offering free beer and wine. How’s that for a respite? I live in an awesome place.
germy
zhena gogolia
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Nice!
mrmoshpotato
@Roger Moore: Don’t know it well enough to call it Henry?
japa21
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Do they need my address?
Jay
@Roger Moore:
don’t count on it. A surprising number of allegedly straight, religious men obsessed with gay sex for some strange reason are not straight, or religious.
https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.theonion.com/why-do-all-these-homosexuals-keep-sucking-my-cock-1819583529/amp
Mary G
Dorothy A. Winsor
@zhena gogolia: @japa21: I toast all jackals virtually. They say they’ll come again on Friday. It’s like having Santa come.
Jay
FlyingToaster
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Alas, I can’t start drinking until WarriorGirl heads upstairs for the night… 2 and a half more hours. And only an hour until Violin via Zoom.
Feel free to start without the rest of us; we’ll catch up.
Elizabelle
Lynchburg, hmmm? I hope those Falwell Jr. Liberty U Vectors for
ChristCash are not anywhere near this good man of science.We just had a refreshing T storm pass through, quickly. I hope we will be able to see the moon this evening.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@FlyingToaster:
I’ll be thinking of you,
Elizabelle
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Toasting you with a nice dry glass of rose. In a while …
Subsole
@Roger Moore: Yeah. Like 9/11.
Fuckers.
Subsole
@Jay: So that shark is older than the Republic.
That is crazy-awesome.
WaterGirl
@Mary G: The link doesn’t work. :-(
mrmoshpotato
Jay
Adam L Silverman
@WaterGirl:
Elizabelle
@Adam L Silverman: Never mind the levitating pupper, notice they have hung two rolls of toilet paper from the ceiling.
Showoffs.
A Ghost to Most
Rick Wilson :
Calouste
@germy: Because the people you want to have working on a vaccine are not pharmacists or chemists or biologists, but a guy with a bachelor’s in Business Administration, right?
Percysowner
My son-in-law works for the State Legislature. He’s one of the people who writes the letters legislators send to constituents, congratulations, recognition of achievements, that sort of thing. This is usually their biggest time of the year, with high school and college athletics and graduations coming around. Needless to say this year is slow, slow, slow. The entire staff is working from home (and this from an office that never had ANY provisions for WFH. My SIL is now creating the database of state “holidays” including ones celebrating a Polish patriot. He says it’s actually really fun.
Origuy
@Calouste: He can be a test subject.
Jay
https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2020/04/03/how-coronavirus-disinformation-gets-past-social-media-moderators/
NotMax
@Elizabelle
Sort of cute. Dogs react to magic tricks.
Amir Khalid
I remember my first thought on seeing that photo: he must be a nice man if his dogs love him so mch.
Elizabelle
@NotMax: Give that beagle the treat!
middlelee
@J R in WV: Did you read his whole post? I did and he had a whole paragraph or more thanking the nurses and doctors who took care of his father.
JAFD
Good evening, or night, or morning !
Yours truly, knocked out of synch with world, fell asleep just as Ms. Laurie hit the ‘submit’ button, and now wakes up to face ‘breakfast’…
Anyway, my mother would have been 106 today. May she rest in peace. (She passed on, three weeks short of her 90th, major stroke at the Seniors’ Club luncheon… If she had lived to see blogs, she’d have spent her evenings at ye keyboard…)
Either internet connection, or computer #3, went kablooie on Sunday afternoon, tech was here early Monday morn, replaced wireless router, but still trying to get that working. So using computer #4, (#1 & 2 mothballed), typing on laptop on lap. First world problems…
Started work on converting a duct tape spool into a broach for a miniature Pict army. Pictures soon. Got email from Historicon (grand gathering of grown-ups who still play with toy soldiers, mid-July in Lancaster, Pa), asking for volunteers, said I’ll be there, good Lawhd willin and creeks don’t rise.
So, get in touch with your parents – or children, or maiden aunts. Stay well, keep hydrated, wash your hands. Happy Spring Festival Of Your Choice! Lawhd bless you all !