The Flight Deck for January 2003, Issue 116
From the Bridge:
It's 2003. It's going to take me three months to stop referring to 2001 as "last year." Oh well, I'm used to confusing everyone around me. It was good to see several of you at the Circle of Janus New Years' party as well. But I will never be able to run for public office, since there were several witnesses and pictures to the events of that evening. And the first person to make a crack about my "corks" is going to take a litte EVA outside the ship. I may or may not give you a suit.
December was a fantastic month for the Halsey, and I thank everyone who participated. The movie away missions all went well, the gift exchange was a riot, and I'm especially grateful for all the help and support for the Adopt-A-Family. I had a great time, our family had a wonderful time, and I hope everyone had as much fun.
Now that I've been your captain for a year (and to my shock, all of the escape pods are still aboard), I think I've finally figured out what I'm doing.
First up is the January meeting and Recommissioning bash on Saturday, January 18th, at ADM Sandy and the newly ADM Paul Sundstrom's (and do I hear Sandy yelling "halleluia" in the background). The festivities get underway at 6pm, and everyone remember to bring munchies and raffle items. Since this is also a recommissioning party, alcohol is permitted, but it's "bring your own" and please make arrangements to get home safely if you have too much fun.
I also want everyone to start coming up with some more ideas, be it for activites, away missions, etc. And I need people to think about when to have the April plane wash. I need some tenative dates by the end of this month.
********************
Upcoming Events:
January 18th--Halsey Meeting and Recommissing Blowout
*********************
Beamdown Coordinates:
ADM Paul & ADM Sandy Sundstrom
237 N. 18th Ave, Beech Grove
Directions:
1. Take I-65 to Keystone Ave Exit (#107).
Hope to see you there!
********************
Birthdays & Anniversaries
January 3rd--CMDR Judi Davidson
January 5th--LTCDR Nick Noe
********************
>From the "Coming Soon" Desk:
Daredevil
Release Date: February 14th, 2003
Science Fiction/Fantasy
Based on the popular Marvel Comics character, this is the story of Matt Murdock, son of a boxer who gets killed by petty criminals for refusing to take a dive. This drives young Matt to fight crime, despite a childhood accident that robbed him of his sight. That same accident, however, also granted him exceptionally advanced senses of hearing, touch, taste and smell, as well as providing him with a strange sort of mental radar that helps to compensate for his lack of vision. After training hard in the martial arts, as well as excelling in law school, Murdock becomes a lawyer by day and a vigilante
calling himself Daredevil by night.
MPAA Rating: Not Rated.
Starring: Ben Affleck, Michael Clarke Duncan, Jennifer Garner, Colin Farrell, Jon Favreau
**
The Core
Release Date: March 28th, 2003
Science Fiction/Fantasy, Action/Adventure and Thriller Geophysicist Dr. Josh Keyes (Eckhart) discovers that an unknown force has caused the Earth's inner core to stop rotating. With the planet's magnetic field rapidly deteriorating, our atmosphere literally starts to come apart at the seams with catastrophic consequences. To resolve the crisis, Keyes, along with a team of the world's most gifted scientists, travel into the Earth's core in a subterranean craft
piloted by "terranauts," Major Rebecca "Beck" Childs (Swank) and Colonel Robert Iverson (Greenwood). Their mission: detonate a device that will reactivate the core.
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for sci-fi life/death situations and brief strong language.
Starring: Aaron Eckhart, Hilary Swank, Delroy Lindo, Bruce Greenwood, Stanley Tucci
**
Dreamcatcher
Release Date: March 28th, 2003
Suspense/Horror, Science Fiction/Fantasy and Thriller Dreamcatcher, the film based on Stephen King's best-selling novel, tells of four young friends who perform a heroic act — and are changed forever by the uncanny powers they gain in return. Years later the friends, now men, are on a hunting trip in the Maine woods when they are overtaken by a blizzard, a vicious storm in which something much more ominous moves… Challenged to stop an alien force, the friends must first prevent the slaughter of innocent civilians by a military vigilante, then overcome a threat to the bond between them. In the end, the friends confront an unparalleled horror, with the fate of the world in the balance.
MPAA Rating: Not Rated.
Starring: Morgan Freeman, Thomas Jane, Jason Lee, Damian Lewis, Timothy Olyphant
*******************
From the "Betcha That Won't Come Out With CLR" Desk:
Ring around the Galaxy
Half-a-billion stars found encircling Milky Way.
by John Whitfield
A vast ring of stars wreathes our Galaxy, say two teams of astronomers.
How the ring got there is a mystery. It may be the remains of another galaxy, spun apart by the gravity of the Milky Way. Or it might have formed with our Galaxy.
A year ago, US researchers noticed a crowded patch of space on the outskirts of the Milky Way. "We first thought it was a dwarf galaxy," says Heidi Newberg of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York.
But over the past year, the team has seen stars over a wide arc of space around the Galaxy's edge. These stars are moving in a similar direction at similar speeds. This confirms that they are in a ring and not a cloud, Newberg told the American Astronomical Society, meeting in Seattle this week.
The ring is 120,000 light years across and contains around half-a-billion stars, Newberg says. It is fatter than the disk of the Milky Way - at about 10,000 light years deep, it encircles us like a giant doughnut.
Looking at the Milky Way from above, the ring turns clockwise at about 100 kilometres per second. The Sun moves in the same direction at twice this speed.
Another group of astronomers has spotted another segment of the ring. Mike Irwin of the Institute of Astronomy in Cambridge, UK, and his colleagues pointed a telescope in the Canary Islands at a patch of sky the same distance from the Galaxy's centre, but 100 degrees round from the first patch.
"There's a definite burst of stars, but they're very dispersed - it's a ghostly ring," Irwin says. These two observations - together covering about one-sixth of the galactic circumference - suggest that the ring goes right round the Milky Way, he explains.
On the edge
The Milky Way is a fat disk of more than 100 billion stars about 100,000 light years across. The Sun lies about 30,000 light years from its centre.
Previously, astronomers thought that the Galaxy petered out at its edge. The discovery of the ring changes this picture.
Newberg thinks that the ring came into being billions of years ago when the gravity of the spinning Milky Way unravelled a small neighbouring galaxy.
"It was almost certainly a satellite galaxy," agrees Bruce Margon of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland. This some of the best evidence yet that big galaxies dismember small ones, he adds.
This might have happened, Irwin agrees. But the ring might also have formed with our Galaxy, by some process we don't yet understand, he says.
The motion of the stars in the ring may also help us understand the dark matter that surrounds our Galaxy. This is thought to weigh ten times more than the Milky Way's stars, but it can only be observed by its pull on visible matter.
********************
>From the "I Knew I Stayed Single For A Reason" Desk:
To Tech Support:
Last year I upgraded from Boyfriend 5.0 to Husband 1.0 and noticed a slow down in the overall performance, particularly in the flower and jewelry applications that had operated flawlessly under Boyfriend 5.0.
In addition, Husband 1.0 uninstalled many other valuable programs, such as Romance 9.5 and Personal Attention 6.5, but installed undesirable programs such as NFL 5.0 and NBA 3.0. And now Conversation 8.0 no longer runs and Housecleaning 2.6 simply crashes the system. I've tried running Nagging 5.3 to fix these problems, but to no avail.
What can I do?
Desperate
**
Dear Desperate:
First keep in mind, Boyfriend 5.0 is an entertainment package, while Husband 1.0 is an operating system.
Try to enter the command: C:/I THOUGHT YOU LOVED ME and download Tears 6.2 to install Guilt 3.0. If all works as designed, Husband 1.0 should then automatically run the applications Jewelry 2.0 and Flowers 3.5.
But remember, overuse can cause Husband 1.0 to default to Grumpy Silence 2.5, Happy Hour 7.0, or Beer 6.1. Beer 6.1 is a very bad program that will create Snoring Loudly.WAV files.
Whatever you do, DO NOT install Mother-in-law 1.0 or reinstall another Boyfriend program. These are not supported applications and will crash Husband 1.0.
In summary, Husband 1.0 is a great program, but it does have a limited memory and cannot learn new applications quickly. You might consider buying additional software to improve memory and performance. I personally recommend Hot Food 3.0 and Lingerie 7.7.
Good Luck,
Tech Support
********************
end transmission
Go to this page to view older issues of the Halsey Newsletter.
2. Turn right if coming from the south--left if coming from the north
3. Turn right at light onto Troy Ave.
4. Turn left in between Walgreens' and Chinese takeout place.
5. Continue straight through stop sign (stop first!)
6. 237 on right side of street.
