X Prize for Spaceship One

My good friend Dezso Molnar was one of the judges for the X Prize, which is a $10 Million dollar award for the first privately funded aircraft to travel an altitude of 62 miles...twice.

LA Weekly  |  St. Louis Post

new photo: damon

photo copyright stacey van buskirk

jaws!

so damon and i had a fantastic vacation on naushon island. we had our own house with a small bay and a view of 'first bridge' from our deck. it was an amazing week of horseback riding, swimming, hiking and sailing.

..BUT guess what appeared in OUR inlet (pictured above) just a couple of weeks later?

A GREAT WHITE SHARK!  [ no kidding ] Listen to the NPR broadcast (Real Audio) Listen to the NPR broadcast (Windows Media) the footage we saw on the news was exactly the view we had from our patio. the scariest part is that damon had been swimming back and forth across the bay to first bridge on a daily basis. it's freaky.. another bit of trivia is that we were a 20 minute sail from woods hole, where they filmed the movie "jaws".

tribute of light

Damon and I just got back from NYC where we witnessed the "Tribute of Light" exhibit in memory of the disaster 3 years ago. We were amazed at the sparkles appearing in the lights. It was breathtaking, and somewhat surreal. We were in the West Village, so it was a bit too far away to determine what exactly the sparkles were, but we supposed that they were birds or bats caught in the beams.

I found an article about this on Gothamist, which seems to confirm that they were indeed birds.

Panorama views by Jook Leung  |  Space Cannon - the lighting designers

more from nouvelle-ecosse

more pix from home:
the optimist shop in lunenburg	formerly the catholic school girl's school in lunenberg
my sister andrea with her dog raya on the gaspereau river (by my parents home)	with andrea, lisa and karen on a boat for lisa's stag-ette party

w/ love from nova scotia..

wanted to share some pix of where i grew up. it's a beautiful and eclectic place, recently becoming the 5th province to legalize same-sex marriage, and it has the highest tides in the world...
halls harbour beach	the tide coming in at halls harbour
high tide in medford	stonehurst boathouse

trivia:
- nova scotia bends when the tide comes in...as 14 billion tonnes of sea water flow into the minas basin twice daily, the nova scotia countryside actually tilts slightly under the immense load.
- at mid-tide, the flow in the minas channel north of blomidon equals the combined flow of all the rivers and streams on earth.

new photo: industry

photo copyright stacey van buskirk

bilkins!

billy is over from thailand for a visit, so we spent a day at the zoo. one of the best parts of the was leaving the parking lot in my convertible with the top down blasting beethoven at top volume (his request).