[X] My Assistant

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This is way off the beaten path for UMSF, but with the turn of yet another new year we all ain't getting any younger. YouTube is an astonishing resource, and I found this, the old "ABC Movie of the Week" theme, which a lot of U.S. fogies like myself (40+) will certainly remember. For those not familiar, the movie of the week was usually, well, lousy...but had some real gems as well in the mix such as Steven Spielberg's first film Duel and the unforgettable Trilogy of Terror with Karen Black; both of these were absolutely spellbinding. And, of course, probably the most heart-rending sports movie ever made, Brian's Song.

Also, partially in order to steer this post back into the realm of spaceflight, a beautiful nearly 10-minute capture of the launch of Apollo 11.

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Wasn't so much an evaporation of the cloud deck as it was the explosive clearing of the deck. I've always loved this particular feature of the Apollo 11 launch. You can actually see that thin cloud deck (more like the top of the humid haze layer -- all of us who have flown on airliners are familiar with it) *rippling* with the shock wave as the Saturn exhaust passed through it and then beat down on top of it. Beyond the relatively small hole punched in that thin deck, the remaining clouds showed rapid parallel-trough rippling shooting out to six "hole diameters" or more past the hole.

-the other Doug