An awful lot has been made about the importance of doing silly side projects. We have a bevy of great examples of “the little project that could,” many of which have become extremely successful: Twitter, Gmail, etc. And so I’d like to introduce you to a few of my stupid ideas. As we all know, the stupidest ideas are usually the most successful.

Minnesoterica

After one too many nights out discussing the essential merits of the Minnesota State Fair to the uninitiated, I decided there needed to be a place for anyone and everyone to share their bizarre, beautiful, and baffling stories about the great state of Minnesota. (For those who don’t know, that’s where I grew up.) The site is built on Ning, and open to the public. It hasn’t been populated with enough media or people yet, but it is growing.

Twirts

Twirts is simple idea: put your Twitter handle on your T-shirt. I found myself telling people my Twitter handle so much, that it just made sense to wear it around with me everywhere. Shirts start at $18.95 for American Apparel 100% cotton. Just put in your handle and go!

when i got into the space game, i never had any idea how difficult it might be.  sure, the old adage is that ‘it’s not rocket science,’ but in reality it goes a lot deeper than that.

it’s not just the rocket science that is difficult.  it’s the logistics.  it’s the politics.  it’s the bugs and quirks and anomalies that can cause catostrophic failure.  it’s the show-business.  it’s the pageantry.  it’s the stunning beauty of a machined nozzle spewing gas at ungodly temperature and pressure.  it’s the defeat.  it’s the victory.  it’s everything in between.

if i didn’t believe that i was making a difference in the world every single day, i would never keep doing what i do.

for your enjoyment, i present a video of what exactly i’ve been up to this past week.

while driving through the barren landscape of the new mexico desert, we stumbled upon an awesome oldies station (i think i heard maybe two commercials the entire trip).  and this little gem came on, which i hadn’t listened to in a long, long time.  i couldn’t help but post it here.

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this past week was, shall we say, not the easiest week i’ve ever had.  i’m not going to complain about it.  i just wanted to note it.  sometimes everything just pours down at the same time.  work was tough.  finances are tough.  life just doesn’t always play nice.

but what this eventually leads to is epiphany, closure, elation, or discovery.  in this particular case, i had a little of each.  as the week came to an end, i felt as though i had explored some new part of my life that i had thus far failed to recognize, and i’ve come to realize that although it may not be exactly what i imagined it was, i always have the ability to change it.

for fear of being even more vague and introspective, i’m going to change the subject (as i said, i only wanted to mention the tribulations of this past week as a means of record).  you see, after a long week at the office, when everybody is ready to just call it quits, it sometimes helps to lighten the mood a little.  here’s a sample:

that, my friends, is how you have a little fun at the office.

the good news is that after a week of busting my ass, i actually have something to show for it.  the northrop grumman lunar lander challenge is officially ON.  it’ll be held october 24-25 in las cruces, new mexico, and i’ll be there to supervise the webcast and any technology issues we have.  it should be a blast, and if nothing else i’ll get to see some rockets fly.  and there is very little cooler than flying rockets.

here’s a preview:

and just because i feel like it, here’s a little song i’ve been enjoying recently.  hope you like it too.

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Someday I’ll actually get to fly on a rocket, but for the time being it’s pretty exciting just to see one launch.  I had the opportunity to watch a test flight of TrueZer0’s entry in the lunar lander challenge.  This is not a launch vehicle (i.e. something that’ll fly you into space), but rather a next generation landing module, designed to softly land and traverse on a foreign planet.

I snapped a whole lot of awesome pictures, available on my Flickr stream.  Here’s a sample: