Monday, May 11, 2009

Tuk Tuk USA!

If you've ever traveled internationally, you have no doubt seen a Tuk Tuk before. You perhaps even dreamed about owning one and driving it down your hometown streets. Well now that dream can become a reality!

Tuk Tuks have come to the USA!

Just don't let the police or taxi cab drivers see you cruising around for fares.

Sunday, May 10, 2009

Atlantis ready to launch tomorrow

The shuttle program has been extended a bit longer. Today they announced that there is a "a 90 percent chance to launch Atlantis at 2:01 p.m. EDT tomorrow". This mission is to repair the Hubble Space Telescope.

During the 11-day mission's five spacewalks, astronauts will install two new instruments, repair two inactive ones and perform the component replacements that will keep the telescope functioning into at least 2014.

In addition to the originally scheduled work, Atlantis also will carry a replacement Science Instrument Command and Data Handling Unit for Hubble. Astronauts will install the unit on the telescope, removing the one that stopped working on Sept. 27, 2008, delaying the servicing mission until the replacement was ready.

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

Cinco de Mayo (Spanish for "fifth of May") is a regional holiday in Mexico, primarily celebrated in the state of Puebla, with some limited recognition in other parts of Mexico. The holiday commemorates the Mexican army's unlikely victory over French forces at the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862, under the leadership of Mexican General Ignacio Zaragoza Seguín. The outnumbered Mexicans defeated a much better-equipped French army that had not been defeated in almost 50 years.

Cinco de Mayo is not "an obligatory federal holiday" in Mexico, but rather a holiday that can be observed voluntarily.

While Cinco de Mayo has limited significance nationwide in Mexico, the date is observed in the United States and other locations around the world as a celebration of Mexican heritage and pride. A common misconception in the United States is that Cinco de Mayo is Mexico's Independence Day, which actually is September 16 (dieciséis de septiembre in Spanish), the most important national patriotic holiday in Mexico.

From Wikipedia.