Read A Book

A while ago I read over on Fred's blog that he was waiting for the Albany library to receive a recent book. That got me thinking that I should get my own butt down to the local library too. I haven't had a library card since we lived in Ann Arbor, that's a while ago yes. I have read a few books since then, but since I'm going back to school soon I thought I should get used to spending time in the library.

One book I recently read was about the submarine USS Scorpion, a nuclear submarine that sank in 1968 in about 10,000 feet of water. The cause of the sinking is still unknown, or perhaps undisclosed. The book explained several theories for why the boat sank, but was most fascinating to me was how the wreckage was discovered.

Submarines of course travel underwater. The Scorpion was headed from Spain to Norfolk VA and expected to be out of radio communication during the trip. That's six days and a whole lot of ocean between the last time anyone had heard from the crew and the port where they did not arrive, so where do you start to search? There were some underwater listening stations that recorded the sounds of the boat imploading as it sank. So the searchers knew when it left port, when it sank, and using the speed of sound thru water located the wreckage. Scientists are cool.

The library has movies too. This weekend we watched Cast Away. That was a fun movie, Tom Hanks and his buddy Wilson. Hard to imagine what it would be like to be stranded on an island for four years. Also watched Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. I never read the book, the movie was Doctor Who-like. Crazy guy running the controls of a ship that travels through space (not time), cute side-kick, silly robot, dangerous aliens pursuing them.

Megan has a Netflix subscription, she received it for filling out a survey or something like that. Last night we watched Good Night and Good Luck. I had never heard of this movie before, it's the story of Edward R Murrow and Joseph McCarthy. The film was in high contrast black and white with visual cues that made it seem like it was filmed in the 50s. I read more about McCarthy and Murrow today since I enjoyed the story. One bit I learned, test audiences who watched the movie liked it but thought the actor playing McCarthy was overacting. There was no actor portraying McCarthy, the movie used newsreels from the time for his part.