Yesterday was an eventful day for me.  It started out with a particularly productive day at work.  Nice when that happens.  It was interrupted by a SpaceX launch.

No, they didn’t launch from the top of Cerro San Luis, though it kind of looks like it from the picture!  I had no idea viewing might be that good from the driveway.  I will be less motivated to drive down to Vandenberg in the future – though watching the landing there a couple of months back was really awesome.  I was able to see all the way through the first stage and some of the positioning jets firing during the return.  Then the second stage lit up and I could see that for a bit.  Next time, binoculars!

The next thing to happen was that I was able to see Venus, which was pretty close to the crescent moon, after watching the launch.  It looked just like a star, hanging there in the middle of the day – I had no idea what it was.  I checked back 30 minutes later and it was still near the moon in the same spot.  And again an hour after that.  Thanks to my friend Mark for pointing out it had to be Venus.  Anyway, it was visible until much after noon when we had some clouds roll in.

Finally, I experienced a kidney stone.  I don’t recommend it.  At 5:15PM I thought I had gas.  At 5:45 I sent Ellyn off to have dinner with Mom & Sis with my apologies.  By 6:30 I thought it was food poisoning.  Around 7 I had no idea, but there had been no movement, so to speak, and I was in quite a lot of pain.  Ellyn got home about 8, collected me, and we went to the hospital.  She knew it was serious when she suggested that’s where we were going and I said “yup” with no discussion.  I visited the ER, got all the best drugs, and was feeling no pain.  They did a CT scan and urine sample and gave me the news.  Turns out it was quite close to the bladder (which is good news, since that means it’s nearly passed).  We went home, I took some more drugs, and went to bed.  This morning all was fine.