Notices by Prof. Sam Lawler (sundogplanets@mastodon.social), page 6

Ok my phone just did it AGAIN. There is definitely no tornado here. What is happening...

...IF wherever I can order from actually ships to rural PO boxes, that is... (I've had that complaint on here before too - I don't have an address! I only have a PO box. That's how most of rural Canada works, and yet, a large fraction of companies won't ship to PO boxes. So dumb...)

Ooof so much mundane complaining this morning. I promise I'll get back to goats, cheese, and SpaceX shitposting soon.

Once I'm done with this batch of cheese (and washing dishes, dammit) I'll get back to this. From a bunch of reading and youtube videos, I think the circulation pump died. Going to try taking that out once I find hose clamps to replace the ones I'm going to have to destroy to get it out, try cleaning it and putting it back together. If it still doesn't run, I can order a new circulation pump for $90ish and try that in a few days when it arrives.

Special thank you to everyone who posts questions and answers on good old-fashioned web forums, and people who make and post repair videos.

Did I get any help from chatGPT or other stupid energy-sucking things like that? No. Would it have been helpful? Also no. I got help from people here, and from questions random people asked and answered years ago.

I watched a bunch of youtube videos, then took out the circulation pump and took it apart. Nothing obviously wrong or stuck. I cleaned it and put it back together. And now the dishwasher seems to be running!! AMAZING.

Of course, I had to loosen a couple of hose clamps and I broke at least one stupid little plastic bit while taking the pump off. So probably won't last long. But I appreciate at least one more load of dishes my machine will do for me!

Thanks for all the advice. I took apart as much as I was confident I could get back together without creating new leaks (which was not much), restarted it, and it's still broken. 100% out of energy now so I guess I'll try watching more repair videos tomorrow.

I know I'm super lucky to have a dishwasher. I use it at least once a day for all the cooking we do. Washing dishes is my LEAST favourite chore, and I'm happy to delegate it to a machine.

But my 3 yr old dishwasher is dead. We have incredibly hard water here (and don't have a water softener because the plumbing is ancient and terrifying). I'm guessing that the hard water killed the circulation pump.

Worth fixing? Buy a new one? Getting parts out here is hard.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/video/c2938548-ctv-national-news--spacex-keen-on-sask--space-junk?playlistId=1.6922596

THIS IS IT!! THIS IS THE BEST ONE! WATCH THIS ONE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p48yz7VXMqg

They even included me trying to give them donuts and smiling evilly after saying "I'm an astronomer"

I need to give some more donuts to the Global News team. SO GOOD.

Well...they played Duel of the Fates just before they quoted me about SpaceX being awful on my local CBC radio station! Wowee, that was awesome. I think it's time for me to get off the computer and snuggle goats for a while.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatoon/spacex-cbc-debris-space-junk-sask-1.7231571

So...now what?

After all that, I am really not sure if what just happened was 100% legal.

I'm not sure what Canadians are supposed to do if they find space junk.

I have a nice map of where several pieces were found (along about 50km of the projected ground track), and I'm sure more pieces will be found in the coming months/years. What are people supposed to do with them? (The SpaceX dudes did not answer that question.)

So, I'm sure this story's far from over.

Everyone filmed the Uhaul driving off once the engineers were done with their private chat with Barry, then it was time to media scrum with Barry (hats off to this guy! It took me years of practice to be comfortable with this kind of interview, and he just waltzed into it. Well done, sir! Farmers are just good at everything).

Then all the reporters gradually packed up, many writing portions of their articles on their phones while packing (impressive!), and some took a donut for the road.

But I'm SO HAPPY about how everything went today!

Journalists chasing down SpaceX employees on a grain farm in the middle of nowhere!

SpaceX maybe getting held accountable! (Well, big maybe there, but I did my best here, and I'll keep fighting!)

Donuts, Uhauls, snuggly farm cats, and international law. Wow.

Shout out to the lovely snuggly farm cat who rubbed on everyone's legs, graciously accepted pats, and then curled up for a nap on very expensive recording equipment.

Then while they negotiated with Barry, it was time for a proper media scrum. This was pretty fun, actually, especially since I was so pumped up at this point (I was actually jumping up and down with excitement more than once as I watched reporters following the poor SpaceX dudes around). The reporters were all having a great time and happily chatting with each other. Very good vibes.

Special highlight, one of the local reporters took Astro 101 from me my first year teaching here!

At this point, the engineers were obviously trying to escape into a side room with Barry, away from the reporters.

I quickly tried to get in my one question "How much do these trunks weigh? That info isn't public" and they smiled at me and didn't answer.

I followed along as they walked to the side door with Barry and asked if they were worried about taking it across the border. One of them looked nervously at the Uhaul, smiled nervously, and walked away. Well, I tried.

So, once they were done loading, I decided to make it even more awkward by walking into the clump of reporters with the box of donuts, invitingly open. I asked nicely if they'd like any, and that broke through the ice just a little bit. They both smiled tentatively at me.

One of the journalists behind me said "It's ok, she's not a journalist, you can trust her!"

And I said, "Nope, I'm an astronomer" and I'm pretty sure my innocent smile turned positively evil.

They did not take any donuts.

The reporters were amazing! They shamelessly recorded as the SpaceX guys opened up the Uhaul, put on gloves, and picked up each piece one by one to load in the back (some of the pieces required both of them working together). They kept also asking questions, which were completely ignored.

It was SO AWKWARD.

Then the Uhaul arrived! There were 2 very young, very nervous looking engineers who got out and walked over to face the throng of reporters.

I had hoped they'd actually be chatty, but of course they weren't. They wouldn't even admit they were from SpaceX at first! It wasn't until the whole pack of journalists followed them across the yard asking questions that they finally admitted they were SpaceX employees. (Thanks, journalists!!)

Barry had his neighbour bring over the terrifyingly huge piece he found for a great photo op for all the journalists. That particular piece was 9 feet long, weighed 80 pounds, and was shaped like a freaking spear. It is shocking to think about that falling at terminal velocity.

I am grinning like an idiot because I was REALLY excited.

There was about 250 lbs of junk here. SpaceX has never shared how much a Crew Dragon Trunk weighs, I'd guess this is a significant fraction!