Back in November, Oksana and I spent a couple weeks exploring Puerto Rico.  We went mainly for sun and sea —  you can’t go wrong with a Caribbean island — but once we bought our tickets, I knew we’d be checking out the Arecibo Radio Telescope.

You may have already seen the telescope.  It’s been used as a backdrop for all sorts of movies: Contact, GoldenEye, and the X-Files.  If not, well, please allow Oksana and I to give you a tour!

On the technical side, putting this episode together has been a nightmare.  My Dell XPS M1330, which was rock solid for this sort of work up until a few months ago, is suffering from a failing cooling system.  I’ve inspected the inside, there’s not a spec of dust and the fan is working (overtime!) just fine.  I have a hunch it’s a design flaw and a cursory look at “the forums” corroborates that idea.  I’d go to town with tech support (or just fix it myself) if I were not: 1) Leaving for Ecuador, and 2) planning to buy a new laptop next spring.

In any event, the Amazing Crashing Laptop prevented me from posting this episode while we were still on the trip.  And it’s only by the grace of the desk-fan-pointed-at-its-keyboard that I managed to finish it up before my next trip.

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