Day One

Sven makes a snowmoose

Sven contemplates eating a Nut Goodie but decides to keep it as a souveneir and protect his "moosish" figure. (He & Brigit also feel a bit guilty at being tempted by said candy, since said candy's manufacturer did not even call Rachel for a first interview when she applied at their plant a number of years ago.)

Aidan and Brigit intoduce Sven to the joys of catnip. Sven gets a little crazy.

Sven is very mellow for the rest of the evening.

The next day Sven decided to sleep in and have a quiet morning. (At least, I believe that's what he said when my alarm woke him from the 'nip induced hangover. I was guessing at what some of those moose curse-words meant.)

Sven shows Brigit all of his loot.

Brigit helps Sven write a postcard to the shipmates.

They then check his e-mail and see if people are saying nice things about him online.

We go out to run some errands and Sven is horrified to see a parking ticket on my car. He offers to pay it (what a nice guest!) but I don't think the DMV will accept his check.

Astute viewers will notice that Sven is always accompanied by one cat. This is because Aidan the Wonder Cat decided to show off her hitherto unknown super powers of magically making every photo that she's in turn completely black.

Out and about......
Sven hangs out in front of Governor Jesse Ventura's mansion, hopin' for a little wrestling action. Unfortunately, Jesse's not home.

Then we visit F. Scott Fitzgerald's house. Sven is disappointed to find that he's not home either. (I don't have the heart to break it to the little guy.)

Sven then checks out the cathedral, where we take a lovely tour and admire the renovations.
Fortunately, God is home.

The next person on the list is Sara Strand, in Connecticut.

But when my computer went down last week, I lost her address.

Sara, if you're reading this... could you send me your address again?

Please?

And the cats seemed to like their new friend, too.

he was appropriatly appreciated in church, and participated in choir rehersal, where his deep bass, lowing, was greatly enjoyed.

however, i have got some pictures, though of dubious quality.

go here and then click where it says "friends", then click on "svens visit" (the two thimbnails next to "svens visit are pics from the manhatten shipmeet in december, if anyones interested)

under sven's visit, there should be, at this point, four pictures.

the first one, sven at the library.

the second, sven arrives in college point.

the third, sven goes to church on sunday. thats him sitting on the railing.

the fourth, sven at choir practice, with the choir director and several choir member visible. sven's on the piano. honest. i know he's hard to spot.

Following evaluation by NASA (Notional Astro-Sven Association), Sven was cleared for sub-orbital flight only. Fortunately, that was all that was available.

The local club has an arrangement with the Bureau of Land Management to fly rockets from a recreational area offering several thousand acres of high desert. Longest personal recovery walk is about 1.5 miles. It is a bit of an expedition, but Sven joined in and took his seat for the drive to the launch site.
Sven on the way to the launch site

On site, Sven posed with his suborbital vehicle. In the interest of Sven recovery, we decided for him to remain with the rocket the entire flight. Besides, I had left at home the little blue parachute intended for his ejection at apogee for seperate descent.
Sven with launch vehicle

Launch. Motor is Aerotech G64 reload, providing a takeoff peak of 18 lbs thrust, averaging about 14 lbs over about 1.8 seconds. Total impulse 27 lb-sec.
Sven liftoff

The election delay was a nominal 7 seconds, ocurring just after apogee.
Sven flight: parachute ejection near apopgee (telephoto from launch site)

Winds were light; layers moved the descent in three different directions and once offered to make the launch site the landing site. Final descent was easily tracked and close enough to allow telephoto photography. Final recovery distance was only about 1500 feet.
Sven descending, (telephoto from launch site)

Sven greeted the recovery team, He seemed to have had an enjoyable experience.
Sven safely down.
Sven greets recovery team.

nothing near so exciting to report here. due to unseasonably warm weather today, sven spen a nice day in the local park.

go to the same site as above, here

and do the same thing, (click on friends, then svens visit)

picture five is sven investigating where we were. its a nice park, on the east river, with a lovely view of the manhatten skyline, (picture six, though not as nice as reality) and, in the other direction, the whitestone pridge (picture seven)

sven played in the playground for a bit (picture eight), and then finally had some refreshments (picture nine).

quote:

---

Originally posted by nicolemrw:
then alas, the batteries in my camera wore out, so before we have any more pictures, i'll have to replace them.

---

on tuesday sven joined my daughter and i on a trip to flushing meadows - corona park. for those who don't know, this was the site of both the 1939 and 1964 worlds fairs.

so as always, go to the link here, click on the link for friends, then the one for sven's visit.

picture 10 is with the map of the park. picture 11 is sven investigating the mosaic that marks the site of the two time capsules which were buried at the fairs. picture 12 shows sven reading the plaque which describes one of the most famous of worlds fair landmarks, and queens sites... the unisphere, picture 13. after we saw the unisphere, we went ice skating at the old worlds fair rink. alas, there were no moose-sized skates to rent (pictures 14 and 15) so sven had to watch from the side-boards. afterwards we walked around the park some more, and found a site that should be of intrest particularly to roman catholic shipmates (picture 16). lastly, a stop in the dinosaur playground, and a meeting with a new friend. (picture 17) (picture 17 is on the next page)

quote:

---

Originally posted by nicolemrw:
i think theres a battery vampire attacking my camera...

---

About a year ago or so I was about 7th in the list to have "his mooseness" in Manchester... now I know he's had an atlantic detour, but any chance of him coming to Manchester this Summer? I have plans for the poor little thing! ::evil grin::

Love, pixies, and mooses!

however, what i really wanted to say was there is now one more picture at my sven album. once again, click on "friends" the "svens trip", and the second picture on the second page is sven enjoying my daughters basketball practice last week.

once again, pictures are at this site, click friends then svens visit. the new ones are all on the second page, they start with the third picture.

we took the long island railroad from bayside where my church is rather than the bus for the sake of speed. you can see two pictures of sven looking out the train window. the second one shows a bit of flushing. the train took us to penn station, and we took the subway form there. sadly the pic of sven on the subway didn't come out for some reason. from battery park you take a ferry to liberty island.

a few words here about our current situation and the statue of liberty. liberty island is off the downtown end of manhatten. up until 9/11 the twin towers loomed over battery park, and were the major part of the skyline there. now there is far to much open sky, and more tourists taking pictures of what isn't there then of what still is. since 9/11 the statue has been closed to visitors. liberty island itself was reopened only recently, and boarding the ferry has the same security as an airplane now... bags must be x-rayed, people must go through metal detectors. a handful of change in my daughter's pocket set off the metal detector and she was wanded. it was a very strange sensation to go through all this.

but eventually we got on the ferry (picture 5 on the page), and got underway. the statue of liberty is a very potent symbol of both my country and my city to me, and i'm not ashamed to admit there were tears on my face as we approached the island. we walked around the statue (picture 6) and sven was very impressed (picture 7). we took time to read the historical material, and sven was particularly impressed byt the one relating to the symbols of liberty, especially the emma lazerus poem, the new colossus, (the one with "give me your poor...." etc). (pictures 8 and 9)

at that point once again the vampires struck the batteries in my camera, so alas i do not have pictures of the rest of the day. after the statue of liberty we returned to battery park and walked around for awhile, looking at the momuments there. sven was impressed by a man feeding the pigeons and squirrels, and was unhappy that we couldn't find the norwegian maritime monument, whatever that is... it was on the map, but not in the park.

after battery park, we found the financial district bull statue, and sven was impressed (its a several times larger than life statue of a charging bull... as in "a bull market")

our last stop of the day was grand central station, and the site thats being called "new york's wailing wall", the 9/11 memorial site established by the mta (mass transit authority).

and that was it for svens trip, except that on monday he went to school with my daughter and had a few words to the class at show and tell time. the teacher was quite impressed!

sven was packed up in the same box he arrived in, which is starting to be a bit small now, along with all his souvenirs, including his new york ones, and departed around 4:00 pm tuesday.

Sven's day at the cleaners #1

Sven's day at the cleaners #2

Sven gets excited about the superbowl

Sven gets a bit lost on superbowl day

Sven hangs out with some relatives

On top of the world

getting ready to move on

Sven plays the blues

When he arrives, he'll spend a few days at ours, and then continue his journey, this time around Britain.

I am sad however that Sven didn't manage to go back to visit tomb and get taken to visit the pope.

Is Sven going Ozzie at any point?

I'll probably be of No Fixed Abode at some point over next few weeks/months. And of No Bloody Job. Plus, I don't have a scanner.

Sorry Sven. You'll have to seek your thrills elsewhere.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Erin:
So Wood, are you going to send him with what I can only describe as the most impressive collection of crap that I have ever seen?

---

clare

This, if I am not mistaken, is possibly the chronologically longest thread to have hit the board so far.

But all things must come to an end. Now that Sven's back, shall we start a new one (and, of course, archive this one, hosts, please, pretty please )?