Yesterday I made the three-hour pilgrimage north to Kennedy Space Center to gawk at the first test flight of the most powerful operational rocket in the world, SpaceX's Falcon Heavy. Short of buying a ticket, my position on the causeway bridge of the A. Max Brewer Parkway is probably one of the best views to be had of both Pad 39A, from which the rocket launched, and of Landing Zones 1 and 2 to the south at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, where the side boosters landed in textbook unison.

Here's the video, taken with my GoPro clamped to the bridge railing:

I took some still photos as well; the best ones are in a Flickr album. Enjoy!

Six years ago I walked into an Army-Navy surplus store and bought a pair of Hi-Tec hiking boots for something like 30 dollars. They're sturdy and very comfortable, have given me good service in all sorts of places and conditions, and are likely to keep doing so for years to come. The laces, however, were beginning to show their age and experience; the anglets had come off and the inner core of the laces had retreated into the outer sheath. I had an opportunity, therefore, to replace them with a much stronger and more useful type of bootlace: mil-spec 550 parachute cord.

Black never goes out of style

This fits into the trend of survival experts and EDC enthusiasts carrying miles of paracord on their persons at all times, usually by tightly weaving it into something like a watch band or key chain. I'm impressed by their techniques but I'm far from being a serious student of wilderness survival—I only sniff around the edges of that community—but I enjoy hiking now and again and I'm very much a fan of preparedness and capability in all aspects of life.

This building at 1515 Flagler Drive has been a bit of an eyesore since it took hurricane damage in 2004. It was brought down with explosives on Sunday, the third tallest building to ever be demolished so in the United States. And I was lucky enough to be there!

I set up my Canon G6 on multiple-shot mode for this—it did pretty well, especially given that I was just holding it above my head in the tightly-packed crowd.

Not great photos this time; the light was flat due to an overcast sky. Beautiful place, though - oldest cypress swamp in Florida, with trees over 500 years old in places. The swamp was bone dry this day as the beginning of May is the end of the dry season.