20 Years Ago Today, Los Angeles erupted in a sea of chaos after a jury acquitted four police officers accused of savagely beating Rodney King on March 3, 1991. I was only 12 at the time [and safely (and currently) living 30 miles east of the City of Angels], but I do remember that truck driver Reginald Denny getting the crap beaten out of him by those thugs on the street...as well as Rodney King's press conference where he uttered that much-mocked question: "Can't we all just...get along?" I also recall how excited I was when I heard on the news that the National Guard and U.S. Marines from Camp Pendleton were being deployed to Los Angeles to quell the violence (I was a big military buff when I was a kid)—and was hoping that most of those hoodlums looting and setting fire to the city would bite the sweet taste of warm metal fired from Marine Corps-issued M-16 automatic weapons. I'm just joking. Okay, no I'm not.



What really sticks out in my mind about the riots was me traveling to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) near Pasadena to attend a lecture with one of my brothers on one night. While we were on the freeway heading to JPL, a military truck filled with soldiers passed us by on the lane to our right. I remember cheering them on...but obviously, I don't think they heard or saw me as they drove right by on their way to riot-ravaged Los Angeles.



So there you go... My personal take on the Los Angeles riots. In non-riot-related news, what I also recall about that period of time was NBC announcing that they were gonna show the network premiere of Tim Burton's hit film Batman (which was released in theaters in 1989) on television. I think Batman aired on TV for the first time in May of 1992. Batman Returns came out in cinemas a month later on June 19. I was disappointed by this sequel, even though Michelle Pfeiffer kicked ass as Catwoman. That is all.

YESTERDAY, I attended another lecture at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) near Pasadena, California. The topic this time around was about scientific achievements made during the space shuttle era. The speaker was Eugene Trinh...an astronaut who flew on STS-50, a 13-day-long Spacelab mission onboard the orbiter Columbia in June of 1992.



It’s always cool to see an astronaut up-close in person. The last time this occurred was in 1993, when I attended another presentation (in San Diego, CA) by Sally Ride—the first American woman to fly into space (onboard the orbiter Challenger in 1983). I went to that presentation with one of my brothers...who was also at yesterday’s lecture (he attends more JPL lectures than I do). I also ran into one of my former high school classmates at last night’s presentation. Of course, he actually works at JPL...as a software engineer. Lucky dude.

LAST NIGHT, I attended a lecture at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) near Pasadena, Calif., about NASA’s upcoming GRAIL mission to the Moon. Interesting presentation. GRAIL—which stands for Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory and comprises of two identical lunar-orbiting spacecraft—is scheduled to launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station this September. Awesome. Below are camera phone pics that I took before and after the lecture yesterday.

For photos that I took at the most recent JPL Open House I attended, click on the red link.

LINK: Photos I took at the 2010 JPL Open House