The Events that are: My Life

“Before the end of the next decade, NASA astronauts will again explore the surface of the moon. And this time, we’re going to stay, building outposts and paving the way for eventual journeys to Mars and beyond. There are echoes of the iconic images of the past, but it won’t be your grandfather’s moon shot.”

That statement appears on the NASA site A New Era of Space Exploration and is reminiscent of Kennedy’s Moon speach in ’62:

We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.

But going back. Wow. I never thought I’d have the chance to be a part of going to the Moon (that is, working on the devices that will send us back to the Moon, not necessisarily going to the Moon myself). If you’ve never seen Apollo 13 or if you never watched From the Earth to the Moon, you may not share my excitment. But this is it folks. I’m declaring right here and now that I am going to work on that project. No matter what it takes, I will be there and I will be able to say that I worked on that, and that a small part of me has gone to the Moon, even if I haven’t.

Broomfield Days is going on right now. I just got back from watching the parade and walking around the booths. I was able to recieve not one, but two chair-massages (like the kind you see at the airport) for free (as in beer). I took oodles of pictures and I promise to post them when as soon as my the next month on my Flickr account roles around (so I can upload another 2GB worth of photos). I’m also going to integrate searching my Flickr account into the main search function of my site. I’ll let you know when that’s working.

I’m up in Broomfield right now, any case anyone is/was missing me. I took the G up to Boulder, where Grandma picked me up. I could have also taken the B [pdf warning] from Boulder to the Park and Ride in Broomfield. In any event, it only costs $3.75 and it works very well. Although I almost missed the bus because I was standing at the East-bound stop when I should have been at the West-bound stop. But it worked, and that’s the important part.

I spent some time last night thinking about going home for Neil’s funeral. Boyd, any everyone else in TheBS (Bible Study) is like a brother to me and I would do anything for them. I desperately want to be there for Boyd, but I can’t. I played out every scenario in my mind and nothing works. The only solution would be to rent a military jet and take off right after Chemistry. I would have to fly at about 4000 km/h to make it to Seattle in 30 minutes. Even the SR-71 Blackbird couldn’t get me there in time. I’m sorry Boyd, I really am. I want to be there, but I can’t.

My cell rang. I dug my phone out of my pocket, flipped open the lid and glanced at the display: Call from Walchenbach, Peter 206-xxx-xxxx

“Hey. What’s up?” I said.

“Did you get my text message this morning?” Peter queried.

I paused for a moment, trying to recall what I actually did this morning. “Nope.”

“Boyd’s dad passed away last night.”

I paused for a few seconds, trying to think of something to say. “Shit.”

“Yea, that’s about it.”

Neil Boyd, Andrew Boyd’s father, passed away late last night. Andrew Boyd is one of the fella’s in my Seattle-based Bible Study. My heartfelt condolences go out to Andrew and his family. Evidently Neil’s body functions had been declining significantly over the past week and he was in the hospital within the past month. The services are on Monday. Note: Not this Monday, but the next Monday (9/26).

This is an example of when I hate being so far away from home. I would have liked to have been able to go to that service; yet here I am, stuck 2161 kilometers away.

Finished Season 4 of The West Wing. Wow. This has been best season ender since the end of the first season. Now here’s the downside…I’m fresh out of West Wing Episodes until December 6th, which is when Season 5 is released on DVD. It’s going to be a long few months.

It’s been a long week. So Ben and myself go outside to have a short smoke. So here we are, sitting out side, smoking when we hear this “oh”. A few seconds go by and Ben comments that he thinks the neighbors are having sex. We talk about the scene in Amelie where Amelie wonders outloud how many couples are orgasiming at that point in time. A quick montage of people doing it comes up on the screen and then Amelie proclaims, “Fourteen!”

“Oh oh!” This time Ben and I are both sure someone is having sex…or something along those lines. Ben thinks it’s from accross the street. So he walks over to his car, which is conviently parked right in front the suspected houses front yard. We stand there.

“Oh OH OOOH!” Yea…it’s this house. We finish our short cigars and head back inside. I tell Ben I’m going to go blog about this.

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Note: I purchased a Flickr account and I will begin transfering all my photos to Flickr. “Why?” you ask. Well, I have about 92 MB left on my site, out of 4 GB almost all of that is for photos. I can purchase more space from my provider, but it’s expensive. Flickr is just $24/year and I get unlimited storage (although I can only upload 2GB per month). This will let me store full resolution versions of the pictures I take. Enjoy!