On Friday July 8th, the Space Shuttle took to the sky for the last time. A great moment for the United States. Our space program has always been the shining star of our country. During the sixties it brought America together when we needed a resurgence of patriotism. The Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, and Space Shuttle programs have led to most of the technological advances we now enjoy. Along came the eighties, nineties, and 2000s. We have begun to look at trips into space as routine. Haul up a piece of the space station, drop off a satellite, do some experiments. Launches of the shuttle were no longer televised after the Challenger disaster. You rarely heard what each mission was about. Well this last Friday I was looking forward to a change in television policy. Certainly there would be wall to wall coverage of the last flight of the Space Shuttle. We surfed channels at work for hours prior to the launch. Finally we settled on the feed from the NASA Channel on our computers. Within a half hour of the launch the local stations were still showing The Price is Right, Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader, Jerry Springer, Nate Berkus, and The Peoples Court. Really? The NASA feed was great. Watching the astronauts getting ready. Watching the mission crew batten down the hatches and preparing for the launch. Every kid I know would have thought the was the coolest. They should have showed this in every school in America. But alas, the networks dropped the ball. They preempted their shows for about fifteen minutes, tops, to show the actual launch. That's it. Fifteen minutes for the last trip into space for our country for possibly a long time. Shame on you networks. I bet when Richard Branson finally gets his vehicle going and takes a trip into space they will cover it. So for now I guess as Americans we will have to be content to be fourth in the space race. We can go back to convincing ourselves that we are indeed smarter than 5th graders, watching Jerry Springer, and hope that our kids grow up to be not astronauts, but game show and talk show hosts. Their getting all the TV time anyway.
Gripe number two.....We have a company next door to us a work. They handle all the screening at the airport. Body scans, x-rays, pat downs. You know the drill. Well, as you can imagine the turnover is quite large. Because of this, they interview new applicants quite often. This last week they had many new applicants come up to interview. They can't seem to find the correct office ever, so they come talk to me. At least four people this last week showed up to interview in shorts and flip flops. One person was wearing a t-shirt with cut off neck and sleeves.(a woman mind you) The fourth woman had clearly not even combed her hair that day. She was carrying a baby in a car seat and had two other children in tow. I don't know her circumstances and I am not here to judge. She is probably trying very hard and doing her best. My only problem with these people is that they obviously failed to realize this was a job interview. Dress for success, they say. Put in a little effort. This isn't a hard job to get, unless your content on sabotaging yourself. T-shits? Flip-flops? What job are you applying for? Used paint salesman? (It comes in the shape of a house, by the way)
Gripe number three.....I was at the Great Plains Balloon fest on Friday to see a bunch of hot air balloons take off. I got there pretty early because I wanted to hear an 80s cover band that was performing before the launch. (They were not very good. How bad to you have to be to make a Bangles song sound worse than the original?) The balloons were launching from a large grassy field. I got out the quick and put my blanket down. There were a few hundred people out there at the time. People in folding chairs in the back and people on blankets out front. I put my blanket pretty close to the action so I could be in the front row when the crowd filled in. I grabbed some food, put in my headphones and laid on my blanket until the action started. About 10 minuted before the balloons were set to fill up, a family of six starts setting up their chairs right in front of me. Remember I am on a blanket on the ground. hey formed this solid semicircle directly in front of me so I could see nothing. One of the best things about a balloon launch is watching them inflate. I couldn't see any of this. There were many places they could have set up, But since I was front row center I guess I was a prime target. Are people so self involved that they care nothing about anyone else. What would go through someones mind that would make them think that I wouldn't want to see anyway so they might as well set up there. To top it all off, they didn't seem to care about the balloons either. It was just a social event that they probably got free tickets for.
So two launches last week and they both pissed me off. It's ironic that I had trouble seeing them both, and by no fault of my own.
So, to sum it up Jerry Springer style. Have pride in you country. Have pride in yourself and respect you fellow man. So basically, Love and Rockets!
Steve........................
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