Astronomy Domine

Just watched Apollo 13. Not to make anyone feel old, but Apollo missions were done by the time I was born I think. I do remember space walks with the cool rocekt chairs, and Challenger blowing up (along with all the stupid jokes that go hand in hand with any tragedy), but I don't think man has done anything lunar in my lifetime. So, anyway, I just keep wondering what happened.
I remember wanting to be an astronaut growing up, and thinking that by this time, we'd have a lunar colony up and running. Of course, I also figured that we'd also have made contact with extraterrestrials, but...You know, it just seems like we've lost our sesnse of adventure when it comes to space. I keep hoping that we can get a Martian manned mission before I die. Yeah, the space station is neat, but so was Skylab. (Jaded voice: "What? All it does is float there?") If it weren't for all the math, I'd love to be an astronomer. There's something so breath-taking about searching the stars with a telescope, like seeing the rings of Saturn and that really big red spot on Jupiter. Or the entire family driving out to the country to watch Halley's Comet fly by. Or hell, What about studying Luna herself? When I was a kid, I used to use binoculars to see if I could find man's footsteps on the moon. (I never did, but hey, it was worth a shot.)
I guess what I'm thinking is that even in the middle of a land war in Southeast Asia, we managed to get to the moon. With the current stupidity, we should be able to go to MArs.

Having a parent is like wanting to hug and kill them at the same time

Mom has ommited me to going to another freaking wedding next weekend. Problem is that I can't afford the time off work. And of course, she's in Hawaii right now, so getting ahold of her to see if I can guilt her into letting me NOT go is near impossible. I just called, figuring that with the weekend, rates are low, but she's at a parade and about 5 hours(?) behind EDT there. Grr.

I think I'm going to go read Calvin and Hobbes before work.

Great. Now my joints are creaking.

Thanks to an onging commentary under a post from adagiogray, I am now knee-deep in childhood TV shows. Since I think most of you who read this are a bit younger than I am, this may be a bit before yer time. The original post had to do with Space:1999 and Land of the Lost, but my comment brought up the old standards of Otherworld and Wizards and Warriors. Oh boy, feel that arthritis. W&W was the thing to watch in my first grade class. Well that and Knight Rider, Dukes of Hazzard, and The Martian Chronicles. Otherworld was just cool in general. And the real irony is I have very specific memories of each of those shows. Like the ep of Otherworld involving men being enslaved, The ep of Dukes where Bo gets amnesia, and this one ep of W&W with a very sexy (by '80s standards) knight and a poisoned box. Now, I've found Manimal again thanks to Sci-Fi Network, but that leaves one other show I can't recall the name of. I remember it involved a holographic(?) character, and his little sidekick cursor that bleeped like R2-D2. The main reason I remember that one involved a night where the main character ended up stripping at a night club. (No I wasn't a gay kid at all!) If anyone remembers the name of that one, let me know. I'm thinking of writing Sci-fi and begging them to ressurect the classics of my childhood. Can you imagine a marathon of bad early 80's Sci-fi/faantasy television? All of us jaded adults would melt:)