Thoughts

You just cannot replace the Space Shuttle with Ares and Orion. Can anybody tell me that these look nearly as good as the Shuttle? Do these inspire as much as the Shuttle? I understand that they’re capable of reaching the Moon and beyond, but for low Earth orbit work… WHY RETIRE THE SHUTTLE? Why not build modern ones? I cry. WATER landings (or possibly parachute land landings)? Is this the 60’s again?The Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle and Ares I Launch Vehicle lifting off:Orion in space:The Ares V cargo launch vehicle on the pad:Now compare to the shuttle:Liftoff:You’ll never see this again… no flying with Orion:Liftoff, again:If nothing else, a generation of photographers weeps.

So, where I work is a downtown location with plenty of young professionals about.  Every day, I go to one of three places for lunch (really, one of two) and I sit and I read a book for a while, have a sandwich, perhaps some soup, whatever.  I’ve noticed lately that no matter where I go, I see principally guys.  That doesn’t make sense!  There’s certainly plenty of women in the workforce, and even if there wasn’t, the town/city has plenty of women living there.  So why is it that I see every table as all guys, mostly guys, etc?  What are women doing for lunch?  Are they just that more dedicated that while us guys go jerk around during lunch, they sit at their desks hunched over a computer screen?  I don’t think so.

When the high for the day here in Connecticut is zero degrees Fahrenheit (including windchill), you know somethings wrong. Good job Al Gore (by which I mean, I love you Al Gore, please run for President). But it’s a good time to reflect on the fact that I love where I live, and I’d like to stay here (which would require obtaining a permanent job - I’m currently doing temp work at a law firm, anybody want to fix that?). I’ve been doing a lot of work lately on Wikipedia, updating my towns website. Since I took it over, it has gone from about 6.5kb to 27kb - a large size, a large increase, even if you can’t think about how to translate that into a usable figure.

I’ve added so much, in fact, that I’ve run out of things to add. So I’m asking you: Do you have any current or historic information on Southbury, Connecticut? If so, shoot it on over to me.

This story, despite its many flaws, is just so interesting to read that I thought I’d post a link to it:

A Middle-Aged Princess Grows Up

On a personal note, being dumped two days before Christmas is a pretty shitty thing.  That’s after 3 years, 7 months of dating, even, and somewhat out of nowhere.  Sure there’d been fights lately, but we never had a, for lack of a better term, “strife-free” relationship, so this was not out of place.  I did not suspect a thing.  Worse, the stated reason was “I want to see other guys.”  I guess it’s good to be honest, and better that she did it this way instead of cheating, but that doesn’t make it suck less.

Anyway, back to your regularly (or not so regularly) scheduled programing.

So, I’d just like to make it clear that just because something is called a dog, does not make it a dog. Here are some examples:

Dog:

Dog:

Dog:

Dog:

NOT Dog:

Dog:

Dog:

Dog:

Dog:

NOT Dog:

Dog:

Dog:

Dog:

Dog:

NOT Dog: