BLOBBY'S BLOG

GROUND CONTROL TO MAJOR BLOB

I didn't really have anything to post. But it's Sunday - which is typically my lowest volume of hits per week. Not that I should slack for the few....the faithful.

This picture was actually taken in November 2002. Denton and I went to a night time shuttle launch. A shuttle launch that never took off. Well, it did - just three weeks after it was scrubbed. It was also turned out to be the last shuttle launch before the ill-fated Columbia re-entry.

There isn't a definitive launch time for shuttle lift-off, but a window - usually a four hour window. But you have to be there a few hours prior to that existing window. You think disco naps are hard to work into a schedule? Try resting up for a visit to NASA at 4:00pm when the shuttle might not launch until 2:00am.

We ate the crappy dinner in the crappy space cafeteria, at only a cost of like $23 for two sammiches. We endured the IMAX film on the Space Station. Actually, it was ok except for the narrator, Tom Cruise (blech). We visited the overpriced gift shoppe that had absolutely nothing we wanted. But mostly we just sat and waited. And waited. And yet again, waited. We at least at the foresight to bring papers and magazines to read while we sat.

The PA system at the Kennedy Space Center is second only in clarity to the NYC subway system. So as we were boarding the trams to go out to the launch site and there was seemingly mass confusion, it wasn't horribly unexpected. What most people were missing was the announcement that the launch had been scrubbed. This was only seven hours or so into our stay. Rucikry (not Jon's boss) we did hear it before getting on the tram. We also made a hasty retreat out of there so not to get stuck in the parking lot and traffic for another two hours.

We thought we'd hang out at our Cocoa Beach (yes! Where Majors Nelson and Healey lived!) hotel for the new launch date. But the next morning it was going to be a minimum of three days and of course, the shore now had red tide. Not that we knew it. Not that the hotel would notify its guests. As we walked the beach and began seeing the 100s of fish washing ashore and noticing people coughing. Granted, they were older folk, but I joked to Denton, 'does everyone here have TB?'. By the time we turned around and were walking back to the hotel, both of us had the same cough. We opted to go inland (Orlando) to get away from the microbes that infiltrated our lungs. And a day after we were there, NASA determined it would be at least two weeks before the shuttle would be rescheduled. We stayed in Orlando the rest of the trip.

...and all I got to show for it was this dorky picture.

Actually, I got lots of dorky pictures in Orlando: me w/SpongeBob. me w/Curious George and the Man w/the Big Yellow Hat. me w/Mickey. me w/Dale (no Chip).