Go to Mars...or at least the Moon!

     It's been a while since I have written an entry to this blog. 

     My story is the same:  New technologies in my day job, new opportunities in my part time gigs, new deadlines in my supposed vocation ("Thomas, the deadline is Friday.  The editor needs your MSS!") and old, repeat reminders that I need to upgrade ("Dad, when you are going to replace your flip phone?").  So the mental musings of this minor player in a minor Southern Capital, a minor cog in what may prove to be a minor machine in a minor corner of the Universe isn't too much of a priority.  My vanity (or lack thereof) doesn't address that.

    But today I had to write.

     Last night at 7 PM, under a clear, warm Florida sky, I saw the full moon.  Slightly above and to its left was (I think) Mars.  Years ago, when I wanted to be an astronaut, I dreamed (dreamt?) of the day I would walk on their surfaces.  According to the most conservative Science Fiction Classics, we were to be on Mars by now.  So much for secular prophecy.

     Still...there has to be a lesson in this.  Perhaps by reaching for the outer planets or the stars, we will reach our closest neighbor.  We already have.  Perhaps by having B.H.A.G.s - Big, Hairy, Audacious Goals - we will reach some of the easier targets.  Perhaps the act of simply reaching, working and striving will put us in a better place than at the beginning.

     Yesterday I drove to and from work.  Today I am biking.  The beautiful nightscape that becons me will - at least for now - be the backdrop of the fitness program I have been neglecting over the last few weeks.

     Weather permitting, look at the Moon tonight and let it inspire you!

     Always B Positive!

The Leer of the Omnipresent Sentinel

I talk to to him daily.

There is nothing Supernatural to him, although he is heavenly.  He is always there, although his sweep regularly takes him to some unseen corner of the cyclorama that I share with the other 5 or 6 billion denizens of this insignificant piece of dust.  His complexion shows the ravages of age, yet he regularly applies a thick coat of photonic makeup to hide his blemishes.  In fact, sometimes he even hides his face behind a black cape, which he holds up in imitation of Zorro, Batman and so many other heroes and villians from my youth.

I once wanted to go to the moon.

Like so many others who visited the mid-1960's World's Fair and rides at Disney's parks, I believed that by now we would have regular, economical public flights to space. Obviously, we don't.  Also, like so many Boomer youngsters, I once dreamt of being an astronaut.  But that dream was dissolved quickly by my claustrophobia and easily acquired motion sickness.  Still, I look up at my friend, The Man in The Moon, and wonder what could have been.

Orion the Hunter is another celestial friend, and he has given me an invitation to come see him.  In fact, I'd love to visit one of the stars in his belt (incidentally, the same one pointed out by Captain Kirk (William Shatner) when he walked down the street with Edith Keeler (Joan Collins) in the Star Trek episode CITY ON THE EDGE OF TOMORROW). 

Unfulfilled desires, unmet goals and dreams deferred leer at us, breathlessly awaiting our arrival...