Post Race!

[dday9]

The plane from Jacksonville kept getting delayed and finally our connecting flight left before our first flight did.

[dday9]

So I cancelled the flight all together, rented a car, and then drove from Jacksonville to New Orleans.

[dday9]

That part kind of sucked, but the rest of the trip was amazing.

[dday9]

What the heck happened to my signature? It's like the forum cannot interpret a Unicode apostrophe anymore.

[Zvoni]

dday, try to edit one of your posts... *gg*
Or to "Reply with Quote"

[dday9]

This is the post race,

[dday9]

why would I do that?

[Zvoni]

Because you asked what happened to your signature.
While you were away, the Forum suffers from some hiccups.
I just mentioned two of those "Burps"

[Shaggy Hiker]

Now I understand. DDay went away...and everything collapsed.

[Shaggy Hiker]

Florida doesn't want you to leave. It's in their constitution.

[dilettante]

Just got back from our second honeymoon, we went back to St. Augustine.

Sounds like a good time.

[dday9]

Sounds like a good time.

I'm fortunate that when my dad was a manager with Allstate he racked up a ton of Marriott points (because he was traveling 2/3rds of the year) and so he was able to get us a 3 night stay at the Casa Monica solely on points. So my wife completely surprised me by coordinating with my dad to get it for us and then surprised me with the itinerary on Christmas day.

It's definitely one of those situations where I feel so grateful that she is my wife.

[Shaggy Hiker]

Haven't heard from Dil in a few days. It's good or it's bad.

[Shaggy Hiker]

I fell asleep during a conference call today and awoke to being volunteered for something. I caught only the last little bit, just enough to know that it's a subject I'm very familiar with, but I have no idea beyond that as to what I got volunteered for.

[dilettante]

I fell asleep during a conference call today and awoke to being volunteered for something. I caught only the last little bit, just enough to know that it's a subject I'm very familiar with, but I have no idea beyond that as to what I got volunteered for.

I've come close to this even in a face to face meeting, jetlagged from travel. So I can really imagine it occurring on a call.

It reminds me of a frustrating dream last night. Somehow I'd been dragged back in where I had worked before retirement about 12 years ago. They were bent on a really strategically poor approach to a large project and nobody would listen to reason, even people I knew should know better.

A dream vs. a snooze and reality are entirely different things, but reading your situation I felt the same strange frustration. Hopefully you don't.

[Shaggy Hiker]

No, I expect to be pretty happy with whatever I was volunteered for. Engaging and interesting without undue demands on my time.

I have no doubt that work issues and people will inhabit my dreams long after I retire.

[Shaggy Hiker]

More conference call today, but I'm well awake today....though perhaps not entirely healthy. I feel fine, I just don't sound fine. Some strange cough that has lingered inconsequentially or a couple weeks. I guess it's time to go talk to somebody about it.

[dday9]

Got some good news from my kids this afternoon. My son brought up all his grades to be on the honor roll and my daughter has been nominated to be in the gifted and talented program with the parish.

[dilettante]

Got some good news from my kids this afternoon. My son brought up all his grades to be on the honor roll and my daughter has been nominated to be in the gifted and talented program with the parish.

Some great work there. Congratulations.

[Shaggy Hiker]

The forum seems to be working rather poorly, at the moment.

[wes4dbt]

Yeah, very slow. Maybe it's because they're fixing the problems.

[Shaggy Hiker]

Improvements seem to have been made, though some seem to still remain to be made.

[Shaggy Hiker]

Either that or it is cyclical.

[ident]

Can't wait for my cheat meal Burger king tonight!

[wes4dbt]

I thought this might have happened. https://www.yahoo.com/news/intuitive...223928967.html

I watched the landing. There was problems, a delay and then they announce "the lander was on the moon" . Already knew that. They never came out and said it was successful landing, it went as planned. Been checking the news today and they still never gave a clear description of the landing other than it was on the moon. To be honest the darn thing looks top heavy and be easy to tip over. But hey, they were able to hit the moon.

[Peter Swinkels]

Well, the lander didn't get destroyed, that is something. :-)

[Shaggy Hiker]

Success in such endeavors is a matter of degrees.

[wes4dbt]

In this case they were about 90 degrees off.

[Peter Swinkels]

The first manned landing on Mars looks to be off by centuries rather than decades. :-(

[wes4dbt]

The first manned landing on Mars looks to be off by centuries rather than decades. :-(

I've never seen much benefit in sending a person to Mars. Until we're able to propel much larger crafts, much much faster, Earth is the only viable habitat.

[Peter Swinkels]

The benefits of such endeavours is always debatable. What exactly was the benefit of the first manned moonlanding except for beating the Soviets to it and some limited scientific benefits? Clearly scientific probes are already hard to do and even there politics tend to get somewhat involved as it appears to be of great importance which specific country sent one. And here I was thinking advances in space flight were meant to benefit all of humanity instead of some country's ego. Why silly me. (sarcasm)

[wes4dbt]

I sort of agree with going to the moon in '69. It was definitely political but there was a lot to learn. Like what it takes to propel a manned vehicle and land on a distant object. Could we even do it. But now it's 50+yrs later and we want to go to Mars using basically the same method. The electronics have improved but not the propulsion method. As of now that would mean physical damage to the astronauts even if the mission was successful. If I could see some meaningful benefit I'd probably feel different. I guess it could be a stepping stone but to where? Until we solve the problems of the damage zero gravity causes and vehicle size and speed, what's the point?

We were all suppose to be jetting around in fly cars by now. Maybe I'm just bitter because I was looking forward to that. lol

[Peter Swinkels]

To be honest, the bitter tone in my last post was kind of due to the fact that I am a bit bitter about the promised Mars landings. I vividly remember reading science magazines from the 70's/80's during my teenage years and watching sci-fi which basically said we'd be going to Mars somewhere during the early 21st century. I guess I took even the purportedly serious magazines way too seriously. Oh, and add the newscasts with some politician making the same promise to that as well. And do you know where we are, in my humble opinion? We are cowering in low-Earth orbit in fear of the dangers of outer space and fighting among each other on Earth's surface. Don't get me wrong, I am not for hasty, reckless, and costly missions which endanger human lives; that would be going too far, but they really should stop making unrealistic promises, inflating expectations of susceptible individuals. Also, YouTube is crawling with pointless videos about the subject. On the other hand, I am left wondering whether anyone really would want to hear a manned mission to Mars could be done somewhere in the distant future, but not within their lifetime? Perhaps now something may come of it, after several decades, somewhere very late this century or early in the 22nd century. Many people today probably would want to be around when a manned landing finally does happen but could not be.

(I asked Chat-GPT) to rephrase my original text a bit for the sake of clarity.)

[wes4dbt]

To be honest, the bitter tone in my last post was kind of due to the fact that I am a bit bitter about the promised Mars landings.

The lack of progress has made me bitter. I wanted to work for Spacely Space Sprockets

[Peter Swinkels]

I want my robot maid and flying car! ;-)

[dilettante]

I want my MTV.

[Peter Swinkels]

Are you jokingly referring to that music channel from decades ago? :-)

I want my Rudy-like talking computer! (Not the fake stuff we have now! XD)

[dilettante]

Haven't heard from Dil in a few days. It's good or it's bad.

The roller coaster still rolls. If you'd asked me Saturday morning I'd say I'd been ghosted. By Saturday noon friend zoned/dumped for some local James William Bottomtooth III. By Saturday afternoon really confused. By Saturday night back to normal++. No change Sunday morning. Day's not over yet.

If I had a nickel for everyone who's said "Run, Forrest, run!" by now I could fund a Presidential campaign.

[dilettante]

Are you jokingly referring to that music channel from decades ago?

Dire Straits - Money For Nothing

[Peter Swinkels]

How does that abbreviate to MTV?