Mixed news...

As I emerged from unconsciousness this morning, I felt more than saw or heard the cat sitting on the bed a few inches from my face, and then I became aware of a fairly insistent purring, which I thought was unusual for Baby as it was quite loud and annoying, eventually crystallizing into the ringing of my alarm clock, which I had set for 4 o'clock yesterday afternoon, to wake me from my nap. Yesterday, I had snoozed my way through the alarm, finally getting up around 5 pm, effectively leaving the alarm set for the next time 4 o'clock rolled around, which was about two hours ago. Get the picture?

What's curious is that I actually came to at 4:20 am, and as I reached over to turn off the alarm and wondered aloud as to what congenital idiot would have set the misbegotten thing for 4 o'clock, it occurred to me that I was in perfect position, timewise, to see if conditions were right to observe the ISS pass at - as it turns out - about 10 after 5. I got up, pulled on some clothes and went out the back door onto the porch for a preliminary look.

The view was overcast toward the north and northeast, but I was looking in the wrong direction for the pass. Too lazy to walk around to the other side of the house, I leaned out over the railing and craned my neck to look up and saw a couple of stars, which suggested some holes in the overcast. Moreover, there was no snow falling, which is good news.

By the time I had gotten properly dressed - it's cold despite the absence of snow - and confirmed the time for the pass (where, it turns out, there's only one visible pass today, not two), it was getting well-nigh close to the start of the pass. I went outside and looked up to see moon struggling to get through the clouds to the southeast, and bad news covering the rest of the sky: it was pretty solid overcast everywhere else.

This provides an excellent opportunity to go back and try to catch a few more winks.

Cheers...

Question #2...

An interested reader asks: "Have you ever wanted to be an astronaut?"

A fair enough question, considering my having worked extensively with such folk, and one the answer to which, once I started to think about it, started shedding layers like an onion.

On a very simple level, the answer is "yes." What red-blooded boy, growing up in the dizzying era of Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo, could not have wanted to be an astronaut? Astronauts were heroes - there was a time you could depend on a trip to the White House and have the President pin a medal on you, if you had flown as an astronaut. These were daring pioneers whose names were household words, who - in my mind - were helping make those marvelous stories about space travel and exploration, penned by writers whose names I didn't pay attention to at that age, come to life.

But now, let's take a deep breath and take one extra step and ask, "Why didn't I become one?"

There are several components to the answer, but the short answer is: It seemed an unattainable goal.

Permit a small tangent.

Probably one of the best books on interpersonal interaction I've read is Selling the Way Your Customer Buys, by Marvin Sadovsky (a customer of ours until he relocated to Santa Fe) and Jon Caswell. It answered a question that's been bugging me about various approaches to what one might call "smoothing the way" with people.

Back in the first part of the 20th century, Dale Carnegie took a whack at the problem by noting that you can develop rapport with people by taking a genuine interest in what they think is important.

Later gurus - and here I have in mind a book by a fellow with the same name as but yet not my roommate during sophomore and junior years in college - preached a no-nonsense line that, oversimplified, says: You're in your prospect's office to sell widgets (or whatever); don't go wasting time admiring the prospect's various souvenirs of accomplishment - golf trophies, etc. - scattered throughout the office.

The queer thing about these two seemingly contradictory approaches is: they both work.

With different people, that is.

There are some people who, if you tell them "You can't achieve goal X," will make it their crusade in life to prove you wrong. Others, however, will heed this sage pronouncement and turn their attention toward greener pastures. Some people thrive in what are commonly called "supporting, nurturing environments"; others just cannot come up with any desire to succeed under the same conditions. The key to motivational mastery is being able to tell what kind of environment motivates a person and then build a suitable environment for that person.

How does this relate to the question at hand? Well, in my youth, although I was pretty smart, I was also pretty awkward - I'm sure you've seen glimpses of my inner geek from time to time - and so, knowing that astronauts were "the best of the best of the best," and also knowing that I was the guy who always ended up playing in right field, I sort of "knew" that I wasn't astronaut material, and so let the dream die ungerminated.

I did eventually become an engineer, working in computers, and had run-ins with NASA projects from time to time, from checking out mechanical systems on Shuttle Mobile Transporters, to helping adapt NASA expert systems for use in nuclear power plants, to my translation and interpretation work over the past decade.

By the time it became fairly clear that I might just, maybe, have what it takes to help explore space, it was too late. Literally. It turns out there's an age cutoff for the astronaut program, and I am well past it.

Of course, that betrays an interesting assumption that reflects a certain mindset, because age need not be the deciding factor. After all, who says NASA is the only game in town?

If I really had a deep, burning desire to fly in space - which at this time in my life I don't - I believe I could find a way. And if you believe, as I do, that the journey is more valuable than the destination, then in the final analysis, the outcome would be fulfilling. (The story of Millennium Actress just popped into my mind out of nowhere... it may be relevant.)

Cheers...