Friday sputter...

In the course of this week's LJ Idol activities, I got to wondering how, um, lucky I was (from the perspective of the competition) not to be in Baikonur right now, since I find it challenging enough to be partnering with someone (the hard-working furzicle) who lives a mere two time zones away. How much more crazy would things be if the time difference were 12 hours or so?

Work on this week's essay continues apace. I've laid down a draft, but that was all I had time for before having to return to the face of the salt mine.

* * *I was interrupted today at 3:17 pm by the roar of a formation of T-38s flying over the house toward the Johnson Space Center to perform a "missing man" flyover during NASA's Day of Remembrance. Today, NASA honors those who have lost their lives in the exploration of space. The most visible of these losses, of course, have been the crews of Apollo 1, Challenger (24 years ago today), and Columbia.

The word on the street is that the intended NASA budget will not be kind to that part of the organization devoted to human spaceflight, opting to kill the current Area and Constellation programs in favor of something... else several more years down the line, and although NASA Administrator Bolden recently said he "cannot see" this Administration presiding over the end of human space exploration, well... even if NASA were to be disbanded and Americans prohibited by law from engaging in space exploration, it is doubtful that human space exploration would ever end. The genie is not going back in the bottle, but in the future, it may speak Chinese, or Russian, or even Hindi.

* * *The end of the translation job due tomorrow night is well within "striking distance," though I'll have to put in a pretty full day to finish the translation, despeckle it, and then use a graphics program to translate about two dozen graphics of light to moderate intensity.

* * *My reading has picked up, probably to the detriment of my sleeping. This past month, I've read:

• The Prisoner, by Thomas Disch (This book does not clarify the canon for this story line; if anything, it muddles it further. I was left ambivalent.)
• The Boxer and the Spy, by Robert B. Parker (a young adult book, but I read it with interest)
• Heat Wave, by Richard Castle (I liked it).
• One Shot, by Lee Child (absolutely wild setup)
• Killing Floor, by Lee Child (first Reacher novel)
• Die Trying, by Lee Child (second Reacher novel)

and put a dent in a fourth Child book and in Stephen King's book on writing.

Apropos of which, I need to go get some sleep.

Cheers...