Wording I find curious...

From the most recent "Message from the Administrator" received from NASA:

Today, we mourn the loss of a great former NASA leader, and my personal friend, Roy Estess. Roy was well-known and respected throughout the NASA family. He came from an era when NASA engaged the imagination and hope of the world, a time when our leaders transformed our deepest aspirations into reality. In that same spirit, I ask all who knew Roy to celebrate his many accomplishments and the hopefulness for the future that was his legacy to everyone. [Emphasis mine.]

Does anyone else find the wording of the sentence I've italicized a bit strange, as if to say that the era referred to - and what it embodied - is wholly in the past?

Cheers...

A good run comes to an end...

It would appear that my Moving Target entry for LJ Idol has attracted the fewest votes (after factoring in the folks with immunity), so I am out of the competition.

I must admit, I felt pretty good about that entry, and in fact, I was more concerned - if that's the right word - about how the voting would go with respect to my entry on The Place That Cannot Be, but I survived that one, with a little room to spare (not that it matters). Still, there is the human factor to consider.

As I revisit my goals for participating in this season of LJ Idol, I find the following:

...[H]ere I am, back again, seeking to broaden my horizons once more, and to reinforce those mental processes and pathways that guide my fingers over that keyboard.

I find that I can give myself full marks for achieving those goals.

What, specifically, can I take away from this season? Here's a short, incomplete list:

• The more often I write, the easier it gets.
• I'm coming around to the idea that I can write fiction.
• I can write under pressure. It's a matter of making the time, even when it seems there is no time.
• Story ideas are all over the place! "Finding" them is actually easy.
• Occasionally, pieces will write themselves.

Huge thanks to all who, over the course of the season, have left kind words in comments to my entries. And although I have not been very effusive in my interactions outside my entries, please know that I have always had nothing but the greatest admiration for my fellow contestants.

Now, what remains is to apply what I've learned this season to life outside of LJ Idol.


Cheers...