Posted on February 2, 2003

• A week or so ago, the Friday before the Super Bowl, Jessie and I were watching the late local news when something unusual happened. The broadcast cut to a live interview with Columbia astronauts William McCool, Michael Anderson, and David Brown. McCool, who had been born in San Diego, was the focus of the interview. He spoke of his fond memories of the city (especially the Zoo), predictions for the Super Bowl, and his hope that the thousands of soldiers deploying to the Middle East would all come home safely. Very cool.

  It’s a shame that most of us only seem to notice the space program when something goes wrong. Outside of Israel and India, I doubt that many of us even knew that Columbia was bound for home yesterday, or would have celebrated if she had landed safely. These brave folks fly for all of us, and each successful flight inches us away from our base origins and towards our future in the stars. When we eventually return to space I can only hope we pay as much attention to the successes as we do the failures, and honor the astronauts who live as well as the ones who perish.

• On a lighter note, I added “Alpine” to the gallery this morning. CG mountains are a dime-a-dozen on the web, but I wanted to see if there was anything I could add to the genre. I hope you like it.
• Thanks to all the folks who wrote Jessie with birthday greetings (see 1/31 post). She really enjoyed reading all of your messages. We had a great time yesterday and we’re still recovering from Buca di Beppo.