Discovery

Us, too.

Yay! Fingers are firmly crossed on this one.

yes me too. i didn't realize i was so nervous until i noticed i was chewing my nails during liftoff.

spacespawn?

Were your kiddies into it too? I remember being so into the Teacher in Space thing and my class was going to do the lessons along with her and then they pulled us in from reccess to tell us the news. I remember they had us pray for them (ahhh, alabama). I was happy to hear all was well too! I hope your kids get excited about it and see space travel as safe and the next thing in the future (after hybrid/elec cars).

Daphne was so excited about it. I am so so glad there wasn't a problem. I don't know how I would have explained it to her.

This may not surprise those of you who know me...

...but back when I was in second grade, they herded the entire school into the cafeteria for the very first shuttle launch. Anyway, it didn't. Just sat there. My reading teacher, whose favorite mantra--the one he aimed in my direction the most at any rate, was "Earth to Graham", claimed that it the shuttle failure was consequent to a somewhat vaguely purposed conspiracy between Yrs. Truly and the space aliens with which, he, Mr. McCarty, presumed I was communing with during my frequent and lengthy fade outs in his class.

I am almost certain this was a joke. And I am nearly positive he was wrong. About the aliens, anyway.

Anyone who knows of my tragic but occasionally amusing fascination with cars that don't start, don't stop, spew noxious gasses and/or explode into flames (but that was only once) might be persuaded by THIS theory.

I propose that I am in fact the quite possibly the unwitting avatar of some divinity of entropy whose divine portfolio revolves around the mechanical failures, social disorder and, I suspect, unemployment & underemployment & that it was not in fact space aliens but rather God, or a god, projecting his Divine Will through my immanent presence that made "Challenger's starter or alternator fail back or made the pilot forget to turn the lights off when he parked the re-entry vehicle the previous night. Hard to say. Gods of entropy are a bit, well, it's a bit tricky keeping track of their agendas and doings because they tend not to plan very well. It's more or less in the job description.

So it's possible I had something to do with it, through my divine influence. I've been trying to think of a way to market this talent, but frankly, it's a bit difficult to do this sort of thing when one is a divine manifestation of both mechanical failure and unemployability.

I knew a Jehovah's Witness back then, now that I think on it, And I had some doubts as to his species of origin, but I presumed him to be terrestial by birth.

But just to be on the safe side I didn't watch this one. It worked, right? I didn't have much of a choice, to tell you the truth. There's something wrong with the television. No idea what.

-Graham

(Can't see as how many people would pray to a god like that, except to go away and leave their stereo system alone. Possibly prayers with a lot of swearing. But that still counts as belief, right? And that's the key thing with gods, isn't it? I really should consult a theologian on this matter. I could become very unpopular if it turned out the region the center does not hold and things fall apart is because of me. Perhaps I could go to the Army or CIA and offer to weaponize myself. They could send me as a guest worker to China, say, to tour their bustling new factories. Or smuggle me into India as a faux diplomat so I can tour the airbases and wander aimlessly around their Su-27 & Su-30 fighters. Presuming this is an indiscrimate, always on sort of godly power I might even have some defensive value. Anti-terrorism, I'm thinking. Say there's a credible bomb threat in a major metropolitan area. Send me in, nothing explodes. Granted, my presence may cause a city-wide power failure and numerous traffic accidents and possibly even Republicans if it's an election year and I'm concetrating really hard, but that's War for you. Always gonna have some casualties. I might ask for money but I'm sure it would find a way to divest itself from me...)