Let there be light

It's dark at night.

I bet that's the kind of piercing insight and keen observation you read this blog for. You can stop rolling your eyes now. I'm not talking about outside - I'm talking about inside my house.

Our living room has always been light-challenged. There are ceiling lamps off to the side in what used to be a dining room, and another off to the other side in what used to be a bedroom. But no one really likes the harshness of those lights, or the amount of coverage they offer. And yes, a lot of rooms used to be other rooms in this house. It's like Disneyland - it'll never be finished.

Anyway, we used to have lamps on the end tables on either side of the couch, which made reading comfortable and easy on the eyes.

But then, in an act of sheer hostility and defiance, the lamp on my night table in the bedroom crapped out. It started doing strange flickering things when I turned it on. It was actually a little disturbing, since there was no rhyme or reason to when it would start acting up. I was scared it was either a poltergeist or conspiring to electrocute me. Or both. So I trashed it, and moved one of the ones in the living room next to me in the bedroom.

Ever since, my living room is like the moon: half in light, half in darkness. I was going to say covered in a fine gray dust with footprints from 1969, but why open that can of worms.

The problem replacing the lamp has been trying to find one that somewhat matches the remaining one. I don't know if you know this, but there are literally thousands of lamps to scroll through online - and it's exactly as much fun as it sounds.

I'm getting to the point where I'm ready to run out to Lowe's and just buy one. The wife doesn't want me to do it, but I told her we could look forever and the perfect one might never show up.

She said, "You're telling me."

Grounded

You know what's more awesome than seeing the space shuttle fly overhead? Nothing.

Like thousands of other people in Southern California, I was on the rooftop of where I'm working to see the final ride and farewell tour of the space shuttle Endeavour. Since my current office isn't far from LAX, I was lucky enough to have a pretty good view of it (although not as good as my wife's, which is the picture you see here).

For as exciting as it was, for me there was an equal amount of sadness. I keep hearing the phrase, "Once in a lifetime." to describe seeing it. And while it's true, I can't help thinking that it shouldn't be that way.

I think about how much inspiration and how many dreams will be lost, because children won't have the excitement of a launch to wake up to.

Growing up, and even into adulthood, I am still in awe of the power and majesty of the shuttle engines as they fire up:

I'll be the first to agree government doesn't get a lot of things right. But one thing they happen to excel at is, or was, the space program. If you don't believe me, just ask any of the other countries who've landed on the moon. Oh, wait a minute.

I know it's an economy that demands tough choices. But sometimes the benefits of money spent aren't entirely tangible. How do you put a pricetag on inspiring children to be engineers, astronauts, pilots and pioneers?

For everything we've gained from the shuttle program, and as grateful as I am to have seen it, today all I can think about is what we're losing.

12 step program

NEIL: Hi, I'm Neil and I'm a moonwalker.

ALL: Hi Neil.

I'm sure there isn't a Moonwalkers Anonymous. But if there were, the first step would be to admit you've been 239,000 miles from Earth.

There have been 44 presidents. 1153 billionaires. 549 Nobel prize winners. But there are only 12 people in the history of recorded time who've walked on the moon.

I imagine at the annual People Who've Walked On The Moon reunions, who will sadly be one more member short when they next meet, the conversation is always the same:

"Can you believe we were there?"

"That's some view wasn't it?"

"Yep, it's really something."

"See you next year."

There's a famous story about how Buzz Aldrin was pissed he wasn't going to be the first man to walk on the moon. He even went so far as to complain to NASA mission control once they'd landed there. But Neil Armstrong was not only the mission commander, he had the seat next to the lunar lander door. Because of the large, bulky space suits and the small space inside, there was no way Aldrin could've climbed over Armstrong to get out first even if mission control had okay'd it.

If they had, I imagine it would've been an even longer ride back.

Understandably, not many people remember Aldrin's quote when he set foot on the lunar surface: he said, "Beautiful view...magnificent desolation." What he did do that everyone remembers (besides going to the moon) is take the haunting, timeless picture you see above of his footprint that will live on the surface forever.

In case you're wondering, here's a complete list of the club roster:

Neil Armstrong

Buzz Aldrin

Pete Conrad

Alan Bean

Alan Shepard

Edgar Mitchell

David Scott

James Irwin

John W. Young

Charles Duke

Eugene Cernan

Harrison Schmitt

I suppose a better name would be the Dream Makers club. I don't know a single person who saw the landing and didn't dream of going up there, jumping around in 1/6th the gravity of Earth and taking a joyride in the lunar dune buggy.

In the 40 years since the last moon landing, the club has gotten smaller with the passing of Armstrong, Shepard, Conrad and Irwin.

This past month, with it's two full moons and clear nights, I've been thinking that maybe with their passing they're back up there again, looking down at us, once more knowing and experiencing things we mere mortals can never know.

And of course, enjoying the view.

Godspeed.

The Elvis factor

There's a phenomenon called The Elvis Factor. It's the fact that at any given time, 10% of the population believe Elvis is still alive. And of that 10%, 8% believe if you send him a letter he'll answer it.

I'm going to generalize here, but as a rule these people are very sensitive and don't respond well at all to being asked about their questionable beliefs. They don't like being cornered, and when they are usually lash out with personal insults or comments that have nothing to do with the issue at hand.

Imagine, a group of petty, thin-skinned, hard-headed people believing what they want despite verifiable facts to the contrary. Wonder who they're voting for?

When you ask them about it, why all the papers reported him dead, why there's a grave at Graceland, why he's laying in his casket in that famous National Enquirer photo, they all give the same, extremely predictable answer: conspiracy.

It'd be funny if it wasn't so sad.

Almost every major event that's happened in the last century has a conspiracy theory attached to it. And a group of people willing and ready to blindly support those theories with their ignorance. When you disagree with them, they act like Americans in Europe for the first time. They just keep talking louder and louder until you. get. it.

You can tell I'm not much of a conspiracy theorist. I have my suspicions about the JFK assassination, I think something may have landed at Roswell and it does seem interesting to me there was one news story about the discovery of over two hundred years' worth of oil in the Gulf of Mexico, and then nothing. But that's about it.

I believe we landed on the moon. I believe Challenger exploded because of a faulty "O" ring.

A healthy dose of skepticism and questioning authority is a good thing. But the reality is, for the most part, things are exactly what they appear to be. And the big events, the catastrophic disasters, the "I'll always remember where I was when I heard it" tragedies happen because they happen.

There isn't any giant conspiracy. There's nothing hiding under the bed.

Although I keep telling my kids there is. It never gets old.

The London Telegraph has a great article on the 30 Greatest Conspiracy Theories. Definitely worth reading, if only for comic relief.

For the most part, these theories are harmless rantings. But one more than the others has a deep cruelty to it. The one about 9/11. The victims families have enough pain for the rest of their lives without these "theorists" continually trying to explain what REALLY happened.

By the way, good luck trying to figure out who put me up to writing this.