Random Pronouncements

1. Now that Sarah Palin has resigned as the Governor of Alaska, please, please, can AOL stop making a fetish out of her? She's the most overexposed thing on AOL since JLo's buttocks. It's positively sleazy.

2. Having seen the photographs, having watched the early tests carried out at JPL, knowing that it's equipped with a bum front wheel, and guessing that the lugs in the wheels are completely filled with dust, I'm afraid that Spirit is permanently stuck. The so-called "rover trap" has caught it quarry and I just don't see a way for Spirit to get out. I hope I'm wrong, but I don't think I am. Worse, I recall reading that the way Spirit is stuck leaves it in an unsurvivable attitude with respect to the sun this winter. Looks bad.

3. This is being billed as the "40th Anniversary of Apollo". I'm not sure what they're using as the one instant that characterizes the Apollo program, but we are coming up on the 40th Anniversary of Apollo 11. I'm not going to spend much time writing about it - if you don't already think it's the most amazing technical achievement in the history of mankind thus far, nothing I say can convince you. But I am going to remark that it's amazing that it's been forty years. I remember Apollo 11 as though it was just yesterday and I can't believe it's been forty years.

4. Speaking of anniversaries, tomorrow is the two-year anniversary of my heart attack, and by extension surviving my heart attack. I'd like to say that it's been a good two years, but when you factor in six months of chemo, six months of surgery recovery, and three months of undiagnosed cancer, well... The word "Stalingrad" comes to mind for some reason.