Be glad you didn't go to school with them.

As many of you know I am occasionally taken with strange thoughts running through my head. This weekend proved to be a unique experience in that phenomenon. As I was watching the conclusion to the Discovery Channel Mini-Series "When We Left Earth", which is about the history of the NASA and the Space Program, and the thinking about my 10 year class reunion, which is next year, I thought to myself about how much it would have sucked to be in the same class as some of the pioneers of this Program.

So this post is dedicated to those men and women, and for those of you who don't know here are the names and accomplishments of the special fraternity of those who were the firsts.

1.) Alan Shepherd- First American In Space.
2.) John Glenn- First Man to Orbit the Earth.
3.) Ed White- First American to Walk In Space.
4.)Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and William Anders- First Men to Orbit the Moon
5.) Neil Armstrong- First Man to Walk on the Moon.
6.) John Young and Robert Crippen- First Men to Fly the Space Shuttle in Orbit
7.) Sally Ride- First American Woman in Space.

How would you like to go to their class reunions?

Til we meet again

Paul

A great weekend of Sport.

Hello there all of my faithful blog readers. Today I write to you about this weekends magical, nay almost mystical adventures of the sporting kind. By far one of the greatest weekends of sport that I have ever seen.

It all started on Saturday evening with an amazing round of golf by this man right here........

Two incredible eagle putts on the 13th and 18th holes of the U.S. Open put him in the lead going into the final 18 holes on Sunday, all while playing with a knee problem that would put any mortal golfer on the sidelines.


Next came the opening round of the College World Series with my beloved #8 ranked University of Georgia Bulldogs, taking on the #1 ranked Miami Hurricanes.

In a game that was a nail biter until the very end my Bulldogs upset the #1 ranked team in the country due to some timely hitting and some even more timely errors on the part of the canes. It made me very happy.

Then came Father's day Sunday. I got up wished my dad a happy father's day, ate some breakfast, and watched as Dale Earnhardt Jr. finally win a NASCAR race after 76 tries.

It was at Michigan which is normally a pretty boring race, but this year turned out to be pretty interesting. What made it even more special was the knowledge that my big brother was there to see it. He is a huge Dale Jr. fan.

Finally the creme de la creme. It was time for Tiger to work his magic again. After an absolutely atrocious round of golf, by his standards, he found himself on the 18th green needing to sink a birdie putt to force an 18 hole playoff against Rocco Mediate today. The putt was about an 8 footer with a slight drop to the left. Not a particularly difficult putt for a man with Tiger's skill but clearly not a gimme. It was at this moment that I realized that Tiger Woods does not need the help of the Golfing gods in his rounds, HE IS ONE!

Needless to say he nailed it!

Well that's it for this post. I hope those of you who read it enjoy it as much as I enjoyed watching the things that inspired it.

Til we meet again,

Paul

A long time in coming.

So yesterday I sat down and watched 3 movies that I have not seen in over 10 years. Now this may surprise you but I am referring to the Star Wars Trilogy. How is this possible you ask, since most of you know that I watch those movies at least twice a year. Well that is true and yet not. I say this because the movies that I have been watching these past 10 years or so are not the Star Wars Trilogy, but the Star Wars Trilogy Special Edition.

It was incredible. My new lady friend, (you know who you are), that I have been spending a great deal of time lately, brought over the DVD's that were released a few years ago that have both the Special Editions and the original theatrical cuts over, and we spent the whole afternoon watching them.

While doing so I had and epiphany. These movies are perfect just the way they are. Sure most of the extras in the Special Editions are cool but not necessary at all, and some of those extras (i.e. the lame ass musical number in ROTJ) are a blight upon movies that did not need these things.

I came to the realization that the reason that I fell in love with these movies in the first place is a reason that I do not believe Mr. Lucas has ever even considered. That reason is that the human imagination is capable of creating a greater landscape than anything that can be put onto canvas, celluloid, or any other medium of art that we know. I didn't need to see the whole of Mos Eisley in A New Hope to know that it was there. I did not need to see the dewbacks move and make noises to know that they were alive. My imagination took the basic format that Lucas gave me and filled in the rest of the areas that I could not see.

It was truly a remarkable experience because in a way I was seeing these movies for the first time again, a feat that is considerable because of the sheer number of times that I have seen them both altered and unaltered.

So does this mean that I will never watch the Special Editions again. No I still enjoy them, but it does mean that the first chance I get I will be buying those other editions and when presented with my first choice I will probably watch them as they were when first released.

Anyway this is a pretty stupid post but, it is what is on my mind right now so I hope it wasn't boring at least.

Til we meet again,

Paul

It's been a while.

Well it's been sometime since I last put word to blog and brought you some of the totally inane and stupid thoughts that are running through my mind...........Sorry for those of you who hoped I had given it up you will have to suffer some more.......MWHAHAHAHAHAHA!





Anyway I thought I'd take this moment to give you my take on something else that has not been with us for a while.......and by that of course I mean.........

Yes after 19 years the man in the hat returned to the big screen. (Stop reading now if you have not seen the movie and are planning to. Unless you don't mind spoilers.)

Overall I enjoyed the movie very much. It was fun, exciting, funny, and for the most part captured the spirit of what Indiana Jones movies are all about.

However, there were a few things about this movie that I really could have done without. So without further ado I present you with the "Cringe Moments" of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

Cringe moment #1- The atomic bomb.

Now while the special effects were cool in this sequence and the science of leads abililty to shield a human from the radiation that an atomic bomb creates is accurate, this movie makes one teeny tiny oversight.

THERE IS NOT A REFRIGERATOR THAT HAS EVER BEEN CREATED THAT CAN WITHSTAND THE BLAST AND SHOCKWAVE OF A NUCLEAR EXPLOSION!!!!!

Sorry about that. So anyway our hero after escaping from the Soviets at the begining of the movie find himself at a nuclear testing facility at the time that a test of an atomic bomb is taking place. To save himself he hides in a lead lined refrigerator and manages to ride out the explosion and subsequent shockwave with only a few bumps and bruises to show for it.

Cringe Moment #2- The Shia/Tarzan moment

He freakin' swings on vines with a bunch of monkeys following him. While a nice homage to Tarzan not really necessary for the story.

Cringe Moment #3- The alien angle

Now while for another movie the whole alien/inter-dimensional being storyline would work fantastically, in an Indiana Jones movie it only works well. See in my opinion one of the best things about the other three movies is that for all the fantastic supernatural things that happen, there is no scientific explanation of why. The only thing we are left with is the idea that there are somethings that have no scientific explanation and can only be followed by faith.

To actually state in the movie that the whole basis for a religion is because of alien influence is, again in my humble opinion, not faithful to one of the major themes of the whole series.

Cringe Moment #4- The hidden natives

I have my brother to thank for getting me to think of this one, but the temple where the climax of the movie takes place is located in a lost civilization that has not been visited by outsiders for hundreds of years. Yet when our heros make there way through a pyramid on their way to it there are natives that just happen to be hiding in nooks and crannies just waiting for outsiders to pass by so they can kill them.

Cringe Moment #5- The flying saucer

Again a cool special effect but very cliche and not needed. Since the aliens were supposedly form another dimesion and not another planet it would have been just as easy to make the temple dissapear through a portal instead of having a giant flying saucer come up out of the ground and fly away.

Well that's it. Again the movie as a whole is extremely enjoyable and let's face it, it ain't everyday that an Indiana Jones movie comes out. So go see it and enjoy. I look forward to discussing it with you.

'Til we meet again

Paul

I guess I get to live......

I was listening to the radio the other day and the portion of the show I tuned into was dealing with the various conspiracy theories that are prevalent in the world today. Included of course were the old standbys of the Kennedy assassination, and moon landing as well as the newer ones of 9/11 and TWA flight 1800.

At one point as the the discussion was on the New World Order theory a caller got on the line and said asked the host a question that I had never heard in relation to this particular theory. He asked what color the numbers on the back of the hosts Social Security Card were. When the host said "Black" the caller then said "Well you get to live."

Apparently, as the caller explained, one facet of the NWO theory is that anyone who has Red numbers on the back of their Social Security Card is set to be sent to a Concentration Camp and executed when the NWO takes control.

Now I don't put much stock in conspiracy theories but I would be lying if i told you I was not curious about the numbers on the back of my SSC, one reason being that I was not aware that there were numbers there. And I found black numbers on the back of my card.

I guess I can breathe a little easier.

Til we meet again,

Paul

I've just had an apostrophe! I think you mean an epiphany.

In case you haven't noticed how strange me and my family are here is a little insight into our psyche. I realized today that when the unfortunate time comes that my father and mother are no longer with us, my brother, my sister, and myself will not be fighting over the usual things that siblings tend to fight over at that time. (i.e. money, cars, televisions and the like.) No instead the one thing that will more than likely cause us strife, especially in mine and my brothers case, is my father's book collection. We are going to go crazy at that time trying to decide who gets what. I am not looking forward to it.


Til we meet again,

Paul
Bonus points to the person who can guess the movie that this post title refers to.

A little bit of my childhood

Does anybody else remember the old read along adventure books back from the early 1980's? I just came upon an article on the internet about the Indiana Jones ones, and it brought back some very happy memories for me. Back when I was a litte boy, (yes I was little at one time) I used to spend hours on end at my Nana and Grandaddy's house litsening to those tapes and reading along with the books. Reading over the article I remembered that among the rather decent library of books that my granparents had were Raiders of the Lost Ark, and Temple of Doom. Also among those books were Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi along with many Disney and I belive Muppett stories. I trace my love of reading to these adventures more than any other reason for it. I cherish those memories and hope that one day I can provide them to my children as well.