California Trips

Here is a slide show of our California trips I put together. The sound is a little off because Youtube is stupid but I'm sure you get the point. Enjoy.

Ideal Life

I was thinking this morning about life styles and what I want mine to be like by the time I am in my mid to late 30's. Here is what I came up with but I am sure things may change a little if I were to discuss this with Mandi.

First and foremost I would like to live close to the coast. 50 miles or closer would do it. I love the vastness of the ocean. If fells like the world goes on forever when I'm standing on the beach.


I hope to have a job teaching at a university and writing articles for different publications.

The house I would like to live in doesn't have to be very big at all. Just comfortable and in a nice area with low crime and trees.


The perfect family car would be a Volkswagen Bus. A Volkswagen Beetle or Karmen Ghia would be great commuter cars. A motorcycle would help save on gas.


For pets I want two dogs so they can play together. Dogs help boost morale and provide a sense of security.

Kids will come. 1, 2, maybe 3. We will see.

To top it off I will need a couple of surfboards. Surfing will take care of much of my exercise and help me spend time with my family. Catching a wave gives me the feeling of freedom.

Just thinking of You ; )

For You

Donate to your charity of choice

Everyone knows Haiti has been hit by a serious earth quake. One third of their population is either dead or seriously injured. I know times are tough but try to donate to your charity of choice. I know the LDS church joined together with a Muslim religious organization and is flying in two planes, both with 80,000 lbs of food each and other aid supplies. Continue to donate and be a part of the human cause. The Red Cross is also an organization that gives quick aid.

Funny discussion board quote

Masako52"A marriage shall be considered valid only if the wife is a virgin. If the wife is not a virgin, she shall be executed." -Deuteronomy 22:13-21
-Wow, Christian marriage sounds really nice

Someone posted this on CNN's discussion board for gay marriage.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Mandi and I went to a 1930's themed New Years party. I went as an aviator but I also realized if I put on a beret I could also magically change into a film director.
We then changed and headed over to another friends house and watched the ball drop. We stayed up late and played the game Quelf. I highly recommend it.

Sullivan you old scallywag you still owe me the dough you two bit crook!

Space Tree!

'Canned' Christmas Tree: NASA's first space station astronauts to spend Christmas in space were the crew of Skylab 4 in 1973. They used food cans to assemble the make-shift Christmas tree seen here.








The five spaceflyers onboard the International Space Station gathered around in festive Santa hats shortly after the Soyuz TMA-17 docked on Dec 22, 2009. Credit: NASA TV

Arthur C. Clarke and the new space race

Last year I read 2010 Odyssey Two by Arthur C. Clarke. If you've seen 2001 A Space Odyssey you know that these books have a vision of what the future of space exploration will be like. In 2010 the U.S. has a spaceship stuck in orbit around Jupiter with all of its crew members dead. The spaceship holds vital information that we need but we are unable to get to it right away because we are busy working with Russia to get a new spaceship built. In the mean time China has just finished a space station in Earth orbit. Everyone congratulates them but one day it unexpectedly leaves Earth orbit and heads on a course towards Jupiter. They fooled everyone into thinking it was a space station because of its shape but it was actually a spaceship built to make it to the U.S. spaceship orbiting Jupiter before the Americans and Russians could.

We are kind of in the same situation right now. We have thousands of satellites in orbit including a space station that we share with 4 main international partners, including Russia, the second biggest contributor next to the U.S. No matter what the current political situation is our space relations with Russia have always been pretty mutual. During the cold war Astronauts from both Russia and the United States linked a Soyuz and Apollo space craft together. We shared space with them on their own space station Mir.

The United States is retiring their Space Shuttle program next year without a replacement space vehicle. It will be at least 7 years before we even get a new crew vehicle into orbit. Until then we will have to buy seats on the Russian Soyuz vehicles. In the past few years China has been able to put a man into space, a man into orbit and upgrade their space ship to a crew of 3 and perform a space walk. They now have plans to build a space station and their military is creating anti satellite defense systems that will allow them to shoot down any satellite in orbit. They also have a moon program building up.

China HAS unlimited resources and they can use slave labor so things can get done very quickly. As much as we are in debt to China I don't see things getting much better in the future for us and other nations. So what do we do? Do we just let our space program fail and let China have control of space? Do we militarize space and get rid of the peaceful civilian program that has been able to keep up good relations with other countries?

I think Arthur C. Clarke was a visionary. although we are not as far as we were in the Odyssey books we are definitely headed in that direction.

Father and Son

What changes?