August 7, 2012

August 7th, 2012

Was really excited Monday to hunker down and watch the Mars Curiosity landing. Have been a NASA explorer fan since the Viking landings and remember staring at the real color photo it ssent home that we had in our 5th grade class. Some of the best TV I ever watched was during the Voyager missions in the 80's when they would show the pictures coming in on live TV. And if I stumble across a documentary on space, am locked in till it's over (kinda like the movie Tremors) Am definately not an egghead, can't stand Opera or any classical music not from a Warner Bros cartoon, never get a Shakespere question correct on Jeopardy, etc., but found myself choked up a bit when the first snap off the Curiosity's wheel came through exactly as JPL had planned. Had a brief moment of guilt welling up at that, and not over other life tragedies that I should cry over, but then heard Carolyn laughing with her friend on Skype in the other room while I was watching the Mars feed on both the TV and streaming live from NASA on the iPad, and was heartened by the knowledge at how great mankind can be. When we went to Argentina in '86 had to go to a central telephone center, wait in a long line, spend a ton of dough, then go into a booth while the "authorities" dialed the number just to call home for 5 minutes. And we only got box scores a day later of the amazing 1986 playoffs...Mets/Astros, Angels/Red Sox, and of course, Red Sox/Mets. Now, am watching shit happen live on the other side of the planet while sitting on the couch live video chatting with my Mom. While I was writing this, just got cold called by an automated sales pitch at 8AM...I used to pretend I didn't speak English when the telemarketers would call at home and now, I don't have to pretend not to speak Chinese to get them to hang up. In fact, everyone that calls the house effectively becomes a tele-marketer cause I say, "no Chinese, English?" and the phone goes click. And how great is technology when I can type 'me no speaky' into Youtube and find a dozen clips. So after the Mars thing, I need to go to 7-11 to grab milk, and end up buying some gross yogurt drink cause I couldn't read the label. NASA and humanity must come up with a language that everyone agrees to learn so we can truly become one-world. Star Trek had a Universal Translator. We only have translate by Bing and it'll just make people laugh at you at best, or get your ass kicked. Our cousin has been coming over (seemingly daily) to help us translate the remote controls, cooking instructions, or how to get the wifi to start working again. Quick tip...turning it off or unplugging it also works in other countries. Makes me feel so helpless. If we all understood what other cultures were really saying, there would be a lot less trouble in the world, and I could have been watching a lot more Olympics. Got to get the kids up now...heading to a water park today and need to get on the road. I know they'll be happy when school starts in a couple weeks and be with kids their own age instead of just me. Have been trying to show them a good time but think they are getting tired of me taking them to another Chinese ceramic museum.