Got a year older yesterday.
My folks had been in town, but had to leave after treating me to lunch. Lotsa well wishers, (not the kind which throws a coin in...) which was nice. Karen took me out to eat which was realy nice. My little girls gave me lots of hugs and 'happy birthday daddy's and 'hey birthday boy's. Life is pretty good.

Did you know?

discovered this by accident a couple weeks ago. I was drinking coffee at work and got self conscious about my coffee breath so I started chewing some spearmint gum. Then absentmindedly took a drink of coffee. To my (somewhat) pleasant surprise it tastes like, of all things, pepperoni, and not just any pepperoni it's the kind you get on a really cheap frozen pizza..
Go figure. I wonder if there's a market for pork flavored beverages, for vegetarians, or whatever.

Jet Powered First Stage

I was pondering why I never hear about development of turbine (jet) powered first stages for launch boosters. Especially since SpaceShipOne is going to be carried by the White Knight, a jet powered plane. And then I thought 'hey you haven't looked!'. So I googled up this , This guy did a feasibility study a while back, he was pretty fired up about it at least for a while.

a few things that exist in my head.

flying space monkeys.
an oxygen mine on the moon.
an orbiting solar powered centrifuge for launching space missions.
a tunnel from La to NY that would house a subway that could coast from coast to coast.
a launch vehicle powered to orbit by energy beamed to it.