It was two of those moments that make your head start playing the Police's Synchronicity Part 1.

I was up having lunch at Mojave Air/Spaceport last week and I realized that I love that place. It's not just that the food at the Voyager is better than most anything closeby Hawthorne Airport, it's just something about the feel of big desert and big sky and that no matter which way you look there are regular cool folks working on making the biggest dreams come true. The place, and some of the people walking in off the runway, has the slight smell of grease and effort like my Dad's old shop where he moonlit his giant lathes on projects for PrattWhitney. It's not Silicon Valley branding and slick... it's banging tin.

It just feels "right."

And this time my internal pattern-matcher found it even more "falling into place" because...

We all try to live by the "Politics and Religion are not fit subjects for polite company."  But sometimes you just gotsta.  I live in California so I'm naturally lumped with a certain group.. having lived in western Washington, Boston, Upstate,  Connecticut, Colorado and SEAsia have no bearing it seems on how a current Angelino is viewed. 

But this isn't about groups.. it's about an oddness that now is more than odd.  This morning Mr. Romney was in Virginia and again he mentioned Tesla Motors as a "loser" in the "green" area.  When he did it in the debate it caught my ear but I figured he was making a mistake in the moment. His doing it again today, after it was pretty well pointed out that Tesla is repaying the govt investment and putting out solid units, was just plain odd.

Endeavor just flew over my house.  Didn't think to get the camera in time, I heard it and ran out and there it was. 

Pride.  Sadness.  Bill Carrol on KFI is now saying that it is over the Griffith. 

Not as happy a moment as the day Discovery landed as an actual Space Craft. http://www.smithvoice.com/shuttleboomscaliforniaseptenber112009

Yeah, I know. Just got back from a quick in and out thing. Before that it was already a load of 'Ughh.'

I was on Catalina when I got the word about Mr. Armstrong, what with seeing the Buzzman all over the place still full of power and energy enough to kick anyone's ass, the passing of Mr. Neil was a fast shock... followed by a major big picture downer. Those who went are getting few and soon it really will be like the man said 'The flat-earth people swear we never went, but even though we did they may win the war of minds because unless humans can go back again there is no proof and little real value in the truth."

The night of the news I was walking down the Avalon main street ...

Interesting Los Angeles Developers Meetup at Blank Spaces on Wilshire. John Shiple of FreelanceCTO.com talking about Tech Trends and getting your business to be a business.

Here it is in Flash audio. (iPeople please use a 'puter or android. Jobs is dead but his restrictions on you live on)

Pics of Goldstone DSN dishes

JPL had some visitors last night

We headed down to San Diego last weekend for our first trip to the Wild Animal Safari Park and also spent some time at the Air & Space Museum in Balboa Park. It was our second visit to the museum and, again, it was great.

They currently have the NASA Journey to Our Future exhibit and if you haven't seen it in your town yet, you should go for it. It's a lot of fun and unlike a lot of travelling shows the parts and pieces are still in great shape.

I wish it weren't such a haul from LA, because this year they have a kids summer program that looks awesome.

For the fam, here're a few phonepics...

Was skimming through the magazine rack and saw that Air & Space Magazine has a feature story this month on how cool and scientific it is to ride the American Zeppelin, The Eureka From Airship Ventures.

It struck me that some readers might like to see what it is really like... so here ya go!  From November 2009, a scoped video of what it is like to take a five year old up 1000 feet over Long Beach. 

See it all, including a talk with pilot Kate Board and closeups of the SeaLaunch ship (now Russian owned). 

What is your story of today?

My son had the day off from school so we killed the day at Disney.  Just as the SpaceX Dragon was successfully splashing down we were starting down the internal "space station" stairs in Space Mountain.  I was streaming the news and got about 20 messages all at once.

I squatted down and looked the six year old in the eye and said "When I was your age I was sure that when I grew up places like this - in Space - would be real.  You remember this moment, Zaner, because right now a few hundred miles from here that Elon Musk guy did what the big fat slow companies couldn't do in 40 years with billions and billions of dollars.  When you are my age, your world will be different.  Real Space for regular people is finally happening."