Ok... you can be a geek or a non-geek, but anybody with any bit of imagination at all would get a kick out of this -

Richard Branson is building a $225 million spaceport in New Mexico. At the moment, commercial spaceflight will begin in 2008 and will cost the traveler $200,000. I would give just about anything to be able to do this.

Cut and pasted from the site -

COUNTDOWN BEGINS. SIX DAYS TO LAUNCH
You may well fly Virgin Atlantic Upper Class into the nearest major city. Possibly we will pick you up in the Virgin Galactic executive jet and shuttle you to the Virgin Galactic space resort, where you will be guided to your luxury accommodation. This will be home during your stay.

Every morning you could be ferried by helicopter to the training base and spaceport where you might undergo six days of medical preparation, G-Tolerance training, talking to space experts about how to get the most from your experience, fly the simulator and in the evenings dine with astronauts and guest speakers.

You could possibly have the opportunity to ride in fast jets, to experience negative gravity in our executive jet and then watch as one of the other launches leaves earth for the near reaches of space; possibly you may even ride in the mother ship. That in itself will be phenomenal, as you watch the ship rise vertically to Mach 1 (around 600 mph) in less than 10 seconds and eventually disappear into space at over 3 times the speed of sound.

LIFT OFF

Your journey out of this world begins not on the launch pad like a conventional space rocket but on a runway. Virgin Galactic craft are carried under a mother ship to almost 10 miles above sea level. Then the countdown begins.

5, 4, 3, 2, 1.....the VSS Enterprise, your spaceship, is released from the mother ship. Almost immediately, as your astronaut pilot ignites the engine, you will hear the roar of the rocket behind you as the enormous power accelerates you at 4G to a speed faster than a bullet.

All the time, the ergonomic design of the seats will keep you comfortable.

As you hurtle through the edges of the atmosphere, through the panoramic individual windows you will be able to see the cobalt blue sky turn to mauve and indigo and finally black. Out will come the stars, clear and bright... even though it is daytime!

Soon the rocket motor cuts out. Now, from the rush of adrenalin and the rocket motor, everything is quiet.

You are weightless...

You are in space!

The ship will manoeuvre, so you can look for the first time back at the planet you have just come from. The view will be over a thousand miles in any direction. That's like seeing North Africa if you were in a spaceship above London or Miami from overhead Washington DC. You will see the clarity of the solar system and the harshness of the sun.

It will be humbling. It will be spiritual.

TOUCHDOWN

After these precious minutes soaking up the thrill of space, you will start your return to earth. Your seats will recline to make the journey through the atmosphere as comfortable as possible. At around 50,000 feet the spaceship will return to a glider-like configuration for the landing back at the spaceport.

Possibly, later that evening, at a magnificent gala dinner, you will be awarded your astronaut wings and maybe even a part of the rocket motor used on your trip for you to keep as a memento.

Video and photographic images of your moment of making space history will be yours to show your kids and grandkids. Remember, of course, in their lifetime Virgin Galactic might have made it possible so that space travel is as common and as fun as flying with Virgin Atlantic.

You can tell them you helped make it happen.

I guarantee you won't be disappointed -

This is probably the silliest thing I've ever read in the "A" section of a major paper. Gee, who would think... an elite reporter dedicating a 2-page article proving their weeniedom and pettiness.

My answer to them would be this - shut up, sit down, put the food down your neck and move on, or fly coach like the rest of us. If somebody like that has a pathological and disturbing incapability to deal with whats served on Air Force 2, why should I pay attention to this person when they write something other than a fluff piece?

While (e:jason) is extremely discouraged, sorry fellas and ladies - it only motivates me more! :)

Something dawned on me today - well, no... I suppose this is something that I've known subconsciously for a while but have had too many distractions to acknowledge properly. I'm a creative person at heart - I was a musician for many, many years. My days of participating in organized music making are over, but I've found other ways of getting "it" out of me. For a long time I began writing - I had all kinds of inspiration... politics, girls... you name it. I was so head over heels in love for a girl one day in the past that I went over to Spot, armed with music, pen and paper and rattled off a dozen poems. Nowadays, I can't even look at them. I will share one with you, though - I don't have any presumptions of skill at writing... I wrote purely for myself..

Thoughts from 30,000 Feet

Being amongst the clouds makes you think
And lends itself to reflection
Thoughts wander
Like shifting colors in a prizm

As I ride through the sky
I wonder; if today I were to die
Did I let you know?
Did I say what I wanted to say?
Was I clear?
Do I regret anything?
Did you know that you mean the world to me?

When its time to come home
There will be no doubts
Looking through my eyes
You will know
What lies within my heart.

I wrote a poem after 9/11 that was EXTREMELY left wing - I'd share it but none of you would actually believe that I wrote the words. I was inspired to write it because of two things - at the time I knew that 9/11 was going to be a turning point for us, and not for the better. The second thing was that when it happened I looked at my poor grandfather, who earned a Purple Heart during WWII. He was a member of the generation that likely saved the world - we take for granted things that people during his generation died for. I thought to myself, "What would my grandfather think about the ugly things my generation would have to sort out?" I never thought to ask him, and he died during the coming springtime. Would we find a way to come together, like my grandfathers generation did, or would we be torn apart forever? As a result, I wrote about it.

I miss terribly being able to express myself... its like I have a lack of outlets. Maybe its because I've had a lack of inspiration. Maybe thats why I value (e:paul)'s project here - I'm able to get some thoughts out of my head - anonymously if I choose to but I don't choose to because I have nothing to hide... although I'm a difficult person to get to know. Whatever you might think about me, I know that you know one thing - I'm a complicated individual. Maybe thats why its important for me to express myself - I can be bad at offering more than whats at face value, and there are times where simple conversations will never grant the possibility for getting inside my head.

Want to know what inspired this journal entry? An Enya greatest hits album. New age music is my fathers thing, not mine... but I have to admit that Enya is a sexy lady.

I take back what I said about (e:ajay), and I apologize. Although, outside of issues like gay rights, etc. I pretty much disagree with everything the left thinks, I don't think that (e:ajay) was trying to be malicious to (e:jason). And, I don't actually want to punch him in the face - after bumping my gums with him yesterday he seems like a decent fellow and someone I wouldn't mind sharing a drink with (your own, sicko - I don't do the "two straws" thing). Was what he said stupid and ill-conceived? Sure. But so was my rant - two wrongs don't make a right. I broke one of my own rules, which is why I'm retracting what I wrote. However, (e:ajay) should still apologize to (e:jason) for being a jackass, and I don't mind saying that I don't understand the reasoning behind (e:ajay)'s sick fascination with continually picking on (e:jason). For all intensive purposes, he doesn't know him, and he looks foolish when he does it. P.S. Just because the Washington Post managed to dig up another Wesley Clark in the military doesn't mean that the military is fractured about the war... the opposite is true.

You have to understand something about me that would never come off in a journal - the only way you'd know this about me is by being my friend for a while. Or by reading my previous journal entry concerning what I did for my friend Mary. I'm intensely loyal to people I care about, and for principles that I hold close to my heart. If I witness somebody committing, shall we say, an unflattering transgression against a friend... I am the attack dog - and I won't lie to you, I LOVE the role. While being crude and rude isn't the most polite way of going about things, often times its the most effective. I don't waste my time debating people when its merely going to get in the way of me achieving my desired goal - if somebody pisses me off, I'm not in the mood to have civil discourse. Its rare that I don't get my point across to people who are doing wrong by somebody I know. I proved chivalry is not dead, and I also proved recently that if you have the guts to drop racial slurs in a public place when my co-worker is a black guy from Haiti... well... how many people would walk up to a table of 4 rednecks and tell them to stop dropping N bombs because it makes them look ignorant? I'm not telling you this because I want recognition, because frankly it disgusts me that EVERYBODY isn't keeping people in check like that. Calling someone a nigger is wrong, gay bashing is wrong... you get the idea. Why is it that our society has continually gotten less and less civil since the 1960's? To me its not an improvement - people can't talk without shouting anymore. Its sad, and it says a lot about us.

I guess you could call me a policeman in some respects. (e:ajay) got hit with the nightstick a little, so I'm going to atone the old fashioned American way - bribery.

So I've decided I want my 80's collection back. All of my MP3s went away when my spare HD crashed - I had to do a full wipe. So, stripmates, since I can't remember every single 80's song I had I think it would be best if we put our collective wisdom together. Post a comment with some songs!

For some reason I have The Cars and Human League in my head and I can't get them out!