You be the judge. Vlad Putin barechesting it on horseback -

I've got nobody I can really talk to about the stress in my life. My father lost his job and is preoccupied in a cloud, my grandmother is 80 and I can't lay my worries at her feet, and my brother has his own problems. My grandpa is gone and for those of you who didn't know, we were raised by our father and grandparents after our mother gave up custody when we were 9 months old. In other words, I can't draw on my mom for advice either.

I'm trying to figure out how to cope with this - I'm usually the listener, the source of optimism and enthusiasm for the people around me. What happens if I don't have it in me anymore? Lately I've been feeling a little worn down and I've been at a loss... I've been begging God to provide me with some clarity and to remove this spectre over me.

Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin, Jr. American patriots and heroes to generations of dreamers around the world.



Last night the BBC replayed the audio from the famous event in "real" time, as if it were occurring live. It. Was. Awesome. If you read my previous entry regarding my dreams then you know I can have a wild imagination; I enjoyed it last night.

Did you know that the average age of the engineers working on the Apollo program was 26 years of age? I heard that on NPR, for what it's worth. Not to wax too rhetorically, but I think it's fair to say that the moon landing cemented our nation's greatness for all time in human history; it was an accomplishment that people will be reading about and discussing 2,000 years from now. The 21st Century was very consequential in human history and our nation was at the center of it all.

This was done at a time where really we had the absolute bare minimum technical expertise to achieve the goal. It was more a matter of will and national pride than anything else, but the national investment in the Apollo program has an amazing legacy - decades of technological innovations that have advanced our nation, if not the world.

This was done during a turbulent time in our history - within 10 years we saw two Kennedy brothers and Dr. King get assassinated, the Vietnam War was in full swing, etc. The moon landing reminded us of what we're made of - we got to see the very personification of it on TV, watching three men in white spacesuits look back at us from another heavenly body. We needed heroes and Apollo delivered.

Some of the most fascinating conversation I've ever heard was listening to the Apollo astronauts talk about their feelings and what went through their minds during the mission, in particular how they felt looking back at the earth from afar.





Apollo 11 Wiki -
10 Reasons Why The Apollo 11 Moon Landing Was Awesome -
NASA Apollo 11 Image Gallery -
SFGate Blog - Alan Black - The First Laugh on the Moon -

What is breaking my heart, though, is that these men feel NASA is currently a shambles. Read here -

Vote for Mickey Kearns in the Democratic primary. I can't believe I saw three "Brown for Mayor" signs already posted up in people's lawns on a short drive from Hertel to home. We've got a guy with a Federal case staring down his office - a real case, not some trumped up bullshit allegation with no legal merit - and it's business as usual in Buffalo? The Feds don't get involved unless they know something. Brian Higgins is Brown's political ally. I'm sick of this crap - dump Byron Brown and vote for Kearns if you love your city.

(e:lilho) made me realize that my situation is the exact opposite; that for the longest time I had vivid dreams that I could remember precise details about. God, I miss it badly. I haven't had a vivid dream in a long time. I have a couple of theories; one involving the serious about of anxiety that I suppress on a regular basis, and the other being the at times abusive way I treat my body.

Dream No. 1

One dream I had involved me hanging out at an ex-girlfriend's family home. (This is a girl I had a recurring nightmare about for many years - she hurt me badly, I suppose, if I had constant dreams about her abandoning me. Different situations, same result - no matter what, at the end of the dream I lost and couldn't find her). This dream was a little different - she wasn't actually in the dream although I was in her parent's house. I was in her room when I hear the doorbell ring downstairs; I run down the stairs and all that is there is a receipt for flowers, next to the goldfish. The receipt lists the type of flower, I pick it up, then I wake. The first thing I did was scribble down the name of the flower - I did a Google search and it was non-existent.

Dream No. 2

Another dream I had involved tooling around what was in my mind somewhere in lower Manhattan, although in reality it could have been anywhere. I was with an anonymous group of friends, tooling around bars, checking out dingy record stores, taking a walking tour of a new urban landscape. I remember the traffic, the smell of the hot street, the people, the dangerous crosswalks, the skyscrapers, the weather (early afternoon gray skies, followed by bright sunshine), walking the sidewalks and taking in the environment. It was a truly beautiful day. I recall not the rush, but the flood of excitement and newness I felt during my dream - I wish with all my heart that I could repeat it and feel it again. It was like somebody poured an ice-cold pitcher of water over my restless soul, allowing me to take in a fire hose of zest for life, full bore, all while admiring the grandness, chaos, sadness and magic of a new city with good friends.

Dream No. 3

I'm with my brother and my dad in a strange city - it could have been a weird mix of Pittburgh and parts of New York. We're there on vacation, just to check things out and see a baseball game. We park our car in a downtown garage, which is attached to an absolutely enormous office building, complete with several walkways suspended over different parts of the building. I learn that I must work here - I have access to the building. Our car is stolen, which triggers me to run upstairs. It's late afternoon at this point, about dinnertime. I'm talking with police on the phone, who are downstairs speeding in their cars through several levels looking for the thieves. The office walls are mostly glass; I gaze outside the windows to try to relax, and enjoy the beautiful scenery and the strange aesthetic beauty of the modern downtown, the traffic, the people, the sun gradually retreating, office lights flickering on from across the street, all in combination. Then, I wake.

Dream No. 4

I'm with my ex-girlfirend I've mentioned earlier, although in the dream we're still together (sorry for the spoiler earlier, you already know how this ends). We're upstairs at a party - it's evening and we're in a somewhat old apartment building, with a huge entertainment area. The party is great, a real laid back and enjoyable atmosphere. Outside of the windows you see equally tall buildings that look like they were built during the Great Depression - evidently I'm in New York and in my head the party is set in a building somewhere in lower Manhattan. While the party is going on, criminals burst through the doors and begin shooting people. I rush over and proceed to put my fist through a guy's face, incapacitating him and injuring him severely. This evidently spooks the criminals, and they retreat. Not having any of this bull, I proceed to jump out of the window and fly about 20 storeys to the ground level to apprehend them. I shoot sparks out of the tips of my fingers, stunning them and allowing for the police to easily haul them in. In a flash I'm back upstairs and the mess has been cleaned up. I can't find my girlfriend, who seemed to be oddly missing during a lot of the party. Evidently, I was a guy with super powers who lost his girl during the evening.