The Week For Forgetting

In weeklong meditation and in the midst of familiar sights and sounds the conversations reaffirm the past like dreams recalled fondly.

Almost as if commas periods and spaces losetheirsignificance

Refrains.

Chorus.

Codas.

The same points assigned to goals and touchdowns.

As an adult I am left to choose which subcultural myths and legends to pass on magically and mystically.

Which ones to create from a blender of tales swirled together.

Miracles.

Wonders.

Heroes.

After all, what is the truth that makes sense to youth growing up out of pure ignorance?

Must life be bigger than life just because a child wants to know more than we do?

How do we keep traditions and let our children learn the secrets behind myths that contain mistakes that kicked off a subculture's perpetual traditiontelling?

Ask one to be one?

Or be happy in our ignornce (trusting in one's faith)?

I have no children so in my meditation I stay, not required to reveal myths or keep the flame of faith alive.

That is what the holiday meditation has taught me this year: not to interfere with happiness of others, no matter what they believe or talk about, because they have found the thought set based on a unique state of energy mix that works best for their environmental conditions.

May I find the humbleness to keep quiet in 2011 and focus on my lifelong journey toward death in a healthier body, reducing my consumption of food I don't need and goods I don't want.

I have communicated to anonymous readers the filtered thoughts that've found their way onto "paper" like this through the years.

The older I get, the more frequent does life break down into its component parts to me. Let the world have its myths, legends, religions, literary/sports heroes...

In a dream or vision, I saw us as our states of energy landing on an unidentifiable planetoid leaving our legacy in the form of a stowaway bacterial lifeform that survived after we perished, representing us to other lifeforms passing by on the way to what we imagine is another universe [thousands or millions of years later than today?].

Hardly a high-volume, marketable product, is it?

Now you know why I seek to silence my voice in the future.

There is nothing more I can add to our multicultural global socioeconomopolitical entity we call our species in this solar system.

I wanted more knowledge about what will become of us and got what I asked for. Early happy Christmas to me, huh?

In this season when we find our own way to celebrate the renewal of life as seen from the Northern Hemisphere, I bid you good day.

My time with you here has come to a close. The Committee of 7.5 is looking for a new spokesperson, if you're interested in an impossible job to perform (it comes with no description, no pay, no perks/bonuses and very picky bosses to satisfy (as well as seven billion customers with seven billion different needs!) but it's a lot of fun as long as you want to keep the job).

A 'Naut Out On The Town

I read that 91 percent of Americans are not offended by the phrase, "Mery Christmas."

The windowed reflection of a white-painted light bulb excites the rods and cones in my eyes, my central nervous system registering the chain of cause-and-effect events.

Coloured LEDs divert my attention to their combined conical shaping.

This is the wintry end of the year holiday timeframe I remember here in space.

I wanted to be called someting cool like 'Naut Rider or Dread 'Naut but the legal team back on Earth told me those names had copyright and trademark histories to contend with.

Instead, I'm a 'naut without a name.

I grow my own miniature, energy-packed vegetables. Protein packs are mixed and matched to my specific needs by the robonutritionist with which (not whom?) I converse through the train-of-thought app I switch on and off at will.

I thought that maintaining these giant soda-can habitat modules would give me cabin fever but the solar glider I built from old parts gives me the relaxing off-duty fun I used to have when living in the high-rise subbasement family prison farm with my incarcerated parents.

Today is one of the holidays of my varied ancestors.

Today I pray for Stella as she deals with Christmas without several recently-deceased family members; my hometown church's Scoutmaster, whose home burnt down during a recent ice/snow storm; those who spend Christmas in prison; the nine percent who are offended by a family-friendly commercialised holiday celebration around winter solstice.

At this time of year, while replacing carbon dioxide filtering systems before the next set of space hotel guests arrives, I promise myself no regrets, no envy and no cynicism as gifts of promise and hope to myself, replacing them with more happiness.

My Grain Headache - Cutting A Deal

Have you ever shot an arrow from an orbiting space platform?

You see, my marketing staff is busy compiling all the activities you can, you shouldn't, you must and you can't do while working/playing in a space hotel.

After all, it won't be long before dozens and then hundreds of people will enjoy one another's company in the spartan luxury high in the Earth's atmosphere.

Including, of course, support staff.

Now, as most of you know who've worked in the support industry, there's downtime to consider.

Some support staff will fly with their guests while others will stay onboard to maintain continuity and fix stuff that inevitably breaks.

So, with that in mind, my marketing staff wants to define leisure activities that'll appeal to people in between periods of work and sleep.

Of course, we're using all the latest tech-savvy tools to figure out what we need to design and test over the next few years.

We'll keep you posted.

Flue with Flu

Friends tell me you can't change human nature so why I am observing and commenting on our activities as if they're correctable, my friends can't say.

A cat is a cat.

A living thing is a living thing.

Instead, my friends want me to focus on marketable, profitable stuff with which they can work their sales magic.

All for what?

So Jay Leno can treat women like whores and Pat Sajak can stare at his contestants' breasts?

Maybe today I shouldn't observe our culture, ignoring subtle hints about impeachable futures and false wargame threats, when I am in a mood for the quiet absence of cultural stimuli, away from barking dogs, billboards and mechanistic sounds (i.e., a constrictive headache narrows my view).

I forget many a day what the instant gratification of cultural interaction does to one's thought sets floating in a neurochemical bath of glandular animal magnetism.

To have one's inner eye pointed toward a far-away future is not nearly as exciting as living in the moment.

What if my friends are right and one moment is the same as another except for symbol set members?

Everyone has a valid opinion that can oppose the facts.

Am I right about the transformation of our species over the next thousand years or are my friends right and our civilisation is going to collapse in on itself as it always has, the survivors picking up the pieces and making the same mistakes again but in a new language, using new symbology/vocabulary to justify their version of the truth?

Either way, getting some members of our species off this planet is of prime importance.

The cheaper the method of achieving escape velocity, the more resources we have for finding/founding a new home.

I can spend my time here analysing the story not being told by the words and actions of "judges" on an a capella contest (of course, you know, as well as the show's producers and judges, that U.S. Southerners are statistically more likely to win these types of U.S.-based shows) or I can keep looking up at the big picture.

I choose the latter.

Time, once again, to make our space adventures more attractive, more seductive (yes, that means to the brain) and less pedestrian than, but still familiar to, our life on the home planet.

If our species is going to be the same, let's give ourselves more room to play at being responsible for our future together!

Remember that epic novel I was working on with its universal language/code? Turns out, as I may have told some of you, it is not directly translatable into our written/spoken languages. It can be described, though, like an exchange of states of energy in chemical/physical terms.

Are you willing to deprogram yourself and shed your hereditary cultural self in order to move into the realm of "states of energy" speak...don't get too excited just yet. Food for thought for now.

The rest of us are still getting excited about short jaunts into the outer reaches of Earth's natural attraction. After your ride into space, don't forget to stop in the gift shop and take home some souvenirs that'll be valuable memorabilia to future generations!

It's good to retrace the outline of my sole reason for being here even if the universe waits for no one to discover and reveal its many wonders.

Don't eat yellow snow?

If space travelers can consume recycled urine, then is it okay to consume quantities of bladder output "recycled" as frozen snow decoration?

The future is interesting and always descriptive.  After all, what do fish encounter every day - past, present or future, particularly pluperfect participled?

Are more of your friends cartoon/TV characters than real people?  Would you know or care if more of your friends in social media were fictional?

Some analysts say that our species is divided into the firstborn getting the spoils of the previous generation and everyone else fighting over what's left.

In other words, sibling rivalry.

Is life that simple to you?

Would you see the states of energy in totally different terms?

Are you ready to read the story of our lives that requires a...well, I'm not supposed to tell you right just yet.

You'll "see."

Is a Bitcoin equivalent part of that picture?

Transitionally, yes.

More Space on the Plate

From microsatellites to big blastoffs, to failed satellite launches and Venus flybys, we expand our species' knowledge base, hoping that science and math continue to attract the best and brightest to improve living conditions for all.

Knowing is doing.

A life of learning begins in childhood but it's never too late to start, or start over again.

Another Battlefront

In the battle for supremacy of "what if" scenarios, Lockheed Martin (nee Martin Marietta, GE Aerospace, ...) proposes its proposals for posing over the Moon.  What's in store at the other big guns' houses - Northrop-Grumman, etc.?

Gravitas: Highly Entertaining

Want to know what you know you don't know by looking at what others say they know but don't?

If you don't, that's fine.

If you do, go here (comments included).

On many days, remembering my accounts and passwords is more than enough.  On the days in-between, when time does not exist, all matter is dark, anti- or otherwise mattering a smattering.

As Scene On Mars

"Guess what I found today?"

"More rock and dust?"

"Yes, but not just any rock and dust. The material in my dune buggy is one of the rarest on Mars."

"And?"

"What's it worth to you?"

"What is it?"

"I don't know. None of my instruments could identify it."

"Let me see it."

"No. I remember what you did the last time."

"Look, I'm sorry about that. How was I to know the lab techs would destroy the whole load while analysing it?"

"Give something in trade."

"How about a million Martian credits? You know I'm good for it."

"Other than you and I, who else recognises Marcreds as real currency?"

"You say that every time we argue like this but when the Wells Fargo electronic shed arrives you don't hesitate cashing in the credits then."

"No one else on base does."

"So what?"

"So what'll you trade me for my buggyload of stuff?"

"How about three unlimited days on my ion Skykite?"

"I've already got 30 sols' worth I haven't used."

"What if I manufacture you a synthleaf?"

"What kind do you have?"

"What would you want?"

"Have you seen the latest Martian microbacterial forms they've put together?"

"Yeah."

"Make me a synthleaf that the bacteria can feed on and on which the bacteria leave a visible trail."

"How many do you want?"

"Let's go look at the stuff I gathered and work out the deal."

"Okay. By the way, what're your plans with the synthleaves?"

"I think I'll put some of the bacteria in the center of a synthleaf and take bets on which bacteria will eat its way to the edge first."

"Sounds great. It might take a few days. Who are you going to trust to guard the synthleaf when you're asleep?"

"I'm not. You and I are going to bet who slips in and cheats. I'll have the DNA sniffer running when I'm snoozing."

"Always the crafty one."

"Hey, my synthparents didn't hatch a dummy in a Mars incubator!"

"Oh yeah? I heard your dad was a male prostitute who didn't use a condom."

"And I heard your synthparents weren't real to begin with. You're just some goo leftover from a bad experiment that a lab tech accidentally fertilised. You want this stuff or not?"

"Some mature six-year old you are. You act like you're two. I'll give you three synthleaves for the whole load."

"Half a load for ten leaves."

"Two leaves for half."

"Eight leaves."

"For the whole load?"

"Half. Plus I'll let you pick who gets to bet."

"Five."

"It's a deal."

"And I get the first option on the second half."

"Of course you will. You're my best fellow field worker!"

"Top o' the class!"

"With the best appendage attachments money can buy."

"Speaking of which, do you have the adapter to attach the buggyload to your back?"

"Sure, it's in my right leg storage compartment.  Hang on while I switch it out with my fieldwork com system antenna."

Sanity

Sanity is looking at the same thing over and over and finding something new every time:

Another look at the nighttime sky

= = = = = = = = = = =

Georgia State: A better football win record in 2010 than Georgia Tech in 1980...hmm...sanity is saying the game against Bama was like a bowl game; in other words, good practice for the offseason.

= = = = = = = = = = =

Arduino or smartphone to power and cruise the skies over the 'burbs, boroughs and barrios in a "Superman" UAV, an unseen hero sanely spotting trouble and informing authorities where crime doesn't pay?

Zipping Zeppelins

Wasps are busy in the warm autumn air this afternoon.  How much organic material do I share with them?

A colleague of mine snuck out from the depths of the Vatican copies of the original secret writings of St. Francis of Assisi and passed them on to me.

Many others have provided me copies of similar writings stored in South America, Asia and Africa.

Why?

Not by request - not specifically, anyway.


They all want me to finish the first of the untranslatable universally-coded epics to give to alien/extraterrestrial beings when our species finally makes contact.

We're family, you and I.

If I can't explain to the weeping fig the purpose of tears or fears, then the epic is too obscure for any beings.

I think I've complicated the writing.

I posed to my cadre of computer programmers the question, "What is a universal code?"

Well, you know the answer, of course:  "States of energy."

I've looked at tree rings, decomposing rock patterns, sunlight shifts and other changing states of energy.

Pattern-matching, perhaps?

How do I anticipate the types of patterns to communicate with?

It's easy to attract wasps, hornets and birds to my house because I know the ingredients they need to perpetuate life - trees, water, seeds, cellulose, and other organic life enhancers.

A toxin to one lifeform is an essential ingredient to another.

Do we say a universal code would be the universal toxin(s)?  We communicate by coming to terms with what kills all of us, assuming we have no essential ingredients for life in common (other than the fact they're states of energy)?  What if we encountered an organised collection of states of energy that is unaffected by gravity?

With answer in hand, I conduct experiments, either through thought alone or analysis of empirical evidence, to see if I can arrive at the answer from multiple directions.

I thank the redbud seed pod, turkey buzzard and wasps for their assistance.  Also, Josh at Apollo Cafe, Brigitte at Walmart, and Little Paul's BBQ for their service.

For those who can't afford a rocketship shot into space, would a balloon ride up to 17 miles suffice to give them the view that proves how small our planet really is?

Wealth is barter power but so is deeper understanding of why we get wealthy and what we can do with it for the sake of our species.

George says "neigh" means "nay"!

Or so his staff of writers told him to say.

Speaking of which, Barry, it seems funny to see you leave a former home country because of too much ash, you being a smoker and all.

Reminds me of the time in the T-ball league when I was standing in the outfield batting flies.

This round white object with stitching rolled up to me.  People were yelling and pointing in my direction.  I wasn't sure it was some kind of hoax, like the story of a stray missile going haywire off the land of nuts and fruits, or the first hail stone of the apocalypse.

I picked up the ball, which was slimy and cold, and threw it at the kid nearest to me who was standing on second base and jumping up and down wildly.

Two days later, all the kids came down with a rare disease.  All but two of us on the team died.

Turned out the "ball" was a frozen chunk of discarded material from an experimental spy plane in the sky.

You know about those, don't you, scientific experiments so dangerous that they can only be conducted on board unregistered flights in the upper atmosphere?

That's when I decided to get out of sports and into the business of knowing other people's business.

That's when I found out about the international secret team of researchers hired to create biological agents for the protection of our planet.  Operation Funny Bone, it's called.

I'm telling you this because I assume you know about the intergalactic war.

You do, don't you?

You don't?  Then you can't see why we're hypnotising you with old TV programs in sites like xfinitytv (fancast.com), imdb, tv.com, etc.

Our species could declare war against itself again but, with the recent news that the intergalactic war has escalated, we don't have time to entertain old war generals' Earth-based chess game obsessions.

Of course, you think war is all mass gatherings of people sent to fight against one another.

You don't know what intergalactic war is like, not really.

Humour is a rare trait on this planet, limited to a few species, but in the galaxy it's the equivalent of what we call intelligence.

Battles are won and lost by who played the most sophisticated trick on the other.

Death is rare in intergalactic war.  In fact, it's a sign of poor taste if one's trick causes death.

How are you preparing your children for our species to "grow up" and participate in a galaxy-sized war of intelligence?

We can keep flinging bodies at each other here.  The rest of the galaxy is not interested in what takes place on individual planets so they won't stop us.

OR we can revamp our education system to show our children that something bigger than ourselves needs our attention.

I don't have children so I'm not going to preach to you and tell you what to do.  I'm just this ol' guy who likes to raise his blood pressure and yell when my team on the simulated battlefield is giving up ground and points to the enemy.

But I also like to cultivate my sense of humour because my sights are set on galaxy-sized goals.

What about you?

Away We Go

I was pumped and excited after the U.S. elections two years ago.  I am just as pumped and excited today about the election two days ago.

Change is good.

Time to look forward, watching updates not only from NASA but from commercial ventures, too, such as SpaceX and news about space flight in general.

All while reading "Dark Side of the Moon" by Wayne Biddle - the dead never live to see the retelling of their life histories to fit the views of the time - and "Never Order Barbecue in Maine" by Ken Tanner - you don't have to be radical or a maverick to succeed, but it doesn't hurt to be one, either.

It's a bright, cool day in fall - time to take a short hike into the woods and remember why living is where it's at.  Always good to meet a snail or bird that has no clue what all these funny-looking scribbles we call words are about.

Old Movie, New Moves

R2 or one of the triplets, Huey, Dewey and Louie?  Life imitates art, possibly:

Robot's space debut 'giant leap for tinmankind'

Anything is possible, given the "right" committee membership:

After Election, Critics of Obama's NASA Plan Likely to Take Over 2 Key Committees

But that's thinking too close in the future, right, wrong, left or centrist.

As much fun as close-Earth orbit experimentation gets, far more interesting or funny will be energy-replenishment systems for a genetically-engineered person carrying the hope of the species in other orbits.

I still say it takes all seven billion of us to get this done right - Iranians, Israelis, Chinese, Peruvians, Americans, British, Malaysians, Thais, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

A More Interesting Grizzly Bear

Are you bearish or bullish on seeing Earth from a new perspective?  They are:

Angara launched into space

Depending on your view, you've got a decision to make.

You gonna launch from the hidden silo in your own backyard or use an approved spaceport in someone else's?

Too bad Whitman was so hung up on a personally purchased political appointment.  Imagine if she joined others and used her fortune to advance our species into space.

Some of us are.

100 Years of Scouting, 100 Years of Martian Solitude

Happy 100th, BSA! May a Boy Scout lead the charge to the first 100-year trailblazing adventure on Mars!

As an Eagle Scout, I know what it's all about. Always be prepared.

How Does That Apply To You/Me/Us?

Just how social are you?  Are they?:

Kleiner Perkins: Get Social, or Get Left Behind

If you're going to promote the viability of your city, do you and 150 of your best friends buy a Mercedes-Benz?  Do you?:

India's smaller cities show off growing wealth

Can just anyone get to space?  Can he?:

"To the moon with yourself"

Would a country and its companions encourage a continued devaluation of its currency to decrease a foreign entity's holdings?  Would I?

Best purchase in a long time: "The Four Antiphonal Organs of the Cathedral of Freiberg Played Simultaneously By E. Power Biggs, Bach/The Four "Great" Toccatas and Fugues" for $.95 on LP by Columbia Masterworks at McKay's.

Some days, questions are all there are to ask, wrapped in colloquial colonialistic antipathy, neither for nor against anything in particular.

Science

I'm waiting on some upcoming news in regards to international cooperation in the next leap forward into space. As soon as the news is released, I'll also share in the excitement of all the incremental advances we've made lately.

Stuff like greenhouses on the Moon and asteroid/comet exploration.

When will the first space junk collector/dealer make a fortune?

What is America?

Now that the future has been completely plotted, analysed, condensed, published, proved and debunked, I'm out of a job.

Or, rather, I may or may not have been paid to keep my mouth shut about what's going to happen next.

All of us have a Jonathan Pryce we're willing to accept. Many a Moss has been traded for sports entertainment purposes rather than gather on immovable old Stones.

It takes six to ten years to build a list of anything interesting to the majority of people in a major culture.

While the interplanetary citizen subcommittees met secretly out in the open, I assigned myself the task of figuring out who was farming the people, letting a vast number randomly reproduce while a select few were closely observed and chosen to attempt to create a special group to use as a control against which modified-DNA beings will be compared.

Is a potato really more intelligent than anything on or in Mars? To whom/what are we potatoes? Why do UFOs always have flashing lights?

A secondary schoolmate of mine is a Zionist living in Israeli settlement. A colleague of mine is a Muslim born of a Muslim father and Christian mother, both born and raised in Lebanon. A Chinese friend of mine lived in terror during the Mao revolution because of her parents' school teacher background. Another friend of mine, of Italian heritage, married a woman of Vietnamese heritage. My wife and I have, amongst a lot, little extractions of various European countries in us.

These people are or were American citizens. Thus, they/we are by definition global citizens because the U.S. is a melting pot of players in international business and politics.

We depend not only on each other but also on our planet.

Politics is not local. But it's hard for us to see thousands of languages and subcultures at once.

What, then, is the ideal extraplanetary citizen?

If we are 99.xxx% alike, what is the average .xxx% percent that will represent us in our first attempts at permanent colonisation on an extraterrestrial body?

Recruits are competing across the globe to define the group(s) to eventually live permanently offworld.

Some secret teams are developing the advance robotic group that will build the colony's living quarters and defensive perimeters (can't let just anybody land and live there first!).

Meanwhile, those who are happy to call Earth home but want more exotic travel destinations are filling up the rosters of promising spaceship companies' train-and-fly programs.

Can I trust you with a little more information I gathered from an intimate bedroom conversation between two people in the know about different sets of secrets? Mmm...not yet.

There is no such thing as the ideal interplanetary citizen. Good traits like hard-working, determined, quick-thinking and cooperative will get us through this next stage of our species' expansion.

The stage after that will require quite a bit of imagination on our part. Better start planting the seeds now that'll take six to ten years to mature, one opened secret at a time, vigilantly wary of future shock.

Rick's Risks in Ricks

An ordinary man, watching, waiting.

While rocketeers line up recruits to design, build and launch moon rovers, manifesting the dreams of Verne and others who've marveled at our night sky companion that bashfully hides its face in phases, I stand here wondering.

Birds bathe.

I am an old man who wanders woods thinking.

There's something else out there, something I can only hint about, vaguely reference, use humour to blow smoke around and in front of.

I am an apparition, cells, atoms and states of energy tangled in gravity.

While colleagues and associates see the ordinary me, I work the background scene where the extraordinary happens regularly.

I am a quiet fool, easily recompensed, apt to gape, stepping through back doors to see what's really going on in the cube farms, a reflection of management's management.

I am not what I appear to be. Managing expectations. Making people feel like persons. Empowering.

I am unimportant, embarrassed to talk about my humble accomplishments, having not yet settled a colony of living things off this world.

There's more here than meets the illusion we call the thought process. Time to activate another team and show you what I mean.

So many govermental agencies issuing grants, so few people to make the grants come alive and exponentially grow to the benefit of all the people some of the time (and some of the sum thyme of the time).

Would you see the dual use that supersecret government cybersecurity development gives civilians openly populating another planet?

You will.