Idle time

Well, my daughter conveniently clogged my computer up with viruses, last night. Oh the joys of 'know-it-all' teens. I have this other computer that my husband actually bought a couple of years ago and never even took it out of the box. (another 'know-it-all', but thats a whole other story). I took it out this morning, set it up...it runs on Vista which sucks BIG time, cuz my weekday job, the programs they use, aren't compatible with Vista yet. Hell, as far as compatibility goes, Vista isn't compatible with my anti-virus program, its not compatible with my printer, fax, copier. Vista sucks. So...no work for me, today. And a HUGE headache, trying to set up this confounded Vista computer. My husband doesn't know it yet, but he's being charged for the work! lol But to be fair, I am setting it up for him, with web-sites and programs he uses, so the charge will be valid ;)



Since I have the day off, I figured I'd be able to pull a thought or two together here, since my time allows me about a post a month. First of all, I went to see the shuttle lift off Friday night. It's the supposed last night launch of a shuttle, before they put all of the shuttles down for good. I've been to Space View Park before to see daytime lift offs...and have seen lots of daytime and nighttime lift offs from my home, but seeing one taking off at night, up close, is nothing short of spectacular. The ground shakes (and I wonder if the ground shaking is somewhat like a tremor in California, I don't know), you can feel the electricity of everyone around you, when it lifts off, you can almost swear a bomb is going off. But then this huge ball of fire starts rising (and you can't even see the shuttle, or anything but a ball of fire, or what might seems like an artificial sun), and it rises and rises with a huge tail of fire trailing behind it. It was a cloudy night, that night, so as it rose, it continued to look like a muffled fireball racing up to the sky. On a clear day you can see the actual shuttle, sometimes even, if the suns right, reflecting it. On a clear night, it doesn't so much look like a ball of fire, as much as it looks like a streak of fire racing upwards. But up close...with the sights, sounds, feel of the ground, excitement of the people around you. Well, its just something to see.



And the people. Geeezzzz. There were people from all over the country and world! I met a man from Germany there, who said he came specifically to watch this last night launch. I got to thinking about it as we talked. He spoke very good english, watched enough of American news to know about the shuttle launches and this being the last one....and actually had an interest in "Our" history, to be witness to it. He also asked me and my husband if we were glad that Obama was president-elect. He seemed very, very, very happy that he was. And, being the democrats we are, we were. And it occurred to me that (aside from republicans, and American republican, I mean), alot of people are glad that Obama's been elected. I know the republicans don't have much confidence in him, but I damn sure do. And hearing how he's being received globally just makes me feel all the better. We're on the lame duck watch, now we just have to endure the wait.

But the launch was fantastic...better than I ever could have thought. The world's on its way to getting better (hopefully, at least America is!) And now....its just to deal with this Vista computer. I can't wait to get MY computer back.