To hear politicians tell it, the college diploma
is the guaranteed gateway to middle-class life, so everybody should probably go
to college. The argument seems self-evident—over a lifetime, college graduates
far out-earn those without a degree ($2.1 million, supposedly), so go to college, live the American
Dream. Unfortunately, as many recent college graduates have discovered, diplomas
no longer guarantee success.
Taking to your social network of choice today (not to
mention major news media outlets) your news feed was probably inundated with pictures
snapped from local area office buildings and parking lots of the Space Shuttle
Discovery taking its final flight on top of a Boeing 747 en route to its final
resting place at the Smithsonian Air & Space Annex/Museum at Dulles
Airport. A cool sight indeed because how
often do you see a space shuttle hitching a ride on a 747 (and possessing a
certain sober sentimentality as it represents that last ride of NASA’s space
shuttle program), but did it really deserve such grandeur and attention
(engineering feat notwithstanding)?
Before logging on to Facebook today, I never knew so many of my peers even
cared about NASA’s exploits these days, let alone knew the space shuttle
program was retired after Atlantis’ last launch last summer (darn Obama for scuttling
Bush’s planned successor, Project Constellation!).
The funny
thing about me writing this is I’m a huge NASA fan, love space, love space
shuttles (I will own Space Shuttle Pinball one day), and am super bummed the
program had to end (again, darn Obama!).
Yet considering the past achievements and various other markedly more exciting
operations of the space shuttle program (launches anyone?), this “victory lap”
flight seems to pale in comparison. I
feel most people that got so excited about this somewhat boring (relatively speaking) sub-space
flight are sort of like fair weather fans.
I mean I didn’t see nary a post about Atlantis’s final flight from Cape
Canaveral last summer? That was much more significant. I mean just cause a space shuttle “glides”
over your house it’s all the sudden really important? Space exploration is cool now?
I mean
first off it’s not like we haven't seen a 747 flying around our neighborhoods;
perhaps not over DC and with a space shuttle attached to its back, but was the
sight of it that much more novel than
a massive solo 747 flying overhead like the dozens of times they do over
Northern Virginia every day?
Secondly, as cool as the space
shuttle is, it is a 30 year old aeronautical
design. Seeing it in the mid-eighties
was definitely, well, space-age, but in today’s aerospace industry it’s like
seeing a classic car drive by; super
cool, but not novel per se. It’s not like
the sight of a 747 and space shuttle combined was much different than the
hundreds of times we saw jets escort the shuttles back home from missions - yet everyone and their mother posted photos as if a second moon appeared in the sky (cool yes, but that cool...disabled and just gliding on top of a common plane?)
Finally,
and this isn’t to marginalize this particular retirement flight because it was neat, but more to
explain how much cooler and amazing the actual space shuttle launches
were (see below). I mean if this pedestrian fly-by
wowed you, then the actual launches must’ve blown your gaskets over the years. Or they didn’t, because you probably never
watched any of them (save the Challenger’s and Columbia’s I bet), nor could
name the rest of the fleet.
I don’t
know, I guess I should be excited the exposure this event created for NASA and
space programs in general – and I should be very happy NASA picked my backyard
to gift one of its greatest technological achievements for its final
display. Maybe my frustration is that there
was just something so fair-weather about so many DC folks freaking out about
the fly-by today. It reminded me a lot
of so many in DC “Rocking the Red” these days that don’t even know who Don Beaupre
is.
You wanna see cool…check this video of Discovery's final launch
Given a
choice between motorcycling and bicycling, I’d choose motorcycling 9 times out
of 10. But that doesn’t mean I don’t
enjoy bicycling; shoot I used to ride my BMX pretty much constantly throughout
my youth. Yet with rising gas prices,
lowering opportunities to work out, and unseasonably warm weather, I’ve decided
to start bicycling to work on occasion. Despite
using a mountain bike that’s too small for me (hoping to borrow a friend’s proper
road bike in the near future) and a butt that’s uber sore, I’m still enjoying
to the exercise.
It’s about 13.2 miles from my house to my work so I’m doing
a healthy 26+ miles each day I ride in.
No small feat for an IT professional. But because it’s
to and from work, I’m making the most efficient use of my time in regards to
trying to find time to work out. It’s a
win-win situation and make me feel good…despite the sore tush.
Here’s a slick biking calories calculator too!
Calories Burned Calculator
Estimate the calories you burned on your bike ride:
To hear politicians tell it, the college diploma
is the guaranteed gateway to middle-class life, so everybody should probably go
to college. The argument seems self-evident—over a lifetime, college graduates
far out-earn those without a degree ($2.1 million, supposedly), so go to college, live the American
Dream. Unfortunately, as many recent college graduates have discovered, diplomas
no longer guarantee success. 
Given a
choice between motorcycling and bicycling, I’d choose motorcycling 9 times out
of 10. But that doesn’t mean I don’t
enjoy bicycling; shoot I used to ride my BMX pretty much constantly throughout
my youth. Yet with rising gas prices,
lowering opportunities to work out, and unseasonably warm weather, I’ve decided
to start bicycling to work on occasion. Despite
using a mountain bike that’s too small for me (hoping to borrow a friend’s proper
road bike in the near future) and a butt that’s uber sore, I’m still enjoying
to the exercise.
