The U.S. Parachute Association has been sending me e-mails, asking me to call/write to my congresspeople to try to stop the passing of House Bill HR2997 - a "modernization" of air travel infrastructure that includes, among other things, the privatization of air traffic control. Many aviation groups (including, obviously, the USPA) are opposed to ( Read more... )

One of my favorite old-time DOS games was Prince of Persia; Dad used to watch me play it back in my old life. About 10 years ago, I dug it out and started playing it again; the only version I had of it was a bootable DOS 3.3 floppy I'd made for it way back when, but I went ahead and put it on one of my Windows 98 computers, such that I could reboot ( Read more... )

My FB account is currently deactivated, btw. Hell, that's part of the reason I've had more time to post here to begin with (though the astronaut thing was certainly a strong incentive to write again, let me tell you ( Read more... )

This morning, I got my official rejection e-mail from NASA. It said more-or-less exactly what I would have expected.


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Yesterday was the 30th anniversary of my mother's death. I was going to make a post about it, but I was more interested in writing about the astronaut stuff. Besides, it's not like there's much else to say regarding my mother and her death that I haven't said already. Well, I guess there are details and such about my life with her that I could ( Read more... )

A week ago (last Wednesday, the 7th), I watched the live telecast of NASA's presentation of the new class of astronaut candidates; the 12 people selected will now begin about two years of training, after which they will work mission control / support until it's their turn to go up. NASA accepts a new class only about every 4 years ( Read more... )

I saw my first lightning bugs of the year last night. They always make me so happy ( Read more... )

Last week (Sunday the 13th) was my 13th AFF skydive, and my first hop-and-pop ( Read more... )

I've been working Monday through Friday on the Little Creek Naval Base for the last five weeks as part of a work project; today is my last day there. I've worked on and off on various military bases in the last ten years, though I'd never really done anything at Little Creek before ( Read more... )

Skydive Suffolk, where I did my tandem jump 8 years ago and am currently doing my AFF course, has its students submit their respective initial paperwork to the United States Parachute Association after their third jump, in order to get the ball rolling on the membership process. Interestingly (or not), the USPA assigns you your license number ( Read more... )