Dewey Defeats Truman

Summer School!!!

I just found out I have been tentatively assigned Std. American Gov't at Neenah High School this summer, should no current NHS teacher express an interest. Here's hoping a gov't teacher decides to "take the summer off".

Incidentally, this crushes a budding, but rather unrealistic, idea I had to travel down to Florida at the end of June to watch Space Shuttle Atlantis take off on the last ever space shuttle launch. Yeah, that's right. In addition to policy-wonk dorkiness, I'm also a space geek (as if you didn't know after yesterday's post).

No offense to anyone I ever roomed with, who might read this, but I think the best roommate I ever had (ignoring my wife of course, who's really more than a roommate anyway) was my random assignment in Towers North. Rob was a political junky, liked sci-fi shows and could be counted on to skip class and watch space shuttle launches on that weird NASA channel the dorms got. Wonder what he's up to these days. Anyway...

SUPER PUMPED ABOUT MAYBE TEACHING SUMMER SCHOOL!!!!

Earthrise

Outer space has always captivated me, probably why I like Sci-Fi. Anyway, I've been watching From the Earth to the Moon lately and the most recent episode was set in 1968 when Apollo 8 orbited the moon and returned to Earth.

To quote Wikipedia: "Apollo 8 was the first human spaceflight to leave Earth orbit: the first to be captured by and escape from the gravitational field of another celestial body; and the first crewed voyage to return to planet Earth from another celestial body-Earth's moon."

It's the mission on which the famous "Earthrise" picture was taken (it also took place at Christmas and they read from Genesis 1). In the mini-series, as the Lunar Module emerges from orbiting the far side of the moon, the astronaut see Earth from deep space for the first time and are deeply moved.

Yesterday, I had some friends over, and we were discussing instruments we played in band as kids, and how our parents had "pushed" us towards one instrument. Mine had steered me away from the drums and to the trumpet. Part of me has always wished I'd been able to play drums, but I also loved playing the trumpet and have always had a soft spot for music that prominently features brass winds in general.

So here, courtesy of YouTube is the music that accompanied the part in the From the Earth to the Moon when Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and William Anders saw the Earth from the Moon for that first time.

Citizens for a Strong America - Refused