Retirement fun

Have I mentioned how much fun it is to be retired. I stay as busy as I want to be around the house but have opportunities to do other things as well. So far I have no real deadlines of stuff that just has to be done by a certain time so I can relax and enjoy the time. For instance, on Friday I watched the space shuttle Atlantis launch into space and no matter how many times I watch it, there is still a sense of amazement that we can build something that will lift four and a half million pounds and accelerate it to 17,000 mph plus in about 8 minutes leaving it in orbit about the earth. Then it will rendevoux with another orbiting environment and dock for a few days before returning to earth. Folks, when I was born this stuff was science fiction. Dick Tracy had a wrist watch radio and a base on the moon and Flash Gordon rocketed through space to nab the bad  guys, but that was in the comics. No one really believed it!

But here we are, 1 flight away from the end of an era, and after that, years before more manned space flight can occur from American soil. We will be forced to rely on foreign entities to ferry our astronauts to the International Space Station and bring them safely home. We as a nation are likely to fall far behind in science and space exploration because of this delay.

Enough of that, I was talking about the joys of being retired, and I do thoroughly enjoy it. I will return later with more of this nonsense.