Launch Party and Mom's Day
While I hate the thought of leaving my zip code, especially on weekends, sometimes I grudgingly see it as a necessary evil. This morning (Saturday), we were invited to go to the Los Angeles Air Force base in El Segundo to attend a "launch party" and watch a live video feed (several actually) of the liftoff of an Atlas V rocket carrying the first SBIRS GEO-1 satellite. The Space Based Infrared System is a highly advanced military project that will, to put it in dry technical terms, protect us from bad guys. All was successful, it took off at 11:10 am PST from Cape Canaveral, and applause erupted from all the geeks present. As most launches do, it brought a wee tear to me eye - I'm crazy about space related activities.
But what's this got to do with Long Beach? Sunday is Mother's Day of course, and we're going with some friends and their mom to brunch. So here I was this morning, literally surrounded by a group of rocket scientists, and I would defy them to give coherent driving directions to the Reef restaurant near the Queen Mary, so we could give them to the poor old mom driving up from San Diego to meet us. We'll probably settle for, "Drive to the Queen Mary, make a U, and you're basically there." Happy Mother's Day!