once in a lifetime [sadly]

On September 21st, Will and I headed to Moffett Field to see the shuttle Endeavor; it was crossing the country on its last piggy-back flight before being grounded at a museum in Los Angeles. It was a bittersweet day...awesome to see the flyover, but sad to know that this was the end of the shuttle program and there would be nothing comparable to replace it any time soon [and if so, it will only be through the private sector]. The folks gathered around were definitely kindred spirits, there to see an amazing sight...and most everyone seemed to echo the same sentiment: such a shame to see a dream fade.

Some pics from the day, and after them, the video I took of the flyover:

I had always planned to see a shuttle launch "some time"...it just never occurred to me that they might stop happening someday. This was my last chance to see a shuttle other than in a museum...I'm glad I went.

[for best results, view in Youtube and choose the highest resolution your bandwidth is happy with]

clarification

A while back, I made a blog post about lessons I learned from a past relationship. I was very careful to not include anything that clearly identified who I was talking about; the point wasn't to cast aspersions on a specific individual, but instead to talk about the lesson that a person can be a very good human being and still not be a good match for you. It's looking like I was a bit *too* effective at obfuscating the subject, as I've gotten some folks making assumptions as to who the post was about [which also shows that I seem to keep some details of my relationships a bit quiet as well, since no one [other than the other person involved, of course] knew who I was referring to]. Since the point was to avoid making anyone the spotlight of the post, I need to be honest and make sure that someone else doesn't bear the brunt of what I wrote...so folks, just to let you know, it wasn't about Greg [who was also a good person, just not the one I was writing about]. There were lessons learned in that relationship as well, but not the ones I wrote about in that post...

So here's to learning lessons, to having good people in your life, to being able to move on if your paths diverge, and to constantly trying to improve yourself.