Happy Easter!

Happy Easter in this brave new world that we live in.

I still find it hard to comprehend how we got here, or that we are here at all. A few days/weeks/months ago life was chugging along normally. There was some news that China had a new(er) bad(der) disease, but the rest of the world was pretty much 'whatever'.

And here we are. This new life where we wear masks to go outside, to a store, to work (if you are lucky enough to still be doing that). This strange apocalyptic world where I can go for a road-bike-ride and there is almost no traffic. A world where we suddenly aren't traveling ANYWHERE. I walk down to our mailbox and there isn't anybody outside (our housing complex has those banks of mailboxes every block, so the mail-people stop and fill them all, then drive to the next block, and the next one, and so on). It seems like a much quieter world suddenly.

In our house life is eerily similar to the pre-apocalyptic world. Our living room is our social gathering place. Our TV is the center of that (sadly)...oh heck, I won't apologize for that...we LOVE watching movies and TV (Jeannie is totally addicted to those shows about crimes...the real crimes I mean, not TV crime series shows). And the news. We like Lester Holt. I like news where they just give the news and let ME make up my own thoughts about it...it's hard to find news not slanted one way or the other. Seems every channel has it's agenda. I'd like to think I'm agenda-free. Kind of like Tide-free (detergent)...no dyes, scents, just the soap.

Then I look at our dining room table, which is now Jeannie's office. That's different. Her entire office has been brought home...laser printer, monitor, computer, office-chair, and even her little space heater (I still chuckle at that). I pulled her nice desk-plaque she got soon after she earned her CPA (the wooden name-plate-thing with her name and "CPA" on it)...I told her to put it on her desk at work but she doesn't want to appear to be bragging (hell, I would...I saw her work SO VERY HARD for YEARS to earn that! It truly was like earning ANOTHER college degree, and she worked so very hard for that too!) Anyway, she laughed when I put it out on the table, and she even left it because I'm the only one who gets to see it.

Other than the dining room office, there is nothing out of the ordinary here at home. I still mow the yard every so often, scoopy-the-poopy in the back every day or 2 (it's amazing how much poopy two somewhat small dogs can make). The only weird thing is I just don't see my neighbors much anymore. I know Louie and Anna on the one side are very much in "safe" mode. Like Jeannie and I, they are both still working although under the new world order rules (facemasks, social distancing, etc) and they are both very worried about catching this new-to-us disease. John and his wife on the other side, well, I hear John every now and then moving his plastic dumpsters around (we have city provided plastic dumpsters for trash, recycling and yard waste). But that's about it...I haven't seen either of them for weeks.

I know that I SHOULD be more worried about catching it than I am...but I'm just not. I don't know why...denial maybe? I'm still finding it so hard to believe what the world is going thru right now. Maybe if I was in a big city where the effects were real and nearby....Santa Maria is a somewhat small city (I think around 90,000 or so). We aren't a suburb of any larger city, and it's a fairly sprawled out agriculture type town (year-round strawberries are a huge part of our local crop, as well as a TON of wineries just outside of town....I go on a road bike ride from my house and there are vineyards pretty much everywhere). I just have this "what's all the fuss about" attitude, and I can't say exactly why. I mean, if either of us came down with it and got really sick I'd sure change my attitude. I can't even fathom how the families of those who have died from this disease must feel...one day they get sick and are whisked away to somewhere that you can't even visit, and they just don't come home. How horrible would THAT be? They DIE and you may not even know about it....I hear (see) on the news the refrigerator trucks they are using for temporary morgues in NYC...that is just beyond my comprehension that they NEED to do that!

One of the guys I work with went to our local Hospital about 2 weeks ago as he thought had some symptoms and had been sick for over a week... and after walking thru hallways lined with plastic sheeting and sitting in a plastic room all by himself, he finally saw a Dr. who said his symptoms were not of the disease and sent him home (without being tested) and told him NOT to come back unless he was dying. And we are like WHAT?? It's not like we are in NYC and our hospital has been over-run...we have locally just a very few cases (so far). I guess THAT is part of our new reality...don't go to the hospital unless you have IT...they don't want to see you otherwise.

Oh...and the news last night was talking about THE checks from the Fed. Gov. are hitting the accounts now. Yeah. Both of you (Susie and Rae) have talked about this...believe me, Jeannie and I feel the same way. So you are looking to the Gov to give you money. Expecting it. Deserving it. Uhm...where is your savings? You've got nice new car/truck, cell phone, wide screen TV and Cable service, internet service, eat out all the time, buying all kinds of crap you don't need...and yet you don't have enough money saved to get you by a few weeks without a paycheck? And that is somehow everybody else's fault? OK...I do feel bad for all of the millions who are suddenly COVID-unemployed...and IF there are to be checks going out, then THOSE should be the ones to get them. IF you are still working, no check. The farmers? SURE THING...help THEM out! They are being crushes! Suddenly there is very little demand for a lot of their crops with restaurants and cruise ships and such being closed. Crops in the fields rotting and being plowed under. I'm all for giving those people help. I'd be fine with them getting weekly checks they won't ever have to pay back. We MUST keep them afloat. Farming is a hard life! (my Moms entire family up in North Dakota are pretty much all farmers...her mom and dad, most of her siblings and their kids). I have seen first hand how hard a life that is. My Uncle Charles always said farmers are the richest poor people on the planet (referring to the fact that he has a few million dollars of necessary equipment sitting around his farm, yet he owns free and clear almost none of it).

OK...that turned into a rant of sorts. Yep...I'm fed up with the "give me give me give me" people...but they were here before this and will be here long after. And I'm all for helping those who really need it. I just don't know where / when this ends. There is no end in sight yet, no matter what we hear on the news. Sports coming back? Not any time soon if you ask me. All this "flattening of the curve" has been working pretty well in this country (if you ask me)...but the only problem with that is that very thing means you can't just go back to 'normal or everything you've done thus far is thrown out the window and BAM...the medical system is overwhelmed, the very thing we have tried not to do. We can't really go back to 'normal' until A: there is a vaccine, B: nearly everybody has already had it, or C: there is reliable and quick (and super-abundant) testing for both having the virus and having the antibodies....so we know who is actually safe from catching it. None of that will be happening soon though. But that's just my 2 cents on it...maybe there is an option "D" or "E" that I can't even think of.

Anyway...here we are. Things are surely WELL beyond our control. I'm very happy and thankful that we don't live in a big city, that we aren't surrounded by actual Covis cases, that we still have food available (and yesterday I actually picked up a 9-pack of Charmin at the base Commissary while we were doing our weekly grocery shopping...WOW!) I didn't really need it, but grabbed it anyway as I know there are people I work with who don't have Commissary access (retirees and active duty only) and who don't want to brave the 2 hour Costco line before they even open....and I'd like to just be able to hand them a few rolls and say 'here you go'. I think sharing and taking care of each other right now are the biggest things we can do. I know last weekend when we were at the Commissary Jeannie got TP for one of her co-workers who hasn't been able to find any...we drove by her place and dropped it over the fence (she wasn't home). And yesterday she came by our place and dropped off a bottle of Vitamin C that we haven't been able to find (Jeannie takes chewables every day...I don't, but I eat a grapefruit nearly every morning with breakfast). So yeah...helping each other....that's what this is all about now. Taking care of each other in whatever way we can. Small things can mean a lot right now.

So....on this Easter morning I just want to say that. Help each other any way you can. One day this will just be part of our history....and hopefully we will learn something from it, and be better prepared for the next time (for rest assured, there WILL BE a next time). Human Kindness. That's what this is all about. As Ellen (DeGeneres) says at the end of every show: "Be kind to each other".

And get out there and ride. Or jog. Or hike. Or walk. Whatever it is you like do do outside, just do it.

That is all.

Its a mad mad mad mad world

Editing this post to put this at the very top, got the link from my brother...its holy shit scary!

Link to Corona virus info from physicians


Wow. Just wow. Its like a sci-fi movie right now. I cant recall seeing anything like this in my lifetime. The world is shutting down.

I'm still in Florida, its Sunday afternoon, and its a beautiful day out. Life here still appears completely normal except for the lack of total madness due to Spring Break (which isn't really happening), a bunch of cruise ships sitting at piers not going anywhere, and the inability to buy even a single roll of toilet paper at the stores. Oh, and the complete lack of any sports going on. Forgot about that.

Here in his area I heard today that Disney World is closed, along with pretty much all the touristy places. I did a self-guided tour of Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS) and its conjoined twin Kennedy Space Center (KSC) today. It was a super quiet day driving around the ginormous tracts of land they both occupy. As I got close to the old Shuttle pads (39A and 39B) I started seeing the KSC Tour buses rolling by.  That at least seemed normal. Then as I briefly exited KSC at its northern terminus the road crossing mine was backed up as far as I could see to the west. I U-turned back into KSC and asked the guard (you have to have an ID to get on either KSC or CCAFS) what was going on.  He said it was people going to the beach. He mentioned that pretty much everything that was touristy was closed down, and likely the KSC tours will stop very soon too...seems people just want something to do and the beaches aren't yet closed to the public. Unbelievable. I guess I have had my head in the sand this last 6 weeks, barely getting any news.

Friday I had the day off  with pay (my first day off in a while), and we were planning on loading our container into the aircraft on Saturday and then flying home on Sunday (an AWESOME PLAN), all of which was nixed Saturday morning when the back doors to our aircraft wouldn't open due to a hydraulic fitting failure). So with my unexpected day off I went into town (Cocoa Beach/Cape Canaveral) and rented a beach cruiser bike, and rode the crap out of it (32 miles, 4 hours). Yeah...turns out that isn't really a good idea...that tractor seat isn't really suitable for something like that..but I am kind of stubborn apparently, and also can somewhat ignore pain (something all cyclists can do) so I just kept going and going and going. It was a wonderful day, not too hot, not too cool, a light breeze blowing...so I just kept riding.  I would have done it again today except that my thighs are still pretty sore where they interfaced with the enormous tractor seat for thousands of pedal strokes. I don't think there is any permanent damage, but yeah...it still hurts now 2 days later.

 Here are a few shots from my epic cruiser bike masochistic ride on Friday. Here my rental steel-steed is looking down the Cocoa Beach pier.

 This was a pretty cool little section of covered sandy-trail as I was at the north end of the City of Cape Canaveral.

 Here my trusty steel beastie and I are back into Cocoa Beach (heading south).

 This picture is at least 15 miles south of the last one, at the northern part of Patrick Air Force Base.

 In this final shot of my 4 hour death-ride my steed and I are looking longingly at the beach.

And here are a few pics from today's tour of CCAS and KSC.  It got me out of the room for a few hours, hooray!

 The CCAFS Space and Missile museum, complex 26 (the launch site of the USAs first satellite).

 A Redstone rocket that is part of the museum. I am standing at the blockhouse (about 300 yards away from the rocket). Back in those days they didn't understand the explosive power of a fueled rocket. Blockhouses (where all the launch controlers are) were moved much further back.

 A tortise on the side of the road. They are protected here. His shell is well over a foot long (I didnt want to get too close and spook him getting my foot into the picture for a size reference). His mouth if full of grass and he seemed pretty calm.

 Now I am way north and onto KSC property. This is the Space X pad (39B, which used to be one of the Space Shuttle pads). The Falcon 9 rocket is on the pad, kind of obscured by teh water tower. Its not supposed to be there, had planned on launching yesterday morning and then again this morning.
I haven't looked yet but its likely rescheduled to tomorrow morning and will affect our convoy to load our aircraft (just delays us a bit until after its gone so we can have the base security for our road convoy to the airfield).

 I am standing on the graveled crawler track that goes from the VAB (Vehicle Assembly Building) to pad 39B (you can see the Falcon 9 on the pad off in the distance). Before Space X and before them the Space Shuttles this was an Apollo pad. Yep...the enormous Saturn V rockets sitting on the huge launcg-crawlers drove right over this same gravel mission after mission (they added gravel each time as the crawler/rocket combo weight so much it pulverized a lot of it...still I think its pretty cool a bunch of Apollos and Shuttles drove over this...and I have a rock I picked up from the track in my pocket too).

 Looking back east (towards the VAB which isnt visible in this picture as the track curves). I took this shot as you can still see the tracks from the last crawler to go here.

 Here the crawler tracks to 39A and 39B converge and you can now see the VAB off in the distance.

 Here is the VAB up close. They assembled Saturn Vs on both sides on top of the crawlers, and then all those gray doors slid up to the top and the entire thing rolled right out towards its pad for launch.

 Here is one of the crawlers sitting outside. That thing is absolutely HUGE...the picture doesn't show any scale. Sitting on top of the crawler WOULD be a Mobile Launch Platform, and on top of that was the Apollo rocket or Shuttle.

Here is a picture I copied from Wikipedia showing a Shuttle rolling along the track from the VAB heading towards its launch pad. You can clearly see the Mobile Launch Platform the orbiter is sitting on, with the crawler below it. Also you can see the VAB doors still open where the entire assembly rolled out. You can also see the paved road just to the left of the gravel track (left side)..that road is still there and is what I followed going from the pads to the VAB on my journey today.

The more often seen side of the VAB with the NASA logo and the US Flag. A LONG time ago (my first trip to the Cape) back when shuttles were still launching I drove here and there was no fence around the building. I parked my rental and walked right up to a door, expecting at any moment someone to yell at me (or arrest me). No one did, and I just opened the door and walked in. The inside of that building is so big I cant even begin to describe it (they claim it creates its own atmosphere inside its so big). There were no shuttles inside at the time (why no one stopped me). They would come in horizontal, and then lifted vertical and attached to the External Tank inside this building, and finally attach the 2 huge solid rocket boosters to the tank, all sitting on top of the crawler/mobile launch platform to take the entire beast to its pad. I was parked somewhere close to here a few years later on another of my trips here where I got to finally see a shuttle launch (and landing just a few days later). The launch was fantastic, the landing not so much (didn't see it till the very end...but did get the twin sonic booms as it finally drops down under the speed of sound). 

 Here is a panorama of the VAB and way off in the distance are pads 39A and B (its tiny but if you look close you can see the Falcon 9 on pad 39B, which is to the left of 39A). I forget the distance but its a couple of miles.

 Snapped a few shots out the window of my car as I was leaving CCAFS heading back into the city of Cape Canaveral/Cocoa Beach of the cruise ships sitting in port. Normally they are in for less than a day, disembarking their thousands of passengers, loading food and such and their new gaggle of passengers and heading back out. I think these 2 are Carnival ships...there are at least 2 Norwegian Cruise lines ships sitting too.

These would be the Norwegian Cruise lines ships.

This one is Royal Caribbean...so that makes FIVE ships sitting here in port. Crazy stuff!

Anyway, that's about all I have for today. I did the paid-KSC tour many years ago (when I was here for work and then Jeannie flew out for a long weekend). I would have done it again today, but the cost is now $60 per person! Wow...that is a bit pricey for stuff I have already seen. Had I never done the tour before then I would have certainly done it, as its really something (and now they have a space shuttle, when I did it we were still launching them). There is a Saturn V lying on its side at one place, so you can see how HUGE it was. All that, along with the movies, displays, guides and info you get throughout, and then taking you all over the KSC complex in the buses. If you are ever down here its a must-do item.

OK. Thats a wrap from KSC/Cape Canaveral. Have a great NO-CORONA-VIRUS day! And if you see any TP for sale, you'd best grab it! That stuff will be like gold in another week or 2!