What's the Buzz?
Aug. 24th, 2008 12:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lordshipmayhemFriday and Saturday were fantastic. Thanks greatly to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sierralad and his good wife auraus, his stepfather and I, both space otaku, got to see, talk to, ask questions of and hear Doctor Buzz Aldrin, USAF (Ret'd), pilot of Apollo 11's Eagle moon lander.
I learned something - every day, I try to learn something. He still loves the Sabre that he flew in Korea; he was close friends with Ed White, one of the three astronauts killed in the Apollo 1 fire (indeed Ed was instrumental in encouraging Buzz to join him in the Astronaut Corps), he's a SCUBA diver and responsible for getting NASA to use underwater as a venue for training for spacewalks; he's not especially enthusiastic about the current choices that NASA's been making regarding ARES (not flexible enough), and he's an alcoholic who just celebrated 11 years of sobriety. That took the crowd by surprise (especially as the special reception the night before had been held at the Overdraft Irish (style) pub); impressed, we gave him yet another round of applause.
He's nice, grizzled, very intelligent, quick on his feet, and like me, tends to think faster than he can talk. Sometimes I confuse my audience because I finish coming to the end of my train of thought and state my conclusions... not having had time to state my logic, I've left them standing on the platform. Leads to some funny looks sometimes. (Similar to Darwin's response when farmers came to him asking what they could do about their dismal crop yield. "Get more cats!" "Whaaaa??" "Well, your crops are pollinated by bees, the bees are nesting in the riverbank, the riverbank is overrun with rats right now as there are not enough cats to control the rat population, and the rats are burrowing into the bees' colonies and destroying them." I have known too many similar pairs of raised eyebrows from my variations of Darwin's "Get more cats" comment.)
And Buzz shook my hand. I touched greatness!!!!!!! Wow!!!!!
sierralad and his good wife auraus, his stepfather and I, both space otaku, got to see, talk to, ask questions of and hear Doctor Buzz Aldrin, USAF (Ret'd), pilot of Apollo 11's Eagle moon lander.I learned something - every day, I try to learn something. He still loves the Sabre that he flew in Korea; he was close friends with Ed White, one of the three astronauts killed in the Apollo 1 fire (indeed Ed was instrumental in encouraging Buzz to join him in the Astronaut Corps), he's a SCUBA diver and responsible for getting NASA to use underwater as a venue for training for spacewalks; he's not especially enthusiastic about the current choices that NASA's been making regarding ARES (not flexible enough), and he's an alcoholic who just celebrated 11 years of sobriety. That took the crowd by surprise (especially as the special reception the night before had been held at the Overdraft Irish (style) pub); impressed, we gave him yet another round of applause.
He's nice, grizzled, very intelligent, quick on his feet, and like me, tends to think faster than he can talk. Sometimes I confuse my audience because I finish coming to the end of my train of thought and state my conclusions... not having had time to state my logic, I've left them standing on the platform. Leads to some funny looks sometimes. (Similar to Darwin's response when farmers came to him asking what they could do about their dismal crop yield. "Get more cats!" "Whaaaa??" "Well, your crops are pollinated by bees, the bees are nesting in the riverbank, the riverbank is overrun with rats right now as there are not enough cats to control the rat population, and the rats are burrowing into the bees' colonies and destroying them." I have known too many similar pairs of raised eyebrows from my variations of Darwin's "Get more cats" comment.)
And Buzz shook my hand. I touched greatness!!!!!!! Wow!!!!!
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(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-24 07:03 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-25 02:16 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-24 09:02 pm (UTC)See.. Neil went first right? I figure Buzz put him up to just to be sure it was safe. :)
"Go on ahead Neil, I'm RIGHT behind you...."
(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-25 02:15 am (UTC)109:41:53 Armstrong: (Laughs) A particularly good thought.
From this NASA transcript (http://history.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/a11.step.html)
Yep, that's Buzz. Always thinking!! ^_^
(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-28 07:03 am (UTC)Besides, we lived on your floor for nine months. It's the least of the things we can do to repay you for all the good you've done for us over the years :D
*hugs*