Lift Off!

There's something about watching the shuttle take off that sends my spirit soaring. It's exciting to watch 'Man', as insignificant as he is in the larger scheme of things, take a step to learn what is beyond.

I watched, in sheer amazement, the beautiful images of earth from a height of over 300 miles from a craft traveling at over 17,000 miles per hour. And I remember thinking to myself how exhilarating the astronauts must be feeling.. and how I would give an arm and a leg to experience that once in my life. Well, maybe not an arm and a leg..

It also brought back memories of the movie Contact (Jodie Foster, Mathew McConaughey) and the possibilities (even though they were fiction).

Sigh! I eagerly await the day that mankind can communicate with another civilization out there in space. Pioneer 10 is now about 6.6 billion miles from earth, well outside the solar system, and perhaps one day, we will hear back from another civilization.

But for today, I am just happy to see the indomitable human spirit in action.

IF

IF
-Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!


Another of my favorite poems. Inspires me!

Book-Tagged!

I've been book tagged... Sougata, thank you..

Needless to say that this is going to be a difficult exercise, given that there's just so many.. so permit me a couple of days and I'll get to it.

The Road Less Traveled

The Road Less Traveled
by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Hmm.. I feel these days that I took a U turn and headed right back to the well trodden path. Maybe there is still time to turn back. Or maybe not. Only time will tell.

Back.. But The World Has Not Changed Much

It was a good few days off and yours truly is back. I must say though, nothing much has really changed in the world in the meanwhile.

People are getting 'whacked' left, right and center. Politicians the world over are making strange bedfellows. Hurricane season has begun. Cable TV still costs way too much. My lawn still needs mowing...

Oh well.. Hopefully tomorrow..