The Elegant Astronaut

I saw my first Total Solar Eclipse, and I have some advice.

2024-04-14T08:34:00.000-07:00

Photo courtesy of David Rogers.

I was lucky. My first Total Solar Eclipse AND all the cool people who chase eclipses came to ME. It all happened in the city where I live: Russellville, Arkansas. Our little town was mentioned in The New York Times at least three times before the big event. People came here from all 50 states, and from at least 40 countries to see this thing. Three astrophysicists from the Paris Observatory in France came over for it. I enjoyed hearing them talk immensely. One of them had already seen nine (9) Total Eclipses, and he was not here for business. He said he was addicted to experiencing eclipses. The French astrophysicists gave multiple public seminars, and they talked about how people are made from stardust, and how no other planet in our solar system experiences Total Eclipses because every other planet's moons are the wrong size. They said beautiful and mesmerizing things, including how we will be in perfect alignment with our sun and moon during this very special and rare time.

On the day of the eclipse, I was running an art booth downtown for our local community arts center. Several people I knew took turns sitting at the large 3-table booth with me. Everyone was excited and on their best behavior. I heard no complaints from anyone on this magical day. A smart college student named Meghan was one of my favorite visitors that day. She and her classmates have been developing a new website for the arts center, so I knew her pretty well. I had a large sketchbook open, and we took turns drawing the sun and moon as soon as the eclipse started. Our drawings were pretty terrible, but we documented the eclipse progression every few minutes using the same tools our ancestors had: writing tools and paper. The sky went dim, and then it went pretty dark. Not pitch black, not what I was expecting. It was an eerie sort of glowing darkness, with lightness all around the horizon. That's one of the things you need to look for - it looks like the sun is setting (or rising) in a complete 360 degree range around you. The sun itself will look like a pitch black hole in the sky, like some sort of space portal, or a illuminated message from the gods. It is truly otherworldly. This image of the black hole sun with a white glowing corona around it, is the stuff of legends. A partial eclipse cannot compare. Meghan had her eclipse glasses off before I did, and she said, "I can definitely see why people describe this as a life-changing experience." It is unreal! I could see a red glowing structure at the 6 o'clock position under the sun. It was fairly large, somewhat diamond shaped, and persistent. I asked the people around me if they could see it. They said yes. I tried to snap a few half-hearted pics with my budget iPhone, but I didn't have a filter for it. I was relying on the fabulous photographers I knew to get fantastic photos of this. (And they did not disappoint!) Since I was downtown, the streetlights automatically came on in the darkness. You want to avoid this if you can. The streetlights were annoying. I loved being with all of the excited people, which was part of the downtown experience. People who lived up the mountain on Skyline said they could hear us whooping and cheering downtown as soon as Totality began.

If you want silence, get out in the country. If you enjoy hearing the excitement and comments from others, go downtown. We found out later the large red glowing objects were plasma "prominences" from the sun - the large one I saw was approximately three earths in diameter. Many photographers were able to get high resolution images of this, and this will always be magical to me. I saw it with my naked eyes during Totality when I took my eclipse glasses off.

I made friends with people from California, Canada, Washington, and New Mexico. An old friend from college who I hadn't seen in about 25 years found me downtown! He had made the trip from Florida because Russellville looked like "the place to be." Some of us are making plans to catch the next Total Eclipse together. Don't say I didn't warn you! After you experience a Total Eclipse, there's nothing else that can compare. They are fabulous and addictive, and I sincerely hope you are able to catch one.

My Ex-Boyfriend Died

2023-06-27T22:55:00.006-07:00

If you have ever wondered if you should tell someone's ex-boyfriend or ex-girlfriend that their former boyfriend/girlfriend has died, the answer is yes. Do it carefully with some tact.

A girl from my early college years contacted me to let me know a boy from our old university space club circles went into cardiac arrest suddenly and was on life support. She said things did not look good.

This boy - who was unbelievably 50 now - was quite honestly one of the most brilliant people I have ever met. His intellectual prowess was only matched by his equally inversed lack of social skills. You know the type - a rocket scientist with food stuck on his chin.

I remember the shouting matches he would engage in with other senior engineers in our space club. They made me so uncomfortable. He was the first person who showed me how to row in a 2-man crew boat. I still have a piece of scrap paper from 1995 where he scribbled his name and phone number and the words "crew and SEDS" on it. (SEDS is the acronym for Students for the Exploration and Development of Space.) We went out a few times. Things were innocent and then awkward and he hurt my feelings bad enough I cried at least twice in front of him. Hard, eye-stinging ugly cries. It was humiliating, and I really had no control over it.

A couple of years after he gave me his number, after he graduated and after he got engaged to someone else and after he moved to California, I became the President of that collegiate SEDS club.

I did see him again. Years later, we actually worked at the same tiny aerospace company for a while. He was in a top management position, and I ...was not. He seemed to be very savvy with money and taxes and insurance. He drove a nerdy little car, presumably because he had gotten it on the cheap. He had a kid in day care that he had to pick up every day because his wife refused to do it, even though she worked at home and we often had meetings that ran past 5:00 and he couldn't attend them. (His wife has never liked me. Go figure.)

He told me once, "Life isn't fair." I was aware of how much money he made a year, and I thought, "What the HELL are YOU talking about??" He also told me once, ironically, cruelly, that if you could survive to age 65, you'd probably make it to your 90s. Now I wonder if he had some underlying health problems. He allegedly caught covid during the pandemic - maybe that did that damage his heart? He was always fit; he always played some type of sport. I remember sitting on the edge of the sand volleyball court and watching him play in college.

He left two teenage boys behind. I really feel sorry for them. My Dad was here until I was nearly 40, and that wasn't long enough.

"What if Pixar did Alien?" by Monica Ion

2018-08-14T20:33:00.002-07:00

Ripley and her cat Jonesy by Monica Ion

I follow London-based artist Monica Ion on Twitter, and I am frequently impressed with her work. Her renditions of Ripley (above) from the 1979 movie "Alien" have been printed and then sold out on Etsy within hours. These are only two of Monica's images in a series called "What if Pixar did Alien?" I think they are fabulous!

10 Basic Science Lessons

2018-05-28T13:53:00.000-07:00

I get to work with about 80 high school students this summer. That might sound like a nightmare to some people, but I really like young people. I am teaching a science class I created called "Sciencepalooza." I didn't actually come up with that name, but I do develop the course curriculum each summer.

In the college classes I teach, there are a few basic lessons I always cover for my students during the normal academic year, and I teach many of these same things to my high school students. I wanted to post some of these topics on here, just in case this helps anyone plan a class, or maybe this will start a conversation about what the most important science-related topics are that we should be teaching to our young people.

Science literacy appears to be at great risk in the United States. Why don't we have more scientists in our highest government offices? We desperately need people in high power positions to support scientific education and research.

Here are some basic science topics I hope my students can learn to help stave off the encroaching ignorance:

1. The Scientific Method. I usually go through the steps of the Scientific Method, and then give a super-simple example of how we all actually use the Scientific Method in every-day life.

2. Famous Scientist Quiz. I just type up a list of twenty or so famous scientists in a matching-style quiz with their major contributions. Of course there are MANY scientists you could put on a quiz like this. Benjamin Franklin is always on my list. So is Carl Sagan, Charles Darwin, Nikola Tesla, Kary Mullis, Albert Einstein, Galileo Galilei, Alexander Fleming, and Wernher von Braun.

3. Hypothesis v/s Theory. People mess these up all the time. A hypothesis does not have much (or any) evidence to support it yet. A theory has a LOT of evidence to support it, and it is generally accepted as THE TRUTH by the scientific community...at least until someone provides highly convincing evidence that we were wrong. When people say, "I have a theory...", what they should really say is, "I have a hypothesis."

4. Bacteria v/s Viruses. This is a big deal. When people get sick, it is usually caused by a virus. (The common cold and the flu are caused by viruses.) Bacterial infections, such as a sinus infection, are usually localized and don't cause symptoms that affect your entire body the way a virus does. (Unless the bacteria have spread throughout the body, which is not good.) Key point here: antibiotics will NEVER work on a virus. If you are sick and it is due to a virus, there's not much a doctor can do for you. Also, some viruses actually stay in our bodies FOR LIFE. An example is the chicken pox virus, which can go dormant for many years in our bodies, and then it can re-erupt later as the painful shingles. This is also a good time to talk about vaccines and how there is NOT a single solid study that indicates there is a link between vaccines and autism.

5. Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs). I have a really graphic PowerPoint with pictures of STD infections that I show my high school students. I talk about the STDs that are caused by bacteria and the ones that are caused by viruses. The viral-based STDs are generally the ones you get stuck with for life. We don't know how to get rid of viruses if you catch one, but we should have an antibiotic that could help you get rid of a bacterial-based STD. I also usually call my local health department to get statistics on what the current local outbreaks are. It seems to really make an impact on my high school students when I say things like, "Russellville has more cases of gonorrhea than any other STD."

6. How to do conversions, especially metric v/s English units. The United States continues to cling to the old English system of pounds, feet, miles, etc. Learning how to convert English units into metric units is a very important skill. After all, do you remember when one of our NASA Mars orbiters burned up in the Martian atmosphere because someone did not convert English units to metric units? It was akin to setting $125 million dollars aflame. Students love this story.

7. How to make a basic graph. I usually give the students a small dataset, some blank paper and colored pencils. I teach them about the independent variable (or test variable), and how to identify the dependent variable. I review what the x and y axes are, and how to label them. Then we usually look at examples of some really poorly made graphs so they can learn to identify a meaningful graph. We also look at pie charts and talk about how all the pieces should equal to 100%.

8. The most common statistic: The t-test. What is a p value? It may be challenging for the students to grasp this concept in one sitting, but we have to try. I know professors who struggle with basic statistics. Statistics is a basic and critical tool for scientists. The more you understand statistics, the harder it is for anyone to feed you garbage.

9. How to look up a peer-reviewed science journal. Google Scholar is my favorite search engine for scientific papers. There are others, but this one is a great place to start.

10. How to check to see if you've found a predatory journal. Scientists are under intense pressure to publish their work, so of course there are plenty of people around who are looking to take advantage of them. You won't ever need to rely on mainstream media to explain science news to you if you know how to look up peer-reviewed journals. You can learn to interpret the papers yourself, but you need to make sure the papers haven't been published by someone using shady criteria. Librarian Jeffrey Beall created the best resource I know of to make sure you are not referencing a predatory journal. https://beallslist.weebly.com/

OMG I GOT JENETTE GOLDSTEIN'S AUTOGRAPH!!!!!

2018-05-06T00:07:00.001-07:00

Jenette Goldstein played the infamous role as the badass lady space marine named "Vasquez" in the 1986 Aliens movie.

Well guys, dreams DO come true! Earlier last year, I caught an interview clip on YouTube with one of my childhood heroines, Jenette Goldstein. I listened intently to what she was saying since she was the physical incarnation of female ass-kickery in a movie where only Sigourney Weaver could outshine her. Goldstein's character, Vasquez, may be best remembered in Aliens as the buff lady marine doing pull-ups shortly after waking up from hypersleep. (How many women do you know who can crank out pull-ups like that?) Her character was fearless and macho, and she was just exactly the person you wanted on your team when fighting vicious, double-jawed creatures from another planet.
During the interview, Jenette mentioned that she had opened a bra store in Los Angeles "for the busty lady." I was more than excited to hear this. Not only could I potentially meet Vasquez herself, but I could probably find some great new bras! As luck would have it, I was flying to L.A. later that year on my way to a meeting in Hawaii. I had a two-hour layover at LAX, and I decided to press my luck at the chance of actually meeting Jenette. As soon as I could get off my plane, I literally ran outside to grab a taxi. A nice Russian man took me to the closest Jenette Bra store. I knew it was probably stupid to risk missing my flight to Hawaii, but I NEVER go to L.A., and my return flight from Hawaii was at night when the bra store would be closed. So it was now or never! The taxi driver agreed to wait for me outside the bra store since I could only stay about five minutes. Sadly, Jenette was not there when I arrived. I had printed out the photo above for her to sign, and I had also brought a pre-addressed and stamped manilla envelope to leave there in case I missed her.
So I told the nice girls at the store how big of a fan I was of Jenette's, and I left the photo and envelope behind. When I got home about a week later, I checked my mail eagerly! No photo. I checked the next day, and the next, and the next. After two weeks had gone by, I was starting to feel terrible. I really thought if I had provided a photo and a self-addressed, stamped envelope, I was sure to receive an autographed picture from my hero.
The weeks turned into a month, and then another month, and then I gave up completely. Maybe my note to her wasn't friendly enough? Maybe it seemed like I was demanding something from a complete stranger? I wasn't sure, but I was really disappointed.
And then today, EIGHT months after I visited the bra store, the manilla envelope I had stamped and addressed was sitting in my mailbox! I was grinning madly when I opened it. She had not only signed the photo, but she also included two more photos of herself in movie stills. I was so happy! I went out bought a frame immediately and hung the autographed picture on my wall.
THANK YOU, Jenette Goldstein!! Your photo is truly one of my most prized possessions. I also watched Aliens again tonight, for the millionth time, just to pay more attention to your character. You were flawless and believable, and just exactly who I'd want on my team during a fight for my life. The next time I come to L.A., I hope I can spend more time shopping for bras.

Vulcan Female

2018-04-17T16:42:00.000-07:00

"Vulcan Female" by AngelDeeDee on DeviantArt

AngelDeeDee stated in the comments on her DeviantArt site that she had been "requested" to do some photo manipulation on the above image. She added the Vulcan ears. I am not sure who made the original piece, but I would love to give them appropriate credit.

I think this image alone is frame-worthy. I might try to make an oil portrait out of it.

Women In Science

2018-03-19T13:59:00.001-07:00

Just a great picture of women doing science!
From left to right, Katrina Martens, technician, Rachel Sa, technician, Jessica Abbott, grad student, Kristin Aquilino, grad student, and Natalie Caulk, technician. These ladies were taking seagrass samples out in Bodega Bay of California in 2011.
Photo courtesy of Pamela Reynolds and the UC Davis Bodega Marine lab

New Arkansas Wine Trail Maps

2018-03-09T12:59:00.002-08:00

Hey Arkansas natives and visitors, come find your wines!

These maps are free for distribution.
I serve on the Arkansas Association of Grape Growers' board, and I was asked to make a new wine trail map for the state. I hired a very talented local art student, Aaron Gilkey, to design the maps. Don't they look great?

Beautiful Astronaut Art by James Vaughan

2018-02-21T16:01:00.001-08:00

James Vaughan Made This

I belong to a group called "Space Hipsters" on Facebook, and the talented artist James Vaughan frequently posts his work there. I was struck by this devastatingly beautiful astronaut he created.

Thank you, Mr. Vaughan.

John Kraus Has The Best Falcon Heavy Pic!

2018-02-06T16:37:00.002-08:00

The Falcon Heavy Maiden Launch. February 6, 2018.
Photo by John Kraus johnkrausphotos.com

Favorite Quote #20

2018-01-13T20:51:00.001-08:00

"I love history with both hands."

-Robert "Bob" Cowie, retired Deacon

and owner of Cowie Wine Cellars and Vineyards

General Leia Organa

2017-12-15T16:43:00.000-08:00

I Had LASIK Surgery And I Feel Fine!

2017-12-01T22:10:00.001-08:00

If you are considering having LASIK surgery, don't watch any of the videos about it. Seriously. They will only scare you and make things worse. Find a good optometrist and see who they recommend for the surgery. I have been waiting for the right opportunity for YEARS, and it finally happened for me. You will get screened multiple times to make sure you are an appropriate candidate for this surgery. LASIK reshapes the OUTER surface of the eye, so if you have to wear reading glasses because your little ciliary muscle (located deeper in the eye) is more than ~40 years old, LASIK will not help you. Your well-trained optometrist can help explain this.
My eyesight has been at least 20/200 for most of my life, and I felt like a cripple without my glasses or contacts. It would literally be unsafe for me to drive a car, even in a dire emergency, if I ever lost my glasses or contacts. This is no way to live.
My brother had the surgery done a few years ago, and he was very pleased with the results. He convinced me that it did not hurt, so I decided to go ahead and jump off that cliff!

I had my procedure done at the TLC Laser Eye Surgery Center in Little Rock, Arkansas. I could not have been more impressed with how the entire staff treated me. On surgery day, I went in by myself, and I was scared. I kept picturing the main male character from "Ghost in the Shell," and wondering if someone would be able to make mechanical eyes for me if something went horribly wrong.

Would people still date me if I ended up looking like Batou from "Ghost in the Shell?"

I dealt with several different people the morning of my surgery. One girl helped me start the paperwork. Another girl scanned my eyes to get my exact cornea topography. One of the doctors talked to me about the LASIK procedure and answered my questions about the monovision option (where you purposely correct one eye for far-sightedness, but leave the other near-sighted. This makes me feel crazy just typing this.) I decided my goal for the surgery would be to try and fix both of my crippled eyes to have the best far vision possible. The lady doctor assured me this was a great choice for me.

The male doctor who would be conducting my surgery came in and told me some useful information. He said there would be quite a lot of pressure put on my eyes during the procedure, and it would actually help if I opened my mouth. "Like in a silent scream?" I asked, opening my mouth. His eyes widened and he said, "Wow. That's a big one." I laughed, even though I was kind of terrified I was about to be permanently blinded by some freak laser mishap. I told the doctor that I was kind of a spaz, and that I was convinced I would move my eyes during the procedure and mess everything up. He assured me that wouldn't happen because the laser "tracks your eye." He said the laser would automatically stop if the tracking became too far off field, and he could also stop the laser at any time. He was very warm and charismatic, which was a little depressing because I was wearing a hairnet and absolutely no make-up. (You also cannot wear make-up for the entire week after LASIK surgery. Ugh.) He told me to look at the green light during the surgery, so I kept repeating, "Green light, green light, green light" so I wouldn't forget. He told me he would tell me what to do when I got into the surgical room, and he instructed me to go ahead and put a valium on my tongue. I was very happy to do this, and I was even happier when it kicked in a few minutes later.

After the valium fog hit me (thank GOD) I was escorted into the surgical room. I slid back onto the table and inched my head into some kind of cradle as instructed. A lady put numbing drops in my eyes, and I told her I had read a blog about a man who said his drops didn't fully numb one of his eyes and he could feel the pain of the laser in that eye. She asked if I wanted another drop, and I said, "If there are no side effects, then YES please." She gave me an extra drop in each eye, and for that reason I will always love that woman. (I could not see her face clearly and I have no idea who she is. But this is a true love story.) A man put a squeezy-ball thing in my right hand, which I held with a death grip, and he asked me if I wanted a blanket. I said, "Um, YES. Thank you."

Things moved very quickly. The table automatically moved me from underneath one laser to the next. Something was placed over one eye and pressed down, and my vision went black. I could feel quite a bit of pressure on my left eye, but it did not hurt at all. When the pressure ring came down on my right eye (or whatever the hell it was. It felt like a ring pushing around the edge of my eyeball), it felt like it wasn't placed quite evenly and there was too much pressure at the top of my eye. I almost said, "Let's try that one again!" but the squeezy-ball man started counting down from 10 seconds and I knew I could tolerate it for that long. The laser part was very blurry, and I saw a bunch of uniformly distributed tiny little blurry red lights that were moving, and there was a group of green lights in the center of the red lights. I remembered I was supposed to look at the green light, so I tried to do that. I could not find an accurate picture of what these blurry little lights looked like to me, but the one below is somewhat similar to what I saw.

At some point, I felt the male doctor (Dr. Penick) tape back my eyelids, and this was actually kind of pleasant and nothing like the Clockwork Orange imagery burned into my head. His movements were calm and smooth. The material he used felt flexible and lubricated, and there was nothing uncomfortable about it. I heard the squeezy-ball man counting down seconds again, and I concentrated on the green lights as best I could. I swear the whole thing was over in less than a minute. The only part that was really unpleasant was the pressure ring on my right eye. It hurt at the top of my eye for maybe a split second or two, but the same procedure did not hurt my left eye at all. I don't know why there was a difference. Squeezy-ball man helped me get up and he sat me in a chair in the dark hallway. "You did great," he said. I could not believe it was over so quickly, and I said, "You know, that wasn't quite as good as a massage, but it wasn't bad." Without hesitation, he replied, "For a little more [money], we could probably do that for you."
I was escorted to another dark room while I waited for my friend to come pick me up. I was told I had about "ten minutes" before the eye-numbing drops would wear off, and I was scared because I have zero pain tolerance. I took an ibuprofen to ward off any upcoming suffering.
My friend came in, and I asked him to look at my eyes. He said they looked a little bloodshot. I donned the sunglasses I was told to wear and I very carefully walked outside and got in my friend's car. I was told to go to sleep as soon as possible. I was still wide awake about an hour after the surgery, and my eyes were really starting to bother me by then. They felt itchy and scratchy, and I put in some of the lubricating drops I was given. That helped, and I put on the protective plastic goggles I was instructed to sleep in for the next week. I fell asleep for a couple of hours, and when I awoke, I was not feeling any pain at all.
That's it! My vision was a little cloudy, but I could already see SO MUCH MORE CLEARLY than I could right before the surgery. This was truly a life-changing event, and if you decide to do this, this will likely become very obvious to you just shortly after the procedure.
I put the two medicated drops in my eyes every five hours or so (these are the prescription drops you have to get before the day of your surgery.) When I went back to the surgery center the next morning, my vision was tested by my squeezy-ball blanket friend. Even with my slightly cloudy right eye, I had 20/25 vision. WOW. Just WOW. I told the man I was worried about ending up like Batou, and he said he usually hears people tell stories about the girl from "Final Destination", where her laser surgery goes wrong and burns a hole through her head.

I had a much better experience than Olivia from "Final Destination."

The lady doctor (Dr. Watson) came in and talked to me, and I told her how impressed I was with the entire staff at TLC in Little Rock. She answered all of my questions, and she even gave me the before-and-after images of my cornea topography maps.
I understand that I still have a lot of healing left to do, and I must not rub my eyes for at least a week. I am not looking forward to sleeping in the plastic goggles for the next week, but I AM looking forward to living my life without being handicapped by poor eyesight.

Felicette, First Cat In Space, Will Finally Get Memorial Statue

2017-11-17T15:36:00.000-08:00

How wonderful that the Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for a statue for Felicette, the first cat in space, was successful! Felicette was reported to have launched and returned to Earth alive on October 18, 1963, which sounds much more humane than what happened to Laika, the first dog in space. There were no plans to return Laika back home, and she is reported to have perished from heat and stress a few hours after reaching orbit on November 3, 1957. Felicette was launched by the French, and Laika was sent up by the Russians.

Felicette, first cat in space

Laika, first living creature and first dog in space

Lady Astronaut

2017-11-08T17:28:00.000-08:00

I found "The Lady Astronaut" on Etsy. It is a beautiful piece of digital art created by Crystal Graziano of Los Angeles. It. Is. GORGEOUS!!!!

We Are Being Visited

2017-10-27T20:46:00.001-07:00

The object, called A/2017 U1, was first detected by a researcher at the University of Hawaii. It is moving at approximately 50,000 mph and was still 15 million miles away from Earth at its closest range on October 14. NASA claims this may be the first time an interstellar object has been observed traveling through our solar system, and it is clearly on its way out.

Dedication To All The Racists, Homophobes, and Haters of The World

2017-08-14T11:13:00.000-07:00

I DANCE IN YOUR FACE! I DANCE IN IT!!!

After a horrible weekend in the U.S., I don't have many words to share. Our political leadership is worse than a joke; it is destructive and self-serving. Violence is escalating and young people are getting injured or killed. There's no need for this.

This video is my protest. So THANK YOU to the people who made it!

A Lady And Her Cat Astronaut

2017-08-03T15:30:00.000-07:00

Another fantastic piece of space art by Daniel Freeman of Kaleidoclasm Art. In space, there is no up or down. Few animals make better pets than a cat. Plus their small size would make them ideal companions for a space colony. Not sure how well the catsuit would work, though. ;)

This was happily commissioned by Jennifer Lewter.

Did You Notice The Fantastic Library In "Hellboy"?

2017-07-26T20:03:00.000-07:00

I finally saw "Hellboy" (because I love Guillermo del Toro and I want to see all his movies!) and I want this library. I know the tank on the right is for the fish guy, but it would still be appreciated as a tank for regular fish.

What A Beautiful Fish!

2017-07-24T21:45:00.003-07:00

This gorgeous longear sunfish, Lepomis megalotis, was caught in Arkansas by my friend Dillon Williams this past June. This is a freshwater fish, although it looks exotic enough to be from saltwater.

Mars Greenhouse

2017-05-15T14:37:00.001-07:00

Mars greenhouse, as imagined by artist
Daniel Freeman of Kaleidoclasm Art. Commissioned by Jennifer Lewter.

It may not be possible to have a functional greenhouse on Mars. The Martian dust storms, which can last for months, may be too much of an interference with the already less-than-what-Earth-gets amount of sunlight reaching the Red Planet. But it is hard not to imagine, mon cheri. I dream of greenhouses on Mars.

Happy Mother's Day!!!

2017-05-14T21:59:00.002-07:00

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there! Today, I visited my favorite winery in Altus, Arkansas, and I met an interesting pair of twin ladies from Alabama. They had driven to Oklahoma to see their mom for Mother's Day, and they just happened to stop by that same winery on their way home to Alabama. They tried many different wines, and between sips they chatted with me about their kids. One of the ladies openly discussed her daughter's mental health problems and her temporary stay in a mental institute. There was a time in my younger life when I would have been horrified and probably repulsed to hear this, but now I know better. These ladies loved this girl, and they saw no reason to hide her faults. She was on their minds, so they talked about her. I told the ladies I saw an interview with Michelle Obama recently, and in the interview Mrs. Obama commented that our kids "are ALL we have." I knew what she meant. Our children are the future. They are important. We should do everything we can to ensure their health and survival.
Both ladies looked at me with screwed-up faces. "What about US?" one of them said. The winery owner (who is my friend) looked over at me with her face kind of screwed-up as well. "That's not really true," she said. Her opinion holds a lot of water, err, wine, since she is a successful business owner AND she has two children of her own. Important take-aways from smart, tough women who know better: DRINK MORE WINE and YOU ARE MORE THAN YOUR CHILDREN!

America Has A New Hero

2017-05-08T20:09:00.004-07:00

Sally Yates finally testified before a Senate subcommittee on May 8, 2017. This was the third time a date had been set for her to share her concerns about the disgraced Michael Flynn, who served as National Security Advisor under Donald Trump for just 24 days before being forced to resign. James Clapper, the former director of national intelligence, also testified. Yates and Clapper declined to share many details that they claimed were "classified," but it was clear that Yates believed Flynn was compromised by the Russians. She repeatedly stated that it appeared he had lied to Vice President Pence, and Pence was then sharing false information with the American public. Clapper stated boldly that the Russians had successfully interfered with our 2016 Presidential election, and that they would certainly try to manipulate our future elections. What remains unclear, however, is why it took the Trump administration 18 days to get rid of Flynn after Yates had delivered repeated warnings of his potential to be blackmailed by the Russians.
"You don't want your National Security Advisor compromised by the Russians," she said.

Excuse the language, this is FUNNY!!!

2017-04-11T19:26:00.000-07:00

Just a little humor from the Alt-POTUS 45 account on Twitter!

https://twitter.com/IfHillaryHad/status/851946104987897856

Just a thought

2017-03-25T10:11:00.000-07:00

Now that we know everything that comes out of Trump's mouth is hogwash, I would really like to hear Hillary's perspective on how things are going for the United States.