One of our boxers, Molly, passed away last October, well before her time (complications from a fairly routine surgery). Her food bowl, leash and collar are still right where they were for her, and they'll stay there until we move.

I have three in my phone, and have never deleted the Facebook friend request from my 97yo grandmother I got the day before she passed away. The bigger thing for me is digital pictures. I organize my photos around people, not dates, so I've ended up with some nice memorial folders.

My younger brother died unexpectedly a few years ago at age 51, and I keep his contacts in my phone.

I also keep an entry for each of our dogs in my phone to remind me of each of their birthdays, and, echoing Bill, I have retained the entry for Chica, one of our chihuahuas, who died a few years ago at age 16.

My late sister (and best friend) is still in my Outlook addresses. I think of her every day.

My grandmother was the most remarkable and loving person I ever knew. She was a very rare, extinct breed -- kind and extraordinarily intelligent, but she had only a second grade education. She loved "Amazing Grace". My brother included a sweet, soulful recording of it (complete with dedication to her in the liner notes) on his recent rock album. I keep that song forever in my cd changer and on my iPod. It's always there and listening to it regularly is a chance to remember and smile.

When my husband passed away several years ago, I had several voicemail messages from him on my cell phone and I kept his cell phone with his outgoing message. Then about 8 months later AT&T crashed the voicemail system and all of them were lost. I was devastated. I called customer service in a panic telling them they had to recover the voicemails.

When my daughter was old enough for a cell phone, I gave her his line. She adored him and wanted to keep the number. It's nice to know his number is still around, even if he isn't.

I've got a few things like that for dear people. It's crazy-silly, because these aren't even things, they're just the numerical and digital assignments of random fate. But that makes them easy to carry around, and easy for YOUR descendents to discard when you die... They won't have to try and figure out whether that chest of drawers or that fancy hairbrush (etc.) had sentimental meaning.

So on the one hand, this shows just how well evolved we are... We know excellence and authenticity are more closely aligned in the human heart than in any practical measure. Seriously... That's cool. The shittiest electric guitar you can buy today — from a crank-'em-out factory in Mexico or Korea — is better than the best instrument Jimi Hendrix ever dreamt of playing. That's how the world got so rich in my lifetime.

On the other hand, the sentimental data we fetishize is not merely a shadow, it's a duplicate shadow, which takes some of the joy out of it.

The action is in human hearts, always.

Kind of. My MIL had the "family" cell phone for her & my FIL. This was a few years back, mind you. Anyway, if you were going to get them when out, you called her. I'm not even sure he HAD a cell phone, but this was two kids & 7-10 years ago, so memory fails. Anyway, I never took her out of my cell phone. It was years before her voice failed to ask me to leave a message. Actually, that recording, having heard it so many times identically, is my best memory of how she sounded. Once it was changed, I found I called it less.

There are also people who were part of my life, some big, some small, who still are in my cell phone (I don't think I've ever deleted anyone except maybe my mortgage broker). When I scroll through, I remember different times of my life....

There's the student I tutored in college, the guy I went to homecoming with my senior year of high school - a friend who was a freshman, the lady who cut my hair when I was in graduate school & convinced me that I could have nice hair without having to fuss with it (I'm notoriously non-girly & unwilling to exert the 30 minutes it takes to dry my hair), the other members of my graduate school class, and the official who presided over my wedding.

Those contacts are invaluable to me, even if I never call them again (and I'm sure some numbers have changed anyway).

Yes! I just lost a brother and have decided to keep his upbeat text message he sent from the hospital saying how great he was feeling (one week before he died).

All the other voice mails, text messages, etc. notifying family and friends that he died I just deleted yesterday. But, I'll keep that one text for as long as I can. That text message is how I would like to remember him - an upbeat and positive guy.

I have a calendar on my wall that has not been changed since July 2005. That was when my lady passed.

I guess it's finally time to take it down. It's getting pretty ragged.

My tradition has been to burn a candle on her birthday and the day she passed.

I have two cell phones with their chargers in my safe. They hold the last text messages from my best friend and exboyfriend before they passed. I couldn't risk losing final I Love Yous and got new phones instead.

My mother, who passed away unexpectedly a couple of years ago, had this poem hidden amongst her papers. I found it very helpful, both immediately and in the months and years that followed.

It is very much along the same lines as you keeping the phone numbers. Loved ones are still a part of our lives, after all, we just can't talk with them anymore...

When Super Balls first came out, I remember my Dad bringing one home, and well, my mother thought they were the funniest thing she'd ever seen. She used to raise hell with them, suddenly bouncing them off the porch floor so they bounced off the ceiling, just *whap* and god help you if you weren't on your toes....when I cleaned out her house over the course of 3 months last year, super balls came out of just everywhere. Kitchen drawers, the medicine cabinet, her nightstand. There were a dozen at least. I have one in the bottom of my handbag and another in a dish in my china cabinet.

I saved all the crazy stuff my Dad sent me in email and over Skype. YouTube vids of giant shredders, pictures of elaborately carved pumpkins, pics of X-rays of people who shot themselves in the head with nail guns, just all the weird stuff he found here and there on the net.

I scanned a 5-generation picture of me with my first daughter, my mom, her mom, and her mom, that I use as wallpaper on my home computer. I also have it framed and sitting on top of the piano. Daughter number 2 never knew my great-gramma, and great-gramma passed when #1 was almost 3. But #2 makes references to her all the time, and once, when she was maybe 3 or 4, we were walking downtown, and she saw a little old lady who looked just like great-gramma, and she said to me, "Mommy, she looks just like Gramma Mae!" I had to blink back a couple of tears, but I was touched that #2 even said that. She's amazing.

Dad is still alive, but fading fast, and since he and mom moved to Florida, she says he's getting worse. I still have his email address and a bunch of stuff he sent my in my 'keepers' folder in Outlook. (I call them every couple of days. Mom says the first week they were in their new place [assisted living facility] he went knocking on other peoples' doors, asking for a cigarette and a shot of whiskey. She thinks he's going to have to go to the memory ward sooner than later. Makes me sad. But we did just find out that they are going to be great-grandparents! My baby brother's first boy and his wife are expecting!)

I don't know if I've written it here before, but I was involved in the STS-107 Space Shuttle mission that ended with the Columbia disaster. The phone number of the console that I worked at is still in my phone, ten years later. It's probably not valid any more, but every now and then I wonder what would happen if I called it.

Did you work with Ham?

Shut up Crid, your loser is showing.

BunBun, without me, you're nothing... People know this.

Crid: Fortunately, no. Knowing what I know now, I'm glad I was nowhere near the mission management side of it.

Any good gossip? Insight? Not a student of NASA or her bungles, but it seemed like a prototypical case of runaway bureaucracy. But the whole shuttle program seemed like that, not just Columbia.

(Also "Big Dumb Rockets," Gregg Easterbrook, Newsweek, August 17, 1987)

> alive, but fading fast

Serious sympathies... Reading comment tea leaves here, but you seem to be sensible about it all. (Not that it helps, but not being sensible always hurts.)

"BunBun,"

Seriously? BunBun? That's the best you've got Mr. Verbose Pain In The Ass? Really?

Off our meds today?

Well, also, you eat weird food and yer a buncha fuckin' pussies.

Canada for the Security Council! The Bunless Wonders! Har!

(I know, right?)

I thought we covered this?

Tell you what, 20 points if you can insult me or my opinions without mentioning my nationality you dickless brainless wonder. Need a little help? I can give you some more details to work with, although you chickened out last time.....so much for pussy, pussy.

Also, I saved this for you on Eric and Patrick's behalf.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=508048442575525&set=a.251092048271167.56433.251089648271407&type=1&theater

Serious sympathies

Thanks, Cridmo. I do what I can, and I am trying to be sensible about it all. Gonna try and scrape some jing together so the girls and I can go visit around Yule...we'll see. In the meantime, Mom is keepin' her shit together, so even though I'm not there, she's just a phone call away and I draw from that...dear friend of mine's husband passed last Sunday. I didn't even know until she sent me an email...she's not up for company or anything right now, but I know we'll talk soon. But I had to call Mom, because, well, I felt like shit about it. Guy was pushin 65, massive heart attack. Sheeesh.

> if you can insult me or my opinions without
> mentioning my nationality

But that's your distinguishing characteristic! It's the part that fills my heart with scorn and repulsion! It's the reason you can't think and behave like normal, important people!

> I am trying to be sensible about it all.

And since this morning's email, I've learned of not one but two similar matters in my own family, all to close to this generation.

Tough planet, just brutal.

Told Ya!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmQtxX31wMM

I'm sorry, but I don't feel your comments are at all appropriate.

Crid: Too much to write right now, and I've had too many beers. But the short version is: It's impossible for real leaders to get anywhere in NASA because of too much interference both internally and from Congress and the White House. The Shuttle was supposed to be only a first step in a series of things that were to happen after Apollo, but none of those other things ever happened. And that was the single biggest problem.

As for the Columbia case: Read the Columbia Accident Investigation Board's report, if you haven't already (it's online). You will be enthralled / amused / horrified.

????

Wtf was that?

I thought it was funny as hell! You make insult based on race, nationality and disability, but you can't take a song that, in this case is very appropriate?

Really?

Guess that explains who the pussy is ya hoser!

> hoser!

Mean-sprited. Plus, I never follow your links.

Listen, try to have a little sensitivity to what people are saying in here before you make everything personal, OK?

> It's impossible for real leaders to get
> anywhere in NASA

This is at the cusp of all my feelings about the American government over my lifetime.

It's really cool that Americans were the first ones on the moon. REALLY cool. Part of what made it cool is that it was done on a budget.

And then there are all the things that made it less-cool.

It was all about people who were going to do OK for themselves anyway... They literally played golf up there.

NASA devolved into a boondoggle-laden enterprise benefiting folks like Morton-Thiokol and the careerists within her own offices.

The treasures collected during Apollo, the moonrocks, the data, and the video recordings were apparently dispersed and despoiled almost without exception.

Nothing practical came back from the moon; after rubbing the rest of the world's face in it (on every clear evening for the rest of their lives), Apollo didn't do anything else especially grand for the United States. Going to the moon didn't put libraries in the inner cities or clean up the poisoned streams or care for the retarded.

I remember seeing Sagan on a TV special when one of the probes (Voyager?) went past one of the planets (Jupiter?). Koppel asked him to defend the expense, and one of his first responses was that this was so important that mankind was going to do it someday anyway.

I'm not sure we took his point and he intended, or that we should have.

AS he intended.

Sorry, I've really been rattled by watsername's windchill bitterness.

Personal sensitivity?

HA!

You should talk hoser!

And we've already established that you DO follow the links.

What, is it annoying when people attack you over something that has absolutely nothing to do with what you're talking about?

Awwwwwwwwww.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnzYG0ZkrXg

Crid, I still owe you a response... will work on it during lunch.

I've learned of not one but two similar matters in my own family

Serious sympathies back atcha, darlin'. Nevermind about wtf. He/she/it's just trying to get yer goat. The pettiness isn't worth addressing. Sore losers n' all, you understand, I'm sure.

Really, wtf. This isn't the right thread to be waving yer weenies at each other. We know whose is bigger. He just doesn't give a fuck, is all.

> Awwwwwwwwww.

You've filled your heart with resentment, and I think it's kind of a sad commentary on the crippled aspirations of the little-sister nation in the attic.

> will work on it during lunch.

Well, remember, Amy is keeping track.

> This isn't the right thread to be waving yer
> weenies at each other.

This isn't a place for decorum, but you can convince a Canadian of anything if you just try.

So first, a minor point:

"The treasures collected during Apollo, the moonrocks, the data, and the video recordings were apparently dispersed and despoiled almost without exception."

I don't know where this comes from. Most of samples and stuff that was physically brought back is still in the Lunar Receiving Lab at JSC. I've been there and seen it for myself. As for the videos, most of them are now preserved by that wonderful invention we call Youtube. The Internet, as we all know, never forgets. Most of the science data has been published in various journals, some of which might be kind of hard to track down now, although I'll bet I could find just about any of them in the library here at Redstone. The one thing that might be gone now is telemetry recordings, but I'm not sure how much of that ever would have been of interest to anyone other than spacecraft designers and mission ops geeks anyway.

Now, the second, bigger point: what's it all about? There was a bunch of stuff I was going to write here about the short-term and longer-term benefits, but I've decided I'm going to just cut to the chase. Which is:

Western civilization needs a frontier. It's an outlet, a relief valve for those who grow fed up with polite society and want to set out on their own. And it's both an inspiration and a threat to those that stay behind: "We're going to do great things. And you can either be part of it, or you can get blown away." It keeps civilized society on its toes, even as it brings back innovation (not just in technical terms) and wealth (not just in monetary terms). If we look at the history of exploration, we see that explorers usually maintain a symbiotic relationship with the "old country", if they are allowed to, and the old country benefits greatly from that. Europe benefitted hugely from the exploration and settlement of North American starting from the 17th century up through WWII.

Unfortunately social stagnation is now firmly established in Europe, and it's setttling in for a long winter's nap in North America. I think it's going to turn out that the one way to crack this nut is space colonization and exploration: that will shatter comfortable assumptions and force pretty much every aspect of society to be re-evaluated. Western civiliation, at this time, needs a good swift kick in the ass. Space colonists living and thriving in seemingly impossible conditions will make a lot of people question their beliefs.

Of course, the hidden question there is how much of this should be done by government, and how much left to the private sector. That's the $64K question. I think that government has to do the bleeding-edge part, because investors in the private sector can't evaluate the risk-reward ratio -- there just isn't enough information. Once we have more knowledge of the territory, and the technology has been well developed enough to be affordable to at least a few private entities, then that's where government should step out of the way. Reviewing the history of the development of transportation, there's a theme that keeps reoccurring: the early investors all lost their shirts. It's the next wave, the ones who picked up what the pioneers developed and learned from their mistakes, who made out like bandits. The Wright Brothers lost their shirts; Glenn Curtiss and Bill Boeing retired wealthy.

These days, there aren't a lot of wealthy patrons around who are willing to blow their own money on bootstrapping a high-capital-investment industry. The danger there is that there are other governments in the world who might: Russia has the capability, and China has the bucks. Defense-wise, space is the ultimate high ground. The first nation that develops a capability to defend near-Earth space will have the ability to deny it to everyone else, if they choose to. If the wrong parties get there first, they will have the ability to usher in an age of tyranny and social disorder that will make the Dark Ages look like a block party.

"You've filled your heart with resentment, and I think it's kind of a sad commentary on the crippled aspirations of the little-sister nation in the attic."

I think I'll take that as a yes.

"This isn't the right thread to be waving yer weenies at each other."

Sorry Flynne, just making a point. I think he gets it now. Well, probably not, but one can always hope.

> I don't know where this comes from.

Yonder.

> As for the videos, most of them are now
> preserved by that wonderful invention we
> call Youtube

It ain't an invention, it's a company, and we've got no business assuming they're putting their hearts into indexing and protecting the quality of the treasures themselves... I've specifically read that Nasa's library of recordings is not being well-curated, though I'm not sure I saved the article.

> I'm not sure how much of that ever would have
> been of interest to anyone other than
> spacecraft designers and mission ops
> geeks anyway.

Such designers and geeks both deserve to have their taxpayer interests defended from incompetence.

I think the last thing space explorers want to do is 'set out on their own'... They very badly want to take control of other people's resources to pay themselves for the effort.

I have "frontiers" of my own. For example, I stayed at this hotel in 2006 or so. By the way, the place is no longer there, they tore it down a few years ago. (Turn off the "bird's eye" view to see the handsome vacant lot.) But it was great. Elvis used to play there, and the place hadn't had the carpet cleaned since it had. It was wonderful.

> I think he gets it now.

It fun to torment Canadians and others who don't understand how borders work.

Now Cousin Dave, as I was saying....

No, seriously, anytime someone tries to sell me on the spiritual necessity of a major public expenditure, I reach for my wallet. "This is why we can't have nice thngs."

Anyone who's fed up with polite society is welcome to tame the interiors of Africa, or even interior China. Or the Middle East. We have huge frontiers on our own planet, and in our own character, that need to be explored.

If you watch carefully, you'll have noted that "western civilization" kicks its own "ass" with a handsome little economic upheaval every forty years, just to make sure everyone still has their eyes on the ball. I don't think for
motherfucking moment that "every aspect of society to be re-evaluated," and can't imagine why I should let anyone, especially someone who wants my money, presume that I need to "question my beliefs."

All this language is just demented:

> These days, there aren't a lot of wealthy
> patrons around who are willing to blow their
> own money on bootstrapping a high-capital-
> investment industry.

In what days WERE there such "wealthy patrons"? If the money's being "blown," why are you willing to take it from people by force?

There's no "danger" that Russia or China will do this first. China has an Africa's worth of poverty to alleviate... Their best moves to feed it will take territory from Putin, who's got resource problems of his own. But if they did get "there" first, why object? Space isn't "territory," it's the absence of territory.

There's no "social stagnation" in North America; the tributaries of her wealth are ready to flow to the younger generation that will care for the constipated Boomers. The laconic West Europeans will not be invigorated by space travel; they need to be brought into the game by collecting and defending their own resources (oil & gas) rather than further distracted from those responsibilities with space missions.

Gotta gota work.

WTF is full of stinky, stinky poo.

First of all shithead, it's wtf not WTF. Specifics old man, specifics.

Second of all, the polite thing to do when Flynne goes out of her way to defend you is to show some cocksuckin class and shut yer motherfuckin piehole. (I was going to cease and desist, however......)

How exactly am I full of "poo?" Have I lied in some way? Have I deflected or misdirected in such a way as to distract from the main messages of my posts in a manner similar to your own? How exactly?

And really? Too much of a tapette' to use adult language and say full of shit?

Listen, I know it's hard, bein an ancient old geezer and all, but try to understand. It's not you, it's me. We're from different generations you and me. It'll never work. It's not your fault, I'm just way more awesome than you are doood.

And if you don't knock off the Canadian bullshit, I swear to Allah I'll change my name to Queen Canuck just to annoy you.

Listen, I loved the space program, especially when it was young and hungry.

But even if the performance setbacks it's suffered are what we'd expect for challengez of that magnitude —and I think they are— it's nonetheless been subject to the same metastatic burdens we've seen in every other part of government administration.

And we've evidence that the human condition was improved by our walks on the globe. It's not like half the Middle East said "Aha-- I get it!"

They SHOULD have. I mean, we put a man on the moon. That's right... THAT moon.

But the spiritual and human-bonding effects of space exploration have heretofore been found wanting.

Y'know... Tang was supplanted by Sunny D.

Sorry, we've NO evidence etc

Listen to this lecture.

Search the internet in vain for a map of the Fossa Regia mentioned by Kaplan.

Read this by Totten, and understand exactly how small the audience for the wonders of space exploration really is.

(Also, marvel at the fact that there really is a place called Tataouine, and outer space got nuthin' to do with it.)

We may well have better things to do with money and the will to explore than go to outer space.

(And seriously, no one's going to get there first and lock the rest of us out.)

Sorry, THIS is the Totten piece.

I'm late to this party but I can't believe you mentioned this, not too long ago I received a call at midnight from a number I didn't recognize. My daughter was playing with my phone a few days later and called the number back, when I saw what she did and heard someone say, "Hello?" I simply hung up. Then the person called back and we ended up talking about who he was looking for and why he was calling my number when he knew it was not the person he was looking for. This man ended up telling me that his son died a few years ago and he hadn't deleted the number yet, and when he had called around midnight the few days back, he was missing his son so badly and just wanted to call his old number (my current number.) He told me his son committed suicide a few years ago, so probably right before I got my new phone and the new number. So, his son died, I got the dead son's number, was pregnant at the time, and then a few years later my 3 year old daughter called the father back and he saw his son's name on his phone and had to answer. Poor guy, I bawled when we got off the phone, thinking that not much else could melt my cold heart.

OK, but there's a horror movie script in there somewhere.

Second of all, the polite thing to do when Flynne goes out of her way to defend you is to show some cocksuckin class and shut yer motherfuckin piehole.

Nice talk, sugarlips. You kiss your mother with that mouth?

This has gotten way out of hand!







I'm not complaining, mind you, jus' sayin'.

"Nice talk, sugarlips. You kiss your mother with that mouth?"

Actually, I figured it was what he would understand. As long as we're bein rude and classless.....

And as for you Crid, I think Patrick may just have figured out what's wrong with you...

http://www.ucanews.com/news/researchers-establish-link-between-intolerance-racism-and-stupidity/41572

I'm the evul-ist man who ever wuz!!!

I am about as eeeeevil as a boogie-man can be!!!!

I'm a real meenie! And I'm (metaphorically) RACIST...

...against CANADIANS....

...Especially the naive kind who don't understand [1.] international politics or [2.] irony or [3.] the importance of not pretending to be a United States Citizen when you actually aren't.

North America trembles before my relentless evil-tude.

(Cridmo, I knew that was Zappa before I even clicked on the link! Me luh you long time!)

Yes you are! Good Boy, you're learning!!!!

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=big+weenie+eminem&oq=big+wee&gs_l=youtube.1.0.0l5j0i10j0l4.252.2663.0.5258.9.7.1.0.0.1.825.2271.2j3j6-2.7.0...0.0...1ac.1.11.youtube.12Xc_mU2lNc

And now, for my next trick, SIT BOO BOO SIT!

And just so's you can't say I'm unoriginal.....

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=479457962127682&set=a.412528838820595.95513.412521315488014&type=1&theater

Uh, wtf? The dog's name is UBU.

Not where I come from.....

Course, where I come from we say things like eh, friggin eh, hoser, and we listen to things like this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpt2FkXM7cA

I think it's a regional thing.