I just noticed this entry at thoughts From The Sidelines and thought I’d point it out so as to reinforce the fact that I’m not the only one with a negative BMW stereotype (bold type emphasis is from me):

“Not only that, but there’s nothing stopping you from purchasing a few to place in your front room to act as ambient lighting for traffic themed parties (you know, the ones where everyone comes with a tray stuffed down their pants and big attitude claiming they’re a modded 911 or with a BMW badge glued to their foreheads only to spend the entire night walking in front of people and abruptly veering off in differing directions without warning).”

Wow. Just wow.

Not going to write much about it now; suffice to say it was amazing to watch the most complex human made system go extraterrestrial in person. It went very, very fast and wasn’t as loud as I thought it would be. I was shooting video and it was difficult to find at the start as we couldn’t see the launch pad from our vantage point.

I’ll post photos and video when a available. ‘night!

Yesterday’s challenge, a grumpy boy, has passed; a new challenge has manifested itself – getting food.

The instructions that were Fedex’d with our tickets and security placard said no coolers and no food allowed through security on launch day so we didn’t bring any snacks or drinks. We ate lunch in the car on the way in (our stomachs are still on MST so it was actually breakfast). As we got off of the tour from the grounds and visiting the International Space Station assembly facility we walked through the food court area and realized we were hungry.

A smart person would have got in line then.

Instead, we tried to get in line for a show (full for a couple hours) and checked on our blanket reserving our seats (they are fine). The missus and the boy have gone to tour something else since this line to get some overpriced hot dogs is about an hour long.

The other lines are longer.

I don’t have a internet connection at the hotel so I can only update by phone.. it is slow but usable. No pictures until Sunday at the earliest.

What’s worse than a grumpy kid on vacation?

Not much, really.

Now, don’t take that the wrong way; things can go wrong (and already have with a broken rental car in the middle of night) but at least I can do something about the stuff that goes wrong. With a grumpy boy though I just have to keep trying to find something to interest him. It should have been a slam dunk today as this was the first day at the Kennedy Space Center but he was bored, surly and finding a reason to whine at every corner.

My fault. This morning before we went to breakfast the boy and myself walked down to the beach. After the initial amazement at the size of it all the gears started grinding in that little head of his. This is approximately how the conversation went:

Me: “So what do you think?”
The boy: “Could I bring my army guys down here?”
Me: “Sure, that’d be fine.”
The boy: “Can I get some new army guys that are tan?”
Me: “After we get back from the Space center, sure.”
The boy: “Cool! I can build a fort there and the tanks of the blue guys can go there…”

Yep, for the rest of the day he wanted to find army guys and play in the sand. Normally, not a problem, I’d just adjust the schedule and go to the beach today instead of on Saturday… except the space shuttle Atlantis is lifting of tomorrow and I wanted to see the shuttle on the pad. Grumpy boy vs. once in a lifetime opportunity? Opportunity wins.

Fortunately, by the end of the day (and a set of astronauts like the army guys he so loves) he was starting to get excited about the shuttle and tomorrow’s liftoff.

I’ve been to the Kennedy Space Center before so most of this is familiar to me but I was quite choked up as I saw the shuttle and as we drew closer I had chills… I’m more excited about the launch then I am about Disneyworld, I think. Don’t tell anyone.

Oh, I had completely forgot that my favorite barbeque place in the world was down here… Sonny’s Real Pit Barbeque! Mmmmm… brisket….

I’m trying out the smartphone version of the Sharp MT blogging tool. Now to see how it looks on the PC!