Good News / Bad News

Bad News: Genesis crashed when its parachute didn't open. Years of work and research appears to have been lost, not to mention how much it cost to send Genesis to the sun. As a longtime space buff, I feel the frustration of the researchers. I'd been so looking forward to the results.

Good News: Genesis' data -- particles collected during its visit to the sun -- might not all be lost, after all. NASA says it's recovered some of the disks and we might learn something about the sun's composition and the origin of the solar system and maybe of the universe, after all. Despite recent failures, NASA has had major success with the Mars rovers and I hope they have some success now with Genesis. We will all benefit from what the scientists can learn.

Bad News: Bush is still president.

Good News: The election is still nearly two months away. There's still time for Kerry to pull off the election, but he has to get moving and let people know what he stands for and that what he stands for is a better US.

Bad News: Ivan is headed for Florida, which will make it the third hit in a month for that battered state.

Good News: All my friends in FL are now accounted for. That's a relief. Now to go through the worry all over again when Ivan hits.

Odds & Ends

Saw this book at Barnes & Noble today: Pornogami. It's amazing what someone can do with paper.

I have a couple of play blogs on Blogger to use for experimentation and I like the look and name of one of them so much, I'm considering telling folks about it. Which means I'll probably have to post stuff in it. I think I'm addicted to playing with layout, but I don't have time to learn how to really play, so I just mess around with Blogger's existing templates. Hey, it's a hobby. Just one I don't have time for.

I'm now buying chocolate yummies so I can take pictures of them for clipart. Then I get to eat the props. There's something not quite right about that, but I don't care. The calories are worth it for my "art."

We had a beautiful day here in NYC. The sort of perfect weather, clear blue sky, and pleasant temperatures that marked 9/11/01. Which just makes me sad all over again and anxious and angry and fearful and that's pretty much bad news, after all. I feel awful for the people mourning lost loved ones, but we need to be more concerned about us, the living, than we are. We need to improve security, especially at nuclear facilities and ports. It's time for more than lip service to keeping the US safe. Fighting Iraqis is not making us safe. And I didn't mean to get political here. That's what Occasional Blog is for.