Wound up doing quite a lot today, but not as much as had been originally scheduled. The morning started with a visit to the wedding photographer, checkbook in hand. Deposits have been made, contracts have been signed, and we now have a photographer!
After that, it was a quick run to the various bakeries. Great Harvest has provided much of the food for the week. We got some amazing horseradish onion dipping sauce (that’s horseradish sauce to dip onions in) and some wasabi raspberry mustard that can clean out sinuses and fry nose hair at ten feet.
From there it was off to Eastern Accents, a little bakery near the Fiancee’s dojo. Two bakeries in a row seems rather silly, but today is the first day of the Chinese new year.
This makes more sense when you know that the Kung-Fu program at her dojo does a lion dance through downtown and the bakery is the last stop before they return to the dojo. I parked myself in a window seat with some tea and a tasty plate of spicy Hoisen Chicken and stood watch with my camera. Got some really good shots too…
This is one of my favorites, with the lion right outside the dojo.
After that, we hit the road for dinner with the Fiancee’s sis and her husband. While we were on the way, she told me about the Space Shuttle crash. It was very strange. I remember when the Challenger exploded, it was a snow day so I was home from school. I think I was playing a game on my Commodore 64 in my room when my sister yelled down to me that the Shuttle had just blown up. I didn’t believe her at first, until I saw the news footage. I still remember the voice from ground control saying “Obviously a major malfunction…”
This time there was no disbelief, instead there was a strange feeling of apprehension. We drove the rest of the way listening to news reports and speculations, and one of the things people were repeating the most was that there was no way anything on the ground was involved in the crash. I guess with the fear of terrorism out there, they wanted to make sure that any rumors were nipped in the bud.
The crash was one of the major topics of dinner conversation too. There was one guy at NASA’s briefing who was reminding people that space exploration is a risky business. They try to manage the risks and minimize them, but there’s no way to eliminate them. There had been many other deaths before, all the way back to the early test pilots, and each time they had found the causes, fixed the problem, and moved on.
It seems kind of cold-hearted written out like that, but the guy had a choked, teary voice as he said it. From all I’ve heard, there’s more than just workplace camraderie at NASA. It’s like a family, united by their passion for spaceflight. In a way, this guy had just lost seven family members, but he knew that they wouldn’t want their deaths to stop the exploration of space.
I should really have a better end to this entry, but it’s late and I’m tired. I’m all melancholy about the astronauts. Sudden reminders of the randomness of mortality can put me in a foul mood. What had started out as a fun day, filled with minor amusements and enjoyable things did a sudden reversal in the middle and ended rather sad. Kind of like this entry, I guess.