And before any of you Liberal cocks out there flood my email with comments, I’m fully aware that President Bush ordered the retirement of the Space Shuttle fleet. However, Bush Jr. fully supported the Constellation program that would have replaced the Shuttle. It was ol’ Mr. Hope & Change himself that promptly canceled Constellation bringing the inevitable end to American-manned spaceflight for the foreseeable future… taking thousands of jobs with it!

I’m four and a half decades old — born in the middle of the Cold War — and cannot recall a time that NASA hasn’t been putting Americans (and others) in space. I’ve been enamored with NASA my entire life, especially the manned spaceflights.

In 1969, I was at my grandparent’s house in Philadelphia while they were watching the television coverage of Apollo 11. I was only three years old, but moments after Neil Armstrong hopped off the lander, I was at the front door of their house looking up at the sky, trying to see the man on the moon. At least that’s how the story went. I may have been too young to recall that personally, but I somehow remember it. But I do remember when Skylab was falling out of the sky, and whenever it was time for science projects in school, I immediately went to the missions of Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo. My Dad was constantly getting printed photos from NASA and Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and I remember using those images in a school book report. My Dad even got me Gene Cernan’s autograph!

Living in suburban Pennsylvania as an awkward teenager, I clearly remember watching hours and hours of television coverage of Space Shuttle Enterprise test free flights and the first-ever launch of Space Shuttle Columbia on April 12, 1981. Eventually, Shuttle missions became so routine that their launches were only mentioned on the evening news. “President Ronald Reagan declares May ‘National Child Safety Awareness Month,’ people in the south continue their protest of Coca Cola for changing the formula of their beloved soft drink, and Space Shuttle Challenger lifted off from Kennedy Space Center. Here’s Tom with the weather.” Sad indeed.

On January 28, 1986, I was standing on an icy street corner on a bitter cold morning in West Chester, Pennsylvania. My friend and I were waiting for the 104 bus to take us to the city. I don’t remember if the bus didn’t show up, or we got tired of freezing our asses off. But I do remember getting home to news that Space Shuttle Challenger had exploded 73 seconds after liftoff. Like most Americans I watch in disbelief, shocked that we could suffer a loss so great. Of course, the non-stop news coverage was all over the tragedy then, weren’t they? I recall they covered the “Teacher in Space” like she was the lone member on board. It’s nice to see Main Stream Media has improved since the mid-80s. </sarcasm>

I was working at a Philadelphia Radio Shack nearly three years later when Space Shuttle Discovery returned us to space in 1988. Years later, I was home watching the landing of Columbia live on television when she disintegrated over Texas February 1, 2003. Being only a year and a half after the September 11 attacks, I wondered at the time (like most of us did) if the Columbia disaster was an act of terrorism… which it wasn’t. Two and a half years later, I was glued to NASA TV when Discovery, yet again, shouldered the job of returning Americans back to space in 2005. Good ol’ Discovery was the fleet’s workhorse!

After 135 missions, the Shuttle program has been shuttered, never to fly again. Its three remaining orbiters have been promised to museums around the country. And thanks to Porkulus or the Tax, Rape, Pillage, and Spend More Than We Have Act of 2010, America has no immediate plans to replace the Shuttle. Instead, we’ll have to ride with the Russians on Soyuz spacecraft, like some sandal-wearing hippie looking to hitch a ride to a fuckin’ Phish concert. Gas, Grass, or Ass: No one rides for free.

The goddamn Russian Roscosmos, really? The same Russian Federal Space Agency that had two — TWO! — satellite launches end failure just five and eight months ago? The same Space Agency that only built five of the eleven spacecraft planned in 2010, and had six spacecraft for civilian purposes fail to launch in 2010? The same assclowns that put rich civilians on their spacecrafts, like they’re a galactic taxi company? Please!

Obama has officially signaled to the world that America has thrown in the towel and waved the white flag of surrender. He’s given our plums to the Chinese! In 1961, a President Johnson report stated, “It is man, not mere machines, in space that captures the imagination of the world.” This has proven true every single time! Yuri Gagarin, Alan Sheppard, Ed White, Sally Ride, Neil Armstrong, John Young and Robert Crippen, and Story Musgrave among others, have definitely captured the imagination of the world. Now, that task lies in the hands of the socialists and communists, with names like Vladimir Iliykdrinkinvokov and Bol Son Chin. Good job, Mr. President.

Anyway, are you as tired of all this political horseshit as I am? This ceaseless parade of ass-kissing and back-stabbing started back in January of 2007. January of 2007! Jesus Christ, that’s fully two years before the new President takes the oath of office. Are you kidding me? Lately, it seems that there’s always an election going on. If it’s not local, it’s state, congressional, presidential, or American Idol and Big Brother. Someone make it stop before I photoshop again!

Of course, everyone has jumped on Obama‘s bandwagon even though the bandwagon has no destination. “C’mon people, jump on board! I’m fired up and taking this bandwagon straight to the White House!” The White House… oh, the irony of it all. I think people like him because he’s not a Bush or Clinton. Think about it. The 18 year olds voting in this election were born in 1989 or 1990. King George I was in office from 1989 to 1993. Prince William the Adulterer from 1993 to 2001, and King George II since 2001. I’m chalking the popularity of Osama up to being someone different than the past 20 years. A change…

However, I’ve been saying it weeks before Super Tuesday, and people are finally starting to see it for themselves — the man doesn’t say anything! Oh, words do come out of his face, and they are eloquent words. He has a natural knack for talking that makes people listen… but so did our first black president, Bill Clinton. He talks about America needing change. What? Are we panhandling? Jingling a tin cup on the street corner of Earth? What fucking change are you talking about, Mr. Osama? The country needs a new direction. Two words: TomTom. He’s fucking fired up for some reason; I still haven’t heard why. I just want him to give us a plan. Scribble it on a napkin. Send us a text message. Something! Maybe if he’d share his presidential agenda I could grow to like him… if I could just see past his Muslim-sounding name.

But if not Osama, are democrats supposed to choose Billary? I actually like some of what she’s saying… but she’s a Clinton… She’s Hillary Rodham Clinton. She can’t be bargained with. She can’t be reasoned with. She doesn’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And she absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead… and that’s when it’s not that time of the month. I have to admit, putting a gun to my head and forcing me to choose a democratic candidate, I’d have to pick Billary… if for no other reason than to hear the introduction, “Ladies and gentlemen, Madam President and the First Gentleman.”

I think South Park said it best; douche or turd.

And with all this jaw-jacking out our ass about change, I can’t help but think we’re going backwards. The economy is tanking, but The White House refuses to use the “R”” word. It sure feels like were inching closer and closer to our past: gas prices are high because of “shortages,” the president’s approval rating is in the porcelain poop catcher, and Knight Rider and American Gladiators are on television. What the fuck, people? Did my soul-crushing commute cause me to drift into an anti-Rip Van Winklesque sleep, where I awoke in the past? I swear, I was flipping channels on the satellite the other night and found the Harlem Globetrotters playing basketball. Not a repeat of old Globetrotters games. Oh no. A brand new batch of players, and they were playing the Washington Generals! I’m not making this shit up! If Welcome Back, Kotter makes a comeback, oh my god, I’m gonna crap my pants. I know the writers are on strike, but seriously, do we really need to see Knight Rider again? It was a terrible show to begin with. No amount of Ford muscle car is going to make it any better. Give it a rest.

Well, it’s kinda short… but I’ll have another update before the end of February.

On top of that, they’re not the greatest team ever, no matter how much ass felching Madden, Collinsworth, Michaels, Buck, ad nauseam, does. The Colts in week 9, Eagles in week 12, Ravens in week 13, and Giants this weekend showed that the Patriots can be beat. The Giants played a really good game Saturday. Did you watch it? Fuck, it was simulcast on three networks like a goddamn Presidential speech, and had six hours of pre-game coverage (no kidding) on the NFL Network! That matches the longest-ever pre-game coverage of a Super Bowl game! Collinsworth and Gumble were fawning all over themselves, clearly biased towards New England. You could almost hear their gagging as they gobbled up Brady’s cock and caressed his coin purse like a five-hundred dollar whore. I so wish I could have muted the television and listened to a New York radio broadcast. Everyone in broadcasting and the NFL brass wanted New England to go undefeated for the season. Most fans wanted to see justice for spygate. The almighty dollar wins again. I’m hoping they suffer a meltdown in the playoffs; the Patriots are due for a loss…

On a completely different subject, but one that still pisses me off, is Washington State’s new cell phone laws. During the holidaze, the WSP has been running television ads about drunk driving and seat belt, calling it their “emphasis patrol,” which is a politically correct way of saying “you will comply or we’ll rape your ass.” I’ve ranted about seat belts before, so I won’t cover it again. This time I’m peeved at the incongruity of the State in which I live. A new cell phone law, RCW 46.61.668, which goes into effect January 1, 2008, states that you can only be busted for text messaging as a secondary offense. This means that you have to be breaking some other traffic law before you can be fined for text messaging. This is completely stupid when you compare it to the seat belt law which is a primary offense. Somehow, the State feel that text messaging isn’t serious enough to make you stop doing it, unless you kill someone… then they’ll only fine you $124. How can Washington make text messaging a secondary infraction, but putting your arm around someone while driving or not wearing a seat belt a primary infraction? The logic escapes me! I personally watched a woman text messaging in stop and go traffic roll right into the back of another car on Interstate 5. LDriver and I busted up laughing because we watched the whole thing happen. I even directed LDriver’s attention to the impending incident as the woman was coasting; “Hey, watch this… {crunch}”

Let’s put this in perspective, shall we? If you’re not wearing a seat belt, which is not putting anyone in harm’s way, you can be pulled over and fined $124 in Washington State. However, some teenage twat, continually taking her eyes off the road and risking the lives of everyone in her immediate area of the highway (in both directions) while she text messages her slutty girlfriends about Ryan Seacrest, or some such shit, is perfectly acceptable? Great googly-moogly, man! How does that make sense to anyone? Only if Miss Snottybitch is going too fast, or swerving in her lane, or not indicating a turn will she be pulled over, then she be ticketed for both infractions. Yeah. This makes total fucking sense. Thank you RCW 46.61.668, I feel safer now. U R my BBF, LOL.

Even Washington’s new hands-free law (effective July 1, 2008) is a secondary infraction. Why is the harmless act of not wearing a seat belt a primary offense, but threatening the lives of others with a Scion xB hurling down the highway at seventy miles an hour, with a Hello Kitty cell phone glued to your head a secondary offense? Stupid retarded lawmakers. Maybe if Governor Mudcutter's Continental gets broadsided by some jackoff on a cell phone both new laws will be changed to primary infractions.

This very blog update is the 28th update in 2007, and the 158th since January of 2005. Actually, there were a few updates in late 2004, but when I upgraded to WordPress, I left the 2004 updates out. This is probably the longest and most active my domain name has ever been in its 10 years. It started out as a cock-waving novelty. In 1997, not many people had real domain names for their home page. Most were stuck with a home page at theirisp.com/~username. Having your very own domain name roxx0r3d, and was an indication of your l33tness! Okay… maybe that was all in my head.

I was working at an ISP (Galaxynet) at the time, and hosted wafwot.com on their servers. I eventually moved the domain name to its own dedicated server at Galaxynet before moving it to a hosting company in Florida, a virtual private server (VPS) in Renton, and finally a VPS in Seattle. Now I own wafwot.net and wafwot.org, along with wafwot.mobi and several other domain names.

Yes, wafwot.com turned 10 years old this month. I registered it on December 17, 1997, back when the only domain name registrar around was Network Solutions and domain names cost $35 per year. Today, Network Solutions still exists, but there are almost 900 different domain name registrars and domain names can be as low as $5 per year. This got me to thinking about how far things have come since I registered wafwot.com.

Microsoft Internet Exploder 4 and Netscape Communicator 4 were in a browser war, and Windows 95 was the OS that most of us used. Windows 98 was only in beta testing in December 1997, and my i486DX-33 was running OS/2 Warp 4 for the “superior” multitasking capabilities. Yes, I hated Windows even in 1997.

Speaking of wars, modems were king of Internet connectivity in 1997 (for consumers), and USRobotics and Rockwell/Lucent were in a battle to break the 33.6k barrier and deliver 56k speeds over a copper phone line. I was running a Bulletin Board System (which is why I ran OS/2 Warp) in 1997 on that old i486DX with a 33.6k modem. The fastest CPU available was the Intel Pentium II, which ran at a blistering 300 MHz, and an 8MB x 32bit SIMM of EDO memory was over $100. Those were the good ol’ days!

Many people had no idea what an MP3 was in 1997, but thanks to a new program called Winamp, we all learned quickly. No one knew what an iPod was, and in fact, Apple was in serious financial trouble in 1997 before Steve Jobs stepped (back) in to save their happy gay rainbow ass… and look at what the MP3 did for Apple!

There’s plenty more Internet and computer history from 1997, but I’m tired of typing, and should actually go to sleep. Four in the morning is only six hours away. I’ll Wikify this nonsense at work, which better be a short day. If you remember your computer or the Internet from 1997, tell me about it in the comments section. See ya next year!

Last Friday, we were tuned to KZOK during the commute home. They’re the classic rock station of Seattle, and they were playing some really good tunage. A block of Peter Gabriel was played after a Genesis trivia question. The songs were The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway by Genesis, Solsbury Hill and Red Rain. I didn’t think much about it, until I realized Red Rain was released on So, and that album was released in 1986. Holy slow-roasted hell! That’s twenty one years ago! I clearly remember the day I bought that album on cassette tape. I was attending an art college for photography in 1986, and still living at home. I’d take the 104 SEPTA bus from West Chester, Pennsylvania to the 69th Street Terminal, then take the el to downtown Philly. I was coming home from school on the 104, and got off at High and Gay Streets in West Chester. I walked to The Mad Platter record store and bought the cassette. I popped it into my Sony Walkman, and walked to work at Turk’s Head Pharmacy. Man, that seems like forever ago. Fuck. It was forever ago! Does decades ago equal “forever?” It does in my book. When the time period in question is more than half the time you’ve been alive, it qualifies as “forever ago.” I just made that up. Feel free to add it to your vernacular.

Hell, they say memory is the first thing to go. As proof of that, I offer this: While trying to remember the name of the record store in West Chester, all I could recall was the street. I couldn’t remember the name of the store for the life of me. I did a quick Google search and turned up nothing. So, I flipped open my cell phone and called my brother Steve, and explained query. Off the top of his head, like the fucker was in the store just 15 minutes ago, he rattles off “Mad Platter.” What the fuck? I asked how he remembered the name after so long, and all he had to say for himself was “I don’t know.” “I don’t fucking know?” Okay, Steve lives in Philly and our mother still lives in West Chester. He still has friends in West Chester. Since the store is still there, I’m throwing the bullshit flag. He had to have been by the store, been in the store, something. No way he just plucked that out of his gray matter. Either that, or I’m further gone than I thought. Shit.

My feeling of oldness doesn’t stop there. I TiVo the television show Jeopardy! and more and more of the clues given are not from things I learned in history classes, but from things that have happened during my lifetime, and I fucking remember them! Hell, Gerald Ford just died. He was the first president I was “aware” of as a kid. I was eight or nine years old, and I guess we were taught who the president was in school. Now the man is dead, and I feel so much older because of it. It’s only a matter of time before Carter and Clinton are next.

Maybe you think I’ve gone off the deep end, and I’m not really that old. I beg to differ with you, and I have one word to prove my point – underwear. Yes, I have underwear that I’ve owned since before I met Tina in 1998. It’s old, worn, and torn, but do I get rid of it? No. I keep it in the drawer just in case — just in case I don’t have any clean newer underwear to wear that day. Guys will keep underwear like it’s a family heirloom. Somewhere genetically coded in our brains; we cannot part with our ratty drawers. Why is that? Maybe it has something to do with our testicles. Come on now, our man panties keep our junk safe from the cold, and help prevent jeans from pinching. Perhaps there’s some weird connection on a cosmic level that keeps us from tossing our old nasty drawers. I don’t know. But us guys don’t save anything else near as long… except maybe rogue battery covers and keys to cars we no longer own.

Here’s another X on my scorecard of aging fuckupness. I still have the cold I talked about on the 11th. I go into coughing fits and hack up big wads of greenish-yellow phlegm like I’m some septuagenarian with an oxygen tank and a two-packs-a-day habit. It’s real pretty. Of course, all the inhalers, cough drops, medicine, and tissues aren’t helping a goddamn bit. As I start coughing up a lung to beat the band, sometimes little tiny farts simultaneously squeak out of my ass with each cough. Do you know how hard it is to cough and laugh at the same time? Tears are streaming down my face because I’m coughing so violently, and laughing so hard. I don’t care who you are, farts are funny… especially when they escape with each cough. Let’s just hope it stays as farts. The last thing I want to do is purchase new underwear because of some tragic coughing/crapping mishap.

It’s only a matter of time before I’m telling kids to turn down their so-called music and driving with my left turn blinker on. Pass the prune juice, and stay off my damn lawn!

As I start typing this update, my alarm clock with indoor/outdoor temperature display reads 28°F outside, and it’s the lunch hour. Temperatures are expected to dip into the low teens or single digits over night. Brrr! It’s colder than a witch’s tit in a brass bra outside. I took some new pictures, but be warned, they’re just boring pictures of snow… just like the one featured in this update. All this snow and frigid temperatures has made my toes and fingers cold, as well as my nose. What am I, a puppy? And thanks to Weezie Jefferson (one of our carpoolers who doesn’t know how to cover his fucking mouth when coughing), I have a nasty cough and a case of the sniffles. Pass the goddamn Kleenex.

I’ve been telecommuting during this latest round of icy Mother Nature ass rape. I am lucky to work for a company that allows me to work from home when the weather turns ugly.

Okay. It’s now after dinner, and I’m sitting in bed typing this update. The TV is on History International, and I just saw a commerical on for a free diabetes glucose meter from Liberty Medical. What the fuck is wrong with Wilfred Brimley? Why can’t he pronounce diabetes? It’s dia-bee-tees, you old cocksucker… not dia-bee-tus. My Dad died of ESRD, so I’m a little sensitive about diabetes. What of it? While linking Brimley’s name to Wikipedia, I was mildly amused to see the article mention his oddball way of saying diabetes. I found the video on YouTube by Stephen Colbert.

Where was I? Oh yeah, telecommuting. Since we’ve been working from home, I’ve been keeping a close eye on the weather forecasts. The weather guessing weenies on the network affiliates in Seattle are the epitomy of gay. Neither rain, sleet, snow, or gloom of night will keep the weather guesser from trying to be funny. It’s not really their childish jokes or silly little comments that piss me off, it’s the anchors that force their fake laugh. It sounds like a bunch of snooty housewives at high tea. I so want to smack each one of them.

Of course, the next biggest story besides the weather is the commutes. When the snow makes the roads bad in this state, drivers lose their motherfucking minds! People with 4×4 vehicles think their impervious to bad weather. I just laugh when 99.9375% of them are found upside down, in a ditch, cell phone (and pocket contents) on the ceiling, and the driver is suffering from first degree burns caused by the spilled latté. This time, like last, people couldn’t get their vehicles home, and literally abandoned them on the side of the road. The freeways and arterial roads were littered, just littered, with hundreds of vehicles. Millions of dollars worth of BWMs, hybrids, and SUVs just left on the road. And I swear to God, every time the news crews shoved a camera in the face of some driver that left a vehicle on the road, that driver was asian, or female… or both! Be afraid.

As I wrap this up, the temperature is now 24°F, and is expected to drop to 18°F. I just called my manager, and we’re heading into the office tomorrow. I’m gonna freeze my freakin’ ass off. I’ll fucking bet my swollen left testicle that 5:00am is the exact time the mercury hits 18°F. I’m gonna have to warm up the truck before heading out at 4:55am. I just hope that we don’t sit in any stop and go traffic for six hours. What a terrible way to start a weekend.

Go Seahawks!

It was a bit nostalgic. I remember being a child of 11 years when my family made the trek from Norristown, Pennsyvania (where we lived at the time) to Indianapolis, Indiana to see the 61st running of the 500-mile race in 1977.

A week or so before the trip, I remember my Dad asking who I thought might win the race. Being 11, I didn’t know many race car drivers. The only driver I really knew of was A.J. Foyt. He was a three-time Indy winner before 1977 and is arguably the most well-known driver of all time. Looking back at 1977 today, Foyt probably wasn’t a favorite. He was 42 at the time, and the chances of winning a 4th Indy were probably pretty slim. But A.J. Foyt did win, and my Dad was amazed that I was able to pick the winner before the trip.

I remember a few things about that trip. It was the first time I was ever in a motel room. My parents slept in the bed, my two brothers and I spent the night on the floor in sleeping bags; Our seats were actually in the bleachers of turn 3 at the Speedway. My only other sporting event experiences were Phillies and Eagles games at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia. I thought we’d have REAL seats, not bleachers like we had at school; The cars flew by so fast (about 190 to 200 mph) that all we could actually see was a blur of color. The sound was like 33 very loud bees buzzing by your ear. Like any good race fans, we all wanted crashes to happen in our turn; The Goodyear Blimp was floating above the track, probably providing aerial views of the race. When it passed over turn 3, my Dad yelled "Black Sunday!" as a joke. Some people laughed, others looked at him like he was a drunk race fan; You can’t watch a 3-hour race as an 11-year-old without having to pee. The bathrooms were actually very long "sretch" outhouses with many holes cut in the plywood seats. Jesus Christ, did it ever smell!

I also remember the hype and history of Janet Guthrie being the first woman to ever race in the Indianapolis 500, and I was there to witness it first hand. Today, I watched Danica Patrick race her Rahal-Letterman #16 car to 4th place. That’s the best finish ever by a woman in the Indy 500. On top of that, Danica Patrick became the first woman to ever hold the lead at the Indy 500. It was a great race, and the first time I watched the Indy 500 from start to finish since I was a kid.

Anyhoo… this past weekend I was in the E.R. again with the same symptoms. My cough wasn’t as persistent, and it wasn’t too productive, but the shortness of breath was there. Friday night I kept waking up. Seemed to be every 45 to 60 minutes I was awake, sitting up and trying to catch my breath. Saturday morning was just as bad, and I got winded just going to the bathroom.

In the E.R., my vitals weren’t good. My blood pressure was 158 over 109. Yikes! The saturation level of oxygen in my blood was only 78%, and my temperature was 100.5°F. They put me on oxygen and gave me nebulized albuterol. This helped my breathing a bit. In fact, the picture of the "newer" monitoring machine shows my oxygen level at 95%. Of course, I looked like an old man with an oxygen tube hooked over my ears and running under my nose.

They drew blood. They took chest xrays. They drew more blood, then intravenously administered an antibiotic called Rocephin. After 10 hours in the E.R., they finally admitted me to the hospital. It was 11:00pm by this time, and I hadn’t had anything to eat all day.

Once I was in room 17B, a nurse came in a performed the standard battery of tests; blood pressure, temperature, and oxygen level, then asked all kinds of questions about my medical history. Then I was given a little red pill called Zithromax (another antibiotic) and some crackers and juice.

For the rest of the time I was in the hospital, I was on oxygen. I was given nebulized Albuterol every four hours, along with the blood pressure, temperature routine. Don’t try sleeping. There has to be a Murphy-esque law that says when a patient falls asleep, a nurse shall wake said patient with a sphygmometer and a thermometer.

I was on a pulse oximeter continuously for monitoring my blood oxygen levels. The second picture is the pulse oximeter (I they dug out of the basement) showing my oxygen level at 100% while getting an Albuterol treatment.

By Monday morning, they were springing me from the hospital. I was only able to inhale 2,750 mililiters of air with my incentive spirometer, but I guess they thought I was well enough to go home. Armed with a prescription for 2 (only two) Zithromax pills and a Combivent inhaler, I left the hospital and drove home.

When I got home, I went to sleep, and slept until about 3:00pm. I had to get the the pharmacy, so I got dressed and drove to Albertsons. The Sav-on pharmacy in Albertsons accepts my insurance card for prescriptions. According to the pharmacist, the Combivent and Zithromax would have cost over $117 without insurance. I only had to pay $30. Insurance does have benefits.