CNN.com - NASA remembers fallen astronauts - Jan 28, 2005

19 years ago today, the brave astronauts of the shuttle Challenger lost their lives.

I wish I could say I remember where I was when it happened. The truth is, while I *do* remember the day it happened, I don't really remember much about it besides where we lived (Rita Ct. in Bartlett) and the ugly leather couches we used to have. Isn't that odd. I have this vague recollection of somebody walking in and saying something and me seeing these couches when I think about Challenger for some odd reason. Very strange.

Obviously, the Columbia loss is much fresher in my mind--not only because of the closeness of the date, but because I was in Central Florida at the time and it was HUGE news down here because the shuttle had been heading to the Cape to land.

We've lost many brave astrnauts in the pursuit of the exploration of space. May God bless them all.

Tonight Show's Tribute to Johnny Carson...

Johnny Carson died the other day. When I was a kid, I'd watch the Tonight Show. I remember a time when I would only watch when Jay Leno would guest-host, but this was a time back when Leno was actually funny. Now he's just a cartoon basically.

To say Carson was a funny guy is not enough. The man was a legend, and I'm sad that he's gone.

One good thing came from all this...instead of their regular crap, the Tonight Show did this tribute last night. Bob Newhart and Don Rickles (always hilarious) were there, as well as Drew Carey. They told stories and played classic clips...it was great. I loved it.

The thing is...do you know who was originally scheduled to be on the show last night? Paris Hilton. Talk about a total turnaround. To go from someone who's basically a drain on society and humanity as a whole to featuring great comedians paying tribute to a great man. That's gotta be the most drastic turnaround in entertainment history.

In watching the 'Angel' episodes that are on the upstairs Tivo, I bypass a lot of old election commercials from the 2004 Election.

Boy, I'm glad that's all over.

Everything is going well on the Hooper front. "Training" a puppy is a lot of work--though most of the time it seems he's training me. After a few days of getting the leash wrapped around my legs and mostly using Boots'(too short) leash instead of Hooper's (because the clasp on Hooper's is a pain to work) I finally went to PetWhatever and got him a stake and line for the back. Now, after he eats I just put him out there and either I sit in the back with Boots or I take Boots outside too and we just wait around for Hooper to do his business. By the way, I'm proud to report that he's finally doing it outside...sometimes. He still goes on the puppy pads inside (and sometimes not, unfortunately) but he's gone outside a bunch too, which is cool. We give him a special kind of treat when he does that. Hopefully he's learning. We'll see.

On the work front, all of us at work got sucked into this new organization. Motorola Information Protection Service. Actually, it's somewhat of a good thing--as long as everyone is placed somewhere. There's still something I'm worried about. Hopefully it gets taken care of some time today. Personally, I've been promoted so I'm happy about that. It also looks like I will have to go too Alaska to do a delivery with a bunch of other guys. Some of the guys from our old team and some from the new. It's Government stuff. I'll also either have to go to San Diego or Virginia for a two-day training deal in early or mid February. We'll see how that goes.

We're just back from the vet. For some unknown reason, Court scheduled Hooper's vet appointment at 8:30am on a Saturday. The lesson, as always: Don't get married.

Anyway. He did fine. He's about 900x calmer than Boots is at the vet...though Court says that at this age Boots was fine at the vet too. The last time we went he screeched louder than I thought a cat could ever be and the vet said next time they'd have to sedate him.

Saw the papers with Hooper's Birthday on them: October 30, 2004. Also found out that puppies won't really start to be potty trainined until they're 4-5 months old and have gotten into the bathroom/outside repetition. We've still got a ways to go but we're happy with how things are going.

While we were back home for Christmas I played some Madden with Chris. He had just gotten 2005 for Christmas. He took 2 out of 3 games from me but I hadn't played in a while. It made me want to reinstall whatever Madden I had already, which turned out to be like 2001 or something. I figured I could go to Best Buy (normally against my better judgement since I hate them) but when the new Madden comes out they usually kick the last year's version to the curb and price them at $10.

So we went to Best Buy and I found 2004 for $10. I was all ready to buy it when Court comes up to me with 2005 and it's only $20. Now, why the PS2 version is $50 and the PC version is $20, I don't know. But better, I don't care.

I've been playing for about a week or so. I've already taken the Bears to the Super Bowl and won it. Half the season I played at rookie mode because I was just getting back into playing, but after throwing up 100 pts against the computer in one game I set the difficulty at 'pro' and went from there. I only had one loss all season, and it was one of those where the computer decides there's no way, no way, NO WAY you're winning that game and that was that.

This game has EVERYTHING. You control prices on everything including merchandise and concessions and all that. Plus, there's a 'training camp' mode with drills and all sorts of stuff. I'm sure somebody who really wanted to get into it all could spend hours doing all that crap. I tinker a bit but I don't go crazy.

It's really been fun to play. When we were in college we used to play NBA Live '96 on the PS1 and since it gave you four teams to customize we each took a team and had a draft and everything. It was great. I probably played NBA Live and NHL Live more than football because my friends could kick my tail at Madden any day.

I got a bunch of comp games for Christmas too. Pirates! and Evil Genius are two of the other ones I've played. Pirates! is just what it sounds like. So is Evil Genius pretty much. Thinking "Stepping into Dr. Evil's shoes" and you're good to go.

oh man, I just heard on Mike & Mike that after yesterday's game Favre was talking about retiring.

Could it be...has this day finally come? Oh man...oh...man...

It's official. I just considered calling my Mom to tell her that Hooper finally went potty on the puppy pads we laid down.

Yes, it's the beginning of the end for me.

Haven't blogged in a while. Time to step it up a little.

Hitting to all fields...

• A good time was had in IL for Christmas/New Years, as always.


• I told Pops that I predicted a blizzard while we were in. Only missed by one day. Good thing I only use my powers for good.


• We got my in-laws a surround sound DVD player for Christmas and installed it on New Year's Eve. With a basement and dropped ceiling speaker placement was a joy. You can barely see the cables and it sounds great.


• Mr. Tony is back on the radio, and they stream the show over the net. WOO HOO!


• Thanks again to the wonders of streaming internet radio, I can listen to my 'local' Chicago sports talk afternoon show as well!


• It seems that Jon Stewart may have single-handedly killed 'Crossfire'. Oh well. It was too much useless yelling anyways.


• Lastly, but CERTAINLY not leastly, Hooper is in the house! Actually, he's at my feet right now. He and Boots have gotten along 500x better than I'd thought. Not even any confrontations at all. They just leave each other alone. Big props to Boots for beating expectations. I'm proud of them both.

More to come...