The Final Frontier is Outsourced

Headline news brought me out of my thesis-induced retirement today....

I was down in class when it happened and I'm sure the video doesn't do it justice. But the idea of it can make emotion rise deep in your gut. Imagine for a minute, growing up with a model spaceship. Your parents and grandparents talk about the great moments when astronauts landed in space. The last and greatest frontier, where all mankind raced to be - Americans landed on the moon. It was a symbol of American accomplishment, an inspiration as a child that anything could be done.

The toy spaceship was the integral part of my imagination. Together we soared over the confines of the house, landing for exploration on faraway places. I later got a LEGO space shuttle with an arm for launching satellites and run training flights from a 747. My brother had the fall away launch pad with detachable rockets. Our obsession with the space shuttle was entwined with our ability to dream about the future. Nobody could tell me it didn't exist in space because nobody I knew had been there before. We lined up on the couch upside down and pretended to launch off into the great unknown. My parents drove us by the big launch site as kids and while I don't remember much, I remember excitement. The space shuttles were exciting, inspiring, powerful and unique.

The pictures and video are awesome. There is no more epic way to go out than to be flown around the mall before retirement at Dulles. While I'm excited to see what's next, the passing of this era leaves me nostalgic. When I help teach my kids history and we reach the space shuttles, I don't know what words will do it justice. My kids will never understand.

Teamwork

My fellow blogger and long-time friend, Lauren is working with me on a volunteer project for the National 4-H Conference. "Working with" actually undermines the fact that we wouldn't even be doing this if she hadn't come up with the idea in the first place. Our volunteer role encompasses the selection process, training process and then management of collegiate facilitators during the National 4-H Conference in April. Obviously something like this takes a big team effort, but we're glad to be doing our part and I personally love being in DC in the spring.

Every once in a while when we work together we have to push each other a bit. That's when I passed the joke today about not pushing penguin or lemming style, but gently. I thought I'd share the analogy so it makes sense to more people.

Killer whales are one of penguins' fierce predators and one way that penguins are known to check for killer whales is by crowding the edge of an ice shelf and bumping one in for the name of the cause. Abviously, the above photo is pretty edited, like the shark with the helicopter, but I thought the cartoon was pretty appropriate.

And then there's the lemmings. There's just no real explanation for the suicidal insanity with which they all jump into the water and drown together. I'm not for jumping in a sinking boat just for the sake of the team as much as I won't shove someone off or throw them under the bus for my benefit.

But again, that's why we make such a great team together.

(credit to http://www.stevetierney.org/blog/?p=1935 for my pic)