Old Things R New

On the Porch

Onisha Ellis

This has been another busy week and I want to apologize to my friends who blogs I usually visit. Three of Rebekah’s novels have been involved in sales this week and has kept me glued to my computer. Also, a Facebook group I am a part of held a three-day Facebook party and I agreed to be a moderator. That means I spent time on the party page, making sure everything flowed smoothly and that our guests arrived on time. Actually, it was a lot of fun and I won several books and an audiobook.

Today was a change of pace. Rebekah and I arose early and headed out to the Indian River to Space View Park to watch the launch of the next generation space vehicle, Orion. The launch was scheduled for somewhere around 7:05 am

Sun rising over the Indian River

When we arrived, somewhere around 6:45am the sun was just coming up over the horizon and the crowd was on its feet and excited, but there was something missing-noise. In the past, multiple radios could be heard, giving out updates and people stood chatting with strangers. Today all I saw was people on their phones, watching on live stream or a NASA stream. I had my phone out, tweeting and sharing photos on Twitter. It was fun seeing people from around the world talking about it, but what happened to talking to the person next to you?

The launch was delayed due to a boat being in a restricted area and the countdown was put on hold until the boat cleared the area. The countdown began again and was stopped repeatedly for either wind or mechanical problems and ultimately the launch was scrubbed.

There was an amusing tidbit that came out of the morning. Down in front of us a man was set up with a portable TV, an antenna and a booming voice. As each event occurred he would shout HOLD or FOUR MINUTES and eventually the dreaded word SCRUB. Having grown up listening to “The Voice of NASA”, it gave me a chuckle to think the very serious and professional voice had been replaced in this new era of space flight.

Since the sequel to Rebekah’s book Jessie will take place and possibly begin in the shuttle era of the space program, she and I will be up early  tomorrow to try again. I plan to tweet less and talk more, BUT if you are on twitter look for my tweets @iluvscoops.

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