So who is the old, ugly bald guy in the photo and what on God’s green earth is she doing with him????
Like many of you, I have travelled a lot and have seen some amazing things. Man made, the Taj is truly something thing you have to see in person. Really stunning. But the most incredible physical thing I have ever seen was this. Total eclipse of the sun.
So funny. Since I saw your pic, I have been trying to find mine. I have one of the full moon rising over the Wailing Wall. That was incredible.
I was crossing the street at a crosswalk when I was 14. It was at 53rd and Powell. The first lane of cars had stopped...there were about 10 or so of them. I couldn't see the other lane. I figured if a car was coming in the other lane it would see the cars stopped and stop itself. My friends behind were hurrying me to go. I didn't want to keep the other cars waiting longer they needed too. I crossed. A car in the other lane hit me going 30 mph. I found myself floating in darkness. There was a strange calm. I thought to myself....I'm dead...this is what death feels like. It was very peaceful. No light though like some say. Just darkness...like floating in space. During that time according to the witnesses in the car who called 911 and my friends I went up over the side of the hood, broke the driver side mirror, turned landed ass first on the back door, leaving an ass print, bounced off and hit the ground rolling. I believe the NDE experience saved me. Relaxed my body, so I wasn't hurt as much as I would have been. I came to as I hit the ground. I dragged myself to the side of the road. The car stopped several feet ahead of me. The driver was a woman. She looked at me, looked at her car, looked at me, looked at her car and said, "Oh, my God my car!"
I was fresh out of the Navy and took a job with a company selling restaurant equipment all through the midwest...drove a Datsun 1600 sports car from client to client. One night I'd been at an evening meeting in Yankton South Dakota and had booked a hotel in Minneapolis for the night...about 90 miles away...left South Dakota at 10pm and headed straight to Minneapolis....stopped once to pee in a corn field covered in snow....saw a UFO doing figure eights in the sky seems like the disc was as large as a silver dollar would be in my hand....suddenly it streaked into space faster than I've ever seen anything move...zipped up..walked to my car...drove straight ot my hotel and as I pulled into the city the sun was rising...meant I'd been in a time warp...lost a whole night when what was an hour and a half drive became from 10pm to sunrise...to this day it seemed like I'd been in that field for maybe 10 minutes tops.
When they first published the photos taken by the Hubble of deep space, stars, planets galaxies and the universe it was mind blowing....those photos are some of the greatest achievements of mankind during my lifetime for sure.
I remember working at Boeing on the most powerful nuclear missile in the world. I was working on this box called the Fire Control. To me it was just another boz among the many many different boxes used in the Peacekeeper (MX) missile silo that we were responsible for. One day my buddy who was in the lab where these assembler ladies were putting the prototypes together calls me on the phone. "Come here, Lanny, you've got to see this." Now that developmental lab was far away from me. You had to travel a route that took you thru many doors and all different kinds of hallways, even thru the part of the building where they built the B-17s in WWII called the High Bay. Up stairs down stairs a very long walk. He kept pushing and pushing me to come up there close to where the Boeing headquarters use to be. I kept saying no, no, no, I'm too busy. Finally I agreed to come over there just to get him off my back. Well, I got there and saw him in the lab standing next to this lady working on a box. When I got there I couldn't believe my eyes. There were ten toggle switches on each box with ten incandescent red lights one above each toggle switch. Under each light were the words "Missile Away" stenciled. I was blown away. Now that I think about it I believe there were just five missiles per box. Only one missile silo was manned out of the five.
Yes, it was like that only I dressed better. Nobody at Boeing dressed the way the job demanded. Everyone dressed the way of the job they wanted. People who worked at jobs at a technician's pay grade dressed in expensive suits. I pranced around in airplanes under construction in spit shined shoes.
Short version, seeing a California Condor in the wild. With less than 300 Condors not in captivity, seeing one is amazing. Almost as amazing is "where" I saw the Condor. In SE Washington State on the Tucannon River. I have a secret spot I like to stop at for a rest when making the long drive through that area. There is a nice swimming hole in the river for the dogs to stretch their legs while I munch on a snack. On one trip, I looked up at the nearby cliffs and saw the Condor. He was roosting on a large rock about 300 yards away. He looked like a huge bird wearing an oversized trench coat. We watched each other for about 10 minutes, before he flew away. Gee they can fly fast.
Touching the rim for the first time when I was a 5’8” freshman. Got all the way up to dunking a softball but never passed that. It was something that felt like was never going to be possible growing up. One day during PE the rims just looked lower and I ran up during whatever it was we were doing and I got a few knuckles up.
More of a mild coincidence than an amazing event, but once I was on final approach to Hong Kong and the protagonist in the book I was reading was looking out the airplane window as he was landing in Hong Kong. barfo