American Veterans Association: Advice to Veterans from Veterans

American Veterans Association: Advice to Veterans from Veterans: American Veterans Association has created a forum so you can share your knowledge and your insight to help each other. It is very importan...

A Day of Atlantis

It is amazing to wake up and experience a dream.  Since I was a small child, I have wanted to explore our solar system.  I remember the first dream I ever had about outer space.  I must have been four years old.  When I told my mother of the dream; which consisted of myself and two bearded men in a shuttle above the earth watching it spin, she became a little distraught.  I was not allowed to watch anything on television other than Little House on the Prairie, Mr. Rogers, and Reading Rainbow at that point in my life.  The only other thing I remember watching is her soap operas.  However, I literally remember being in a crib and clapping when I saw a commercial for Mac Tonight in the mid to late 1980's.  Maybe that commercial turned me on to the possibility of exploring something other than Earth.  Thank you McDonald's for introducing me to Mac Tonight.  It inspired my two-year old mind.   After my dream, I remember kicking a purple, marbled kickball I owned as high as I could vertically hoping that someone would catch it instead of seeing it fall back down to me.
I enrolled in a program called Young Astronauts in Middle School.  I had never had the opportunity to join any extra-curricular activities as such as that in my life because I had lived in a very rural town in Kentucky and moved to a town that was a little larger with a better educational system.  My middle school often had famous astronauts give presentations to the children and their parents after school.  It wasn't only astronauts, but professionals in other fields like archaeology and meteorology.
My interest in floating in zero gravity has been established here.  What really amazes me about this day is that my boyfriend woke me up with a text that just said "Get ready, we are going to the shuttle launch" and "NOW" (because I usually take my time showering).  I was very surprised because he had class that morning but his teacher dismissed him without counting him as absent.  Cape Canaveral is only an hour or so from Ormond Beach.  We rushed there taking I-95 South.  Along the way, I researched some of the best places to watch a shuttle launch and we settled for Jetty Beach.  It seems as though we made it just on time.  If the launch hadn't been delayed a few minutes, we would have been watching it from a car.  The point is that we made it.  We had great seats.  The crowd was rather quiet, all besides the countdown and the roar of applause during liftoff.  I really couldn't believe what I was seeing or hearing.  The final shuttle launch in NASA's shuttle program.  This was very surreal and sentimental to me.  I know everyone who saw this was touched in some way.
I am planning on attending Embry Riddle Aeronautical University this fall.  I am applying for Space Physics and Aerospace Engineering.  It would be a dream to graduate with those degrees.   There has to be a way to get the world and small-minded politicians to see just how important the shuttle program is to all of us.  There is far more to learn out there than here.   I'd rather have my tax dollars given to the exploration of the universe rather than defense, violence, and welfare checks.

A Day of Independence

A Day of Jellyfish

Today in Ormond Beach, Florida, millions of jellyfish were washed ashore due to strong ocean currents.  The beaches were glittering for miles as the sun reflected through these translucent sea creatures.  I was lucky enough to witness this gorgeous gathering.  My boyfriend and I first noticed the overwhelming amount of jellies when we visited the beach around 7:00 AM, deciding to spend the morning elsewhere because of the high numbers making it nearly impossible to go for a morning swim.  We returned to the beach later in the evening hoping that their numbers would have declined, but it seemed as if the population of jellies on the beach had more than quadrupled.  Most of the critters were Moon Jellies.  This type of jellyfish cannot really penetrate human flesh to sting (like longer tentacled jellyfish), only leaving a mild rash if they mistakenly do sting a human.   However, around one of every ten jellyfish we spotted were more aggressive, stinging jellyfish with longer tentacles, most likely Cannonball Jellyfish.  According to Daytona Beach News-Journal, over 2000 people were stung by jellyfish between July 2nd and July 3rd.  They are expected to stick to the beaches until the winds and currents carry them out to sea once again.