WHIZES AND DREAMERS, NOT MOUTH BREATHERS

ANOTHER SIGN OF HOPE

  Did you see the photo of all those confederate flags that greeted the President in Oklahoma City? Did you watch the Frontline detailing how Isis is treating women? Have you heard how millions are being spent to drain Lake Mead below the safety line? It's easy to get down on the human race. We make it so easy to disparage ourselves.There is a lot to suggest we're rapidly spiraling down to a specie of swamp dwelling, mouth breathing meatheads pulling back the throttle to our own demise or extinction.  And then…..    

  we do this.  We send a piano size and technology loaded craft on a 9 year 3 Billion mile journey to work for us. What makes this amazing feat more extraordinary is that with only hours to spare the team at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab discovered a vital piece was not operating. They managed a work around and got the New Horizons craft back on task and did so struggling against hours of information delay across billions of miles. Think of that the next time you have trouble programming your phone.  

     Designing, building and managing a project of this nature, spanning a decade, traveling to distant regions we are just learning of and doing it with success is evidence we are more than the stunted intellects we see waving flags, sitting in congress, running for office, running banks, working scams, destroying the planet for profit, forcing repressive beliefs, fighting wars, and on and on. Indeed,we are capable of marvelous, historic, boundary stretching heroic effort, creativity and thought. 

      In the next few months as we see wondrous images from the Kuiper belt and the loads of data and brand new knowledge, I'll be grateful for the keen minds, exploring spirits, extraordinary technology and information interpretation systems. And I'll take this as nod to our better angels who point us toward possibilities, solutions and hope. 

FEATHER RETREATS
from San Simeon to Cayucos

  See you down the trail.