How to get a great guy
Good article with many good points.
Every now & then I review my options.

Local Astronaut Bob Behnken Makes Spacewalking History

Astronaut Major Bob Behnken, 37, who grew up in St. Ann, Missouri, graduating from Pattonville High and Washington University, performed the first of his three scheduled spacewalks.   

Add his feat to St. Louis's rich aeronautics and space history, dating to the days of Charles Lindbergh and the McDonnell Mercury and Gemini space capsules built in St. Louis. 

Behnken worked on a robot Monday night.  The robot, nicknamed "Dextre", is designed to handle exterior repairs at the International Space Station.    

"What they're working on now is calibrating the robotic hand," said David Ritchey, as he watched a live feed of the spacewalk on NASA's web site. 

Ritchey is a space buff and Associate Director of Visitor Experience at the St. Louis Science Center's Planetarium. 

He said Behnken's space walk would certainly build interest in science, especially among young people in St. Louis, but also do a lot more: every move Behnken and his fellow astronauts made, Ritchey said, was important not just to NASA, but to humanity, plotting a roadmap through space; a  life-threatening task.

"Any spacewalk is one of the most dangerous things any astronaut can undertake," Ritchey said.  "Once you connect all these dots, where it's leading us, is back to the moon, then ultimately onto Mars, then who knows where."

Washington University biomedical engineer Dr. Sal Sutera remembered Behnken as a student from the late 80's into the early 90's.

"He doesn't look very much different from what I remembered," he said, referring to recent pictures of Behnken he'd seen from the mission.

Sutera said Behnken followed in his footsteps after graduating from Washington University, getting his Master's and Doctorate degrees from the California Institute of technology within 4 years, a daunting task.  

Sutera said thousands of his students went on to excel in life, but Behnken's achievements were, by their very nature, unmatched.

"We always have sort of a fatherly attitude toward our students," he said.  "When one of them really succeeds in an endeavor like this … you can't help but being proud."

Behnken's spacewalk Thursday could be even more significant.  He'll be testing a kind of "space" spackle to repair damaged heat tiles on the space shuttle. 

That could prove critical in August, when astronauts repair the Hubble space telescope.  

I got an e-mail that seems to think so. You can read it here.
http://www.debatepolitics.com/government-separation-powers/29581-any-truth-e-mail-i-recieved.html
I posted it there because that is a good site to debate issues rather than here on my homepage.
Please feel free to join that site & leave your view on it.

It's hard for me to put what I think & feel into a few words because I feel there is so so much to say, but I will try my best.....

I come to chat to enjoy sharing thoughts, laughs & experiences with other people.

I hate the thought of having to pick sides, just to keep friends of any sort. Certainly I do not wish to associate with anyone knowingly doing things like flooding, hacking accounts and the likeness of such. But I also do not really care who chats where. People have a right to chat anywhere they want, and I don't feel the need to hold that against them.

It's really irritating that so many people like me, that want to just chat and not participate in running scripts to collect e-mail address, IP's and passwords just to disrupt other peoples lives are having to put up with all these disruptions all the time. It's gotten to the point where I am sick and tired of hearing about it. If it is happening then let the proper people handle it and if laws are being broken then the authorities should be on it. But its time to quit playing the same old broken record over and over for crying out loud!!!

I always try to be decent to people and respect those that show respect. I have been banned from buzzen. For what, I really do not know and at this point really don't care. They chose to and have lost one more decent chatter. I have done nothing to them or anyone there personally. That is their call though. I think Mark tries to be a decent guy and stand for what is right. But sometimes I feel that this "feud" between him and a select few others has some deep rooted issues that I really don't fully understand and or feel the need to be a part of. I wasn't involved nor was there at that time.

I watch people all the time and have seen many good friendships, relationships and marriages ruined because of hearsay and misunderstandings. As I stated earlier if the things they say are true then bring out the hard facts and let the proper people deal with them and let all the rest of the innocent chatters enjoy what little decent chat there is left online.

So, I guess in summary here I am asking all decent people to please, lets quit dwelling on all this negativity and put it to rest. I am really getting disgusted with it all and all the disruptions that it creates. I just wish that the people directly involved in all this would just call a cease fire so to speak, agree that they disagree and leave each other and the rest of the innocent chatters alone.

I hope this makes sense to you all. I really didn't proof read it, just tried to type as short as possible to still make my point here. If anyone wants to send this to anyone else you have my permission to do so. I just want to have a nice place to chat with nice people without a bunch of vulgar & disrespectful people running the decent ones off.
Thanks for letting me vent and I hope you all are having a better day than I am. Peace out & God bless, Earl

this is also posted here where I chatted after MSN chat, in case you want to review replies....
http://www.buzzen.com/forum_temp/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=6&p=167#p167