My senior year of high school, I was taking a course in physics. The teacher arranged for us to watch the launch of the space shuttle Challenger live, on one of the TVs in the library. All 20 or so of us were seated there, watching as the first school teacher launched into space. Our teacher was really excited– had he been 10 years younger (and, perhaps, 50 pounds lighter) he would have applied for the teacher-in-space program.

We watched as Challenger exploded and disintegrated, 73 seconds after lift-off. That image is as burned into my consciousness as the footage of the second plane hitting the south tower on September 11. Seven people gave their all in the effort to explore space and advance science. If I sound a little flowery in my language, it's only because I feel they deserve nothing less.

We still remember you.

I've been laid off. This comes at a strange time for me, as I've been toying with either returning to Denver, or trying to get a work permit for the UK and moving there. Right now I'm still too frazzled to draw any sound conclusions.

More detail to follow.

Went for a follow-up last Wednesday. The break isn't healing like the doctor wants it to. There's a gap at one side of the break itself, which is keeping the little healing-cells from mending the two parts of bone back together. He gave me another 4 weeks of hobbling around in the Franken-foot before he looks at it again. If it isn't doing better, I get surgically screwed, I mean, I get a screw surgically implanted in the bone.

I've written a small Google Homepage plug-in to display the current Astronomy Picture of the Day, along with the photo credits. It scales it using percentages, so the image doesn't screw up browser-window-width like the APOD feed in LiveJournal does. I'd recently switched my news-homepage setup from Excite to Google, and since they provide such a handy API, I couldn't resist.

It links the image thumbnail to the full-resolution version at APOD. It links the section-title to the APOD page itself (handy if you want to read the detailed background of the image). Lastly, it reproduces the complete photo credits section, links and all. It also produces XHTML instead of using HTML <center> tags. (But since I don't know if GH actually emits strict XHTML, this part might not matter.)

I've submitted it to Google for their directory, but until then you can add it to your homepage via this link.

See this article at The Register.

I was able to get in to see a podiatrist Friday, no mean feat on such short notice. Turns out only one bone is broken, not two. He re-dressed the area and gave me an Aircast, which looks like it should be part of something bigger, like skiis, a snowboard, or a Frankenstinian monster. This will be 4-6 weeks to heal, depending on my body. I see the doctor again in a little less than two weeks.

I can walk, drive, dress myself, etc. But none of the above are especially easy for the time being.

I have broken two bones in my left foot. This is problematic for many reasons, not the least of which being that I live on the second floor and I drive a manual transmission.

The ER guys were very cool, we joked and chatted about things from the truly lame-ass way in which I broke it to the prospects of an upcoming Scary Movie 4 (yes, there is apparently going to be a fourth one). I have a "half-cast" right now, a high-tech bundling of carbon-fiber, wetted down with water and molding itself to my foot and heel. I have to do a lot tomorrow: I have to fill a prescription for painkillers (oh yes, I do), I have to contact a podiatrist to get the actual setting of bones and real cast taken care of, and I have to get some sweats to wear for the next 6 weeks, since I won't be cutting down any of my jeans to get them over the cast.

Oh yeah, and I have to go back and get my car. Yes, I drove myself to the ER with a broken foot working the clutch. I had to cab it home tonight, though, since they gave me some Vicodin for the pain. They said I wouldn't be able to drive my clutch with the half-cast. I think I can, but I had already taken the V's. Tomorrow, I'll get a friend (with an automatic) to drive me back, and if I can't work the clutch we can swap long-enough to get me home.

I really didn't need this.

Joe Decker