control alt delete
where are the keyboard shortcuts
to reboot my day?

I love United States Space History.

The Right Stuff.

Project Mercury.

Balloon trip to the edge of the world.

Apollo.

One of the young technicians wrote of those days something along the line of, “We drank the wine at the rate they poured it.”

In my own small way, this was what it was like at the dawn of the WWW era.

Some folks refer to it as the wild wild west.

It was GREAT and I miss it, but I digress.

Back to the space race.

I love those stories of Neil Armstrong’s first words getting messed up by intereference.

I love how Gus Grissom wanted to name his second spacecraft, ‘[The Unsinkable] Molly Brown.

This after his first space craft sank after splash down.

NASA tried to hold the line and told Grissom that Molly Brown wasn’t appropriate.

Grissom said fine and that he would paint TITANIC on the side of his spacecraft.

NASA gave in but afterwards changed the policy of naming the capsules.

Possibly my favorite story is the one about 24 year old John Aaron and Apollo 12.

The gist of the story is that when launched, Apollo 12 was struck by lightning.

The power surge knocked out most of the data being sent back from Apollo to Mission Control in Houston as well as the data systems on the Apollo 12 spacecraft.

Mission Control watched the rocket go up and the data numbers go wacky.

They were about to abort the mission when John Aaron says over the communications circuit, “Try SCE to Aux and back.”

According both to legend and to the records (written and audio recording), just about everyone in Mission Control and on Apollo 12 said, “What is that?” or words to that effect.

Except for Lunar Module Pilot, Alan Bean.

Alan Bean had taken part in a simulation a year before with the self same John Aaron.

Bean reached out to the spacecraft control panel, located the SCE switch and set it to AUX and back.

The numbers being sent to Houston and the systems on the spacecraft came back online.

The mission continued.

John Aaron, age 24, was described as a steely–eyed missile man.

He had witnessed this problem on that simulation with Alan Bean one year before.

As he himself described it, by chance he was one the simulation at the time.

By chance he saw the error.

By chance he puzzled out why it happened.

And by chance his shift was in Mission Control during the Apollo 12 launch.

John Aaron was at a communications station when the lighting hit and he opened up his mic and said, “reboot”.

Of course he said it the language of the day and for his equipment.

“Set SCE to AUX”

Today he might say, “Hit CTRL ALT DELETE and reboot.”

Looked death in the eye.

Steely Eyed Missile Man.

It could be done back then in 1969.

I can hit all those keys on my computer today.

I can turn any of my so-called devices off and on.

Why can’t I reboot my day?

Where are those buttons located?

Weary to my bed
Begin a journey in my head
I find no quiet

I am working from home and lucky to be working from home.

No driving.

Actually been days since I drove anywhere.

I am working.

I get tired, very tired.

With all that is going on, weary is such a perfect word.

Bedtime comes, I read in bed for a minute and the eyes start to close.

And off to the land of Nod.

At least for a bit.

At some point in the night, I wake up.

I am not moving but my brain is speeding at a bazillion miles an hour.

At that awful hour of 3AM.

Ray Bradbury has been there.

In Something Wicked This Way Comes, Mr. Bradbury writes, “Oh God, midnight’s not bad, you wake and go back to sleep, one or two’s not bad, you toss but sleep again. Five or six in the morning, there’s hope, for dawn’s just under the horizon. But three, now, Christ, three A.M.! Doctors say the body’s at low tide then. The soul is out. The blood moves slow. You’re the nearest to dead you’ll ever be save dying. Sleep is a patch of death, but three in the morn, full wide-eyed staring, is living death! You dream with your eyes open.”

Hemingway writes of his mind and being able to choke it so he could sleep.

Not that I dare put myself in the same boat with Mr. Hemingway or Mr. Bradury, but that they are in the boat with me where we say “To work my mind, when body’s work’s expired“, as Mr. Shakespear put it.

Because Big Bill is also in the boat with us.

Big Bill lived and worked 300 years ago and was plagued with the sleepless nights and the overactive mind.

In his Sonnet XXVII, he writes;
Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed,
The dear repose for limbs with travel tired;
But then begins a journey in my head,
To work my mind, when body’s work’s expired:
For then my thoughts, from far where I abide,
Intend a zealous pilgrimage to thee,
And keep my drooping eyelids open wide,
Looking on darkness which the blind do see
Save that my soul’s imaginary sight
Presents thy shadow to my sightless view,
Which, like a jewel hung in ghastly night,
Makes black night beauteous and her old face new.
Lo! thus, by day my limbs, by night my mind,
For thee and for myself no quiet find.

All of us in the boat together.

All of us asking where is sleep.

It would take someone as wise as Solomon to answer.

Lucky for me, Solomon did.

In Proverbs, Solomon writes, “When you lie down, you will not be afraid; when you lie down, your sleep will be sweet.”

What is the secret to this sweet sleep?

“Do not let wisdom and understanding out of your sight, preserve sound judgment and discretion.” (Proverbs 3:19-21 NIV)

Wisdom.

Understanding.

Sound judgement.

Discretion.

Easy.

No problem.

And I thought toilet paper was in short supply.