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Margaret Hamilton inside an Apollo command module simulator

Margaret Hamilton, the brilliant mathematician behind the then-nascent field of software engineering and the lead programmer of the Apollo effort that put humanity on the moon, has passed away at the age of ninety.

But what a life Hamilton had!  Early on she demonstrated a prowess for mathematics.  She followed that into higher education and wound up at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  There she was brought aboard NASA to work on the computer systems for the Apollo spacecraft.  It was during this phase of her career that Hamilton developed error-correction code that in the case of Apollo 11 kept the vessel from disaster during landing.

Here are the famous photos of Margaret Hamilton with the enormous pile of computer code that she and her team developed for Apollo 11:

After the Apollo program ended, Hamilton started her own company ...

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Yesterday I shared an excerpt from my memoir Keeping the Tryst, from the end of chapter 37.  That excerpt dealt with my life on September 10th, 2001.  And the last thing that I did before falling asleep late that night was to thank God for all of the good that He had brought into my life.  If the previous several months could have been that good, I had no doubt that the rest of my life could be just as amazing.  I was 27 years old, with everything ahead of him.  I was in love, I had a good job, I was writing for publication on a daily basis.  And on the night of September 10th I had started writing the script for my very first movie.

My eyes closed, and I was looking forward to another day of being grateful.

Here is another excerpt.  The final part of ...

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This morning the website American Thinker has published my latest essay.  “Young People, Listen to Your Gen-X Elders: Communism Sucks!” is something that’s been percolating for awhile and  I suppose recent events in the American political realm made it time to deploy.  This article is a few things: history lesson (has it really been thirty-five years since I was a high school senior watching the attempted coup against Gorbechev?), recap of the rise of extreme socialism in this country, and finishing off with a stark warning to the young people of this land.  Take it from someone who was there during the height of the Cold War: communism is NOT something we should want to entertain notions of accommodating, much less adopting (or having it forced upon us).


From the article…

The ad begins with a poor Russian peon, bundled up for the harsh winter, cautiously asking a stern

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…Tammy and I found ourselves at Dealey Plaza.

 

The original plan was to blog all along the trek that the two of us had going across America, just as I’ve blogged about seemingly everything and anything since 2004.  But I discovered about this point of our odyssey that journeys of self-discovery lose something when you’re also documenting it for public viewing as you venture forth.  It was in Dallas that I went on a respite for awhile, that lasted almost two years.  But in the end I came back, none the worse for wear, and filled with lots of stories to tell.

Such as August 1st, 2016.  Now, I had come to Dealey Plaza the day before, on Sunday morning.  There was very little traffic in the area.  And I had to drive through it twice before I realized where we were.  Dealey Plaza is much smaller than I ...

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In Congress, July 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive

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Earlier today Pam Sutton, the widow of legendary moonshiner and American icon Marvin “Popcorn” Sutton, shared the following photograph on the official Facebook page for the annual Popcorn Sutton Jam.
This is the very last photograph that was taken of Popcorn.  It was made the morning before his passing…
Pam Sutton elaborates: “This is one of the pictures that I don’t like to share very much. You see, this was taken the day he left this world. This was my last image of him. I loved him so. If you look at his feet, you will see the jars that would become his first legal run. He was the first moonshiner to go legal in East Tennessee.”
I will forever be lamenting that I never got to meet Popcorn Sutton in person.  Having come to meet and know several people who were in his life, I can’t help but
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Godspeed Artemis II.

Or as Walter Cronkite would have said:

“Go Baby, GO!!!”

Watching Artemis II launch, I felt like a seven-year-old kid all over again.  It was 45 years ago this month that the Columbia launched on the very first mission for the space shuttle system.  I had wanted to finally watch real astronauts go up into space.  The mission had been delayed a few times already and I didn’t want to miss it.  Finally, about ten minutes before time to head out to school at 8:30 in the morning, Columbia ignited and began its ascent.  I couldn’t tear my eyes off the screen but Dad said “Okay, it’s up.  NOW can we go?!”

I truly hope this will be a successful mission.  I’ve harbored a lot of concerns about Artemis II.  It would be such a shot in the arm for national morale… and the feelings ...

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It was about 6:30 a.m. local time in the desert of Tunisia, on March 22, 1976, that the first scenes for George Lucas’s film Star Wars were filmed.  Shot that day: the Jawas “droid auction” and the scene between Luke and Threepio as they are standing outside the homestead looking for Artoo.

Here is Mark Hamill in costume, in the first behind-the-scenes pic from the production of a Star Wars movie:

One has to wonder, what were the cast and crew thinking as that first torturous day unfolded (the Artoo-Detoo’s front leg refused to deploy, and Anthony Daniels’s Threepio costume didn’t fit).  Did they have any notion at all just how special their project would become to not only millions but arguably billions of people over the course of the next half-century?  How it would be endlessly discussed and debated, and so beloved even five full decades later?

It all ...

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It was fifty years ago tonight, on March 14th, 1976, that radio personality Doctor Demento played a song that had been submitted by one of his listeners.  “Belvedere Cruisin'” was composed and performed by a sixteen-year-old young man with an accordion from Lynwood, California.  His name was Alfred Yankovic.

Doctor Demento could not have known it then, but he was premiering the music of one of the greatest artists that has ever come in the history of pop culture.

Happy fiftieth anniversary to “Weird Al” Yankovic!

Here is the recording of that fateful evening:

There is another Weird Al anniversary this week.  March 12th marked the thirtieth anniversary of the release of the album Bad Hair Day.  For a number of reasons that is one of my favorite albums by Yankovic.

Here’s looking forward to many more years of Weird Al music!...

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Lots of crazy stuff in the news this past week.  I’ve been sharing them with friends on Facebook, where they have engendered no small amount of mirth and merriment.  So I thought I’d post about them here too!

First up is this recall notice about a brand of honey that is being pulled off the shelves because somehow, somewhere along the manufacturing process, an active ingredient in erectile dysfunction medication made it into the finished product.
Next up is a story from Colorado about a man who is suing Walmart after claiming to be severely injured.  The man apparently bought raw bake-to-eat sourdough bread without first warming it up in an oven.  The bread expanded inside his stomach and allegedly brought on immense pain and suffering.
I saw that in an old episode of Emergency! awhile back.  Johnny and Roy got called to help a guy who ate unbaked
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