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Published: July 22nd 2009
DAY 257
I can remember sitting at home in front of our Black and White telly, watching a fuzzy picture of a guy stepping down from the (L.E.M) Lunar Excursion Module on to the surface of the moon.
The other day I asked my mum if she could remember why I was at home, as I couldn’t remember, I thought It was because school gave us the day off being such an important historical day, but she thought it was because I spent a lot of time ill at home while awaiting my heart operation.
I don’t care for these people who want to debunk it, saying it never happened or it was staged, I don’t believe it was and what I do passionately believe is that it is the greatest thing man has ever achieved.
Don’t get me wrong, we have achieved so many great things, medically in science and engineering and come to those achievements that have influenced our daily lives.
In 1962 a year before I was born, John F Kennedy made an astonishing speech at Rice University In Huston Texas,
We choose to go to the moon in this decade and
do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.
There was so much more in the speech, but even today it makes the hairs on the back on my neck stand up with those words not because they are easy, but because they are hard.
I was 5 years old on the 21st July 1969, I remember that day so well when mans first footprint laid on the moons surface.
It seemed to take forever for Neil Armstrong to step down the ladder, followed by Buzz Aldrin, then Neil making his historical speech from the surface.
40 years ago today, wow, how time has flown, back in 1969 it was only 66 years since the Wright Brothers made their first flight, THAT IS AMAZING, mans first flight in a aircraft so simple to man going to the moon, in 66 years what progress.
I was reading an article the other day about Neil Armstrong, he left Nasa shortly after his trip to the moon and took a job as a teacher, and to this day has never made money from what he did, as he believes that he was just
doing his job, where Buzz Aldrin has made a pile from after dinner speaking and the media Circus, but why not? Heavens above this guy had been to the moon, 1 of 20 people to ever go to the moon.
Where Neil Armstrong and Edwin Eugene “Buzz” Aldrin became mega stars, the 3rd member of the team stayed an unknown name; the Command Module Pilot was Colonel Michael Collins.
Where does all this fit in to our lives, well in 2007 when we went to Parkes Radio Telescope in Parkes, New South Wales we stood there with our friends Gary and Karen and looked in awe at the telescope, then when we managed to get a copy of the film the dish, which became our favourite film and we hung our hopes and dreams of coming to Australia on this engineering Icon.
When Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon they were to have a sleep break, it was like trying to ask a child to sleep on Christmas Eve. Nasa insisted but the Astronauts wanted to get out on to the moons surface.
As America was on the “Wrong Side” of the world
to pick up the pictures from the moon, Parkes Radio Telescope received all the telemetry from the moon and transmitted it around the globe, to 600 million people and to this day it is still the largest single event ever watched on television.
Because of the “Space Race” the world got to be a smaller place, the space technology helped further develop flight, communications, material such as titanium and other things we now take for granted.
Neil Armstrong said the space race was 'the ultimate peaceful competition: USA versus USSR'. It did allow both sides to take the high road with the objectives of science and learning and exploration.
Caroline just reminded me that my heart has a Titanium Implant, which would not have been possible without these fantastic engineers working on the space program.
I still have my copy of the 1969 National Geographic that my Grandfather gave me, which I would not let go for anything.
Anyway on with the day, I woke up this morning feeling cr*p, so we sat around for a while playing Mahjong, just waiting to see what developed, not with the Mahjong but with me feeling cr*p. We
had plans to go to the Northern Territory Museum and Art Gallery here in Darwin and a trip to the Wave Pool at the Waterfront, ok so we were planning to throw a final game of mini golf in too.
I had definitely got to much sun yesterday, and the morning just went from bad to worse, with the way I was feeling. Unfortunately I had a couple of 100 yard sprints to the dunny, which was touch and go every time, but we won’t elaborate on this detail of the blog.
Caroline phoned the camera shop and the owner Russell said “Did you receive my e-mail?” “er no!! Well Canon have been instructed to proceed with the repair, and it will be back in two weeks.
We are pulling out of Darwin on Thursday morning, so the lens will have to be forwarded to another branch of Camera House in the direction we are going. It will either be Townsville or Cairns.
I go back to bed; I know I am not feeling well if I go back to bed, as I just want to be left alone.
This is the difficult position Caroline
is in, she is such a caring soul who likes to care, not in a mumsy way but in a practical way, and I want to be left along, so all I can say is that I am a difficult patient. After my heart attack, The hospital told me to go home and rest for a month before my procedure, Caroline said she would take some time off work and I asked her to go back to work, as I just wouldn’t have rested if she had been around.
Anyway back to the blog, I was in bed, out of bed, sitting in the shade, back in bed and all this time I was gradually feeling worse and worse.
Caroline took the Patrol in to Darwin to finalise the details on the lens and do a little shopping, however when she got back found me dozing on the bed. She put her hand on me and nearly burnt it, asking me if we had a thermometer, which I said I thought there was one in our first aid kit, wrong!!! We have everything else in the first aid kit but a thermometer, I was sure that I put one in when I packed it. We have 3 first aid kits, 2 fairly comprehensive ones in the Patrol and one smaller one that I pack in my Camelbak when we go off hiking
Caroline said the first thing she needed to do was to get my temperature down and put it this way there is not much we can do here, we do not have access to a fan, so as I lay on the bed Caroline was bringing wet tea towels and flannels and placed them on various parts of my anatomy, and it did start to make me feel better, my temperature had started to come down.
Although Caroline was fairly certain it was heat or sun stroke she went and got the lap top to look at the symptoms of swine flu just to be sure, and I had to answer the questions she put to me from my death bed.
Do you have a sore throat? No
Do you have a cough? No
Do you have a flat snout? Yes.
Do you like Markets? No
Do you have two beady little eyes? Yes
Do you go looking for Truffles? Yes Often
Do you like play in Mud? Yes Often
Well, she said I don’t think you have swine flu, but whatever happens we still need to get your temperature down.
Tonight is Cheap Tuesday (Pizza night for the cost conscious traveller) Eagle Boys Pizza’s for $5.00 bucks each (£2.17) each in UK Money.
We had arranged the other day for Richard our friend to come over and have Pizza with us, but unfortunately Caroline had to cancel it, put it this way late this afternoon I was not in any fit state to do anything.
Along with the aid of the wet tea towels, and when the evening had started to cool off I had started to feel better, so came and sat out side under our awning, feeling like a wet piece of lettuce.
My wife said that just because I was feeling rough there was no way she was missing out on a Pizza, talk about kicking a man when he is down, and said she was going to order herself a Pizza then go and collect it, I hadn’t eaten all day, and realised that it was lunch time the day before when I last ate so no wonder I felt so dodgy.
Caroline jumped in the Patrol and drove over to Palmerston, to Eagle Boys Pizza and when she got back had brought a morsel for me to eat, well she really brought me a Cheese and Pepperoni pizza with added Pineapple, and a bottle of full fat coke, but said I should not eat all the pizza, but a little amount would make me feel better.
Our very dear friend in the UK, Karen Barber (aka Pikey) (aka Matron), said to me once that they give dehydrated children flat coke, as it contained all the things those little darlings needed to re hydrate them and give them back all the missing things that they need.
I hung out until 9.30 when my eyes were hanging out of my head, all the jets had flown over a short while ago and where tucked up under their (HAS) Hardened Aircraft Shelters, whilst the pilots where snuggled up under their “Biggles” Doona’s.
I was dreading going to bed as it’s a long night if you don’t sleep, but as I was so tired I hoped that I would sleep. We had not done today anything that we set out to do, but that is just one of those things, hopefully we can make up for it tomorrow.
So I bid you good night bloggers.
P.S. we looked at Kangaroojack earlier tonight when we uploaded the blog and we had exactly 21000 Hits.
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Willemien
non-member comment
swineflu
Hi Andy and Caroline, i hope you feel better Andy, im sorry but had to laugh, the swineflu test, verry funny, fingers x . The weather here is so crap, to much rain, havened been on my bike for weeks. Chris has some work in the pipeline, hopefully they keep there word. Lots of love Willemien xx