Pride
CS Lewis said that pride is the basis of all human sin – ALL human sin. Don’t know if he’s right or not, but old CSL rarely gets it wrong. Very closely connected to pride is egotism. A startling example of egotism, in my opinion, is the news item that America slammed a satellite into the moon Friday morning. The problem is not only that the bullet cost us $79 million bucks (which it did). Nor is the problem only that we did it to see if ice and water would fly up to be photographed (it didn’t). No, the real problem is that the moon is not ours to slam crap into. The moon doesn’t belong to America, nor to the earth for that matter. The moon is – the moon – not something to experiment with. Don’t get me wrong – I’m NASA’s biggest fan. I think exploration is worth what it costs. I still get misty eyed when rockets successfully launch, and shuttles make it successfully home. But slamming crap into the moon, and leaving our junk on the surface or floating around in space, just because we can – that is pure hubris. CSL would be ashamed, and I am too.

Winter prep
I really don’t like prepping for winter. It means all the stuff I like is dying for a few months. Disconnecting garden hoses, draining our fountains, cutting the flowers back, scalping the lawn, checking antifreeze levels, draining the mower, etc – it all depresses me. At this time of year, I envy you folks that live where no prep is needed. You all just go on with your merry lives, oblivious of the fact that winter is coming. The only benefit I can think of, when it comes to me versus you, is that I might get to build a stegosaurus out of snow this winter. Try doing that with your sand, you endless-summer clowns!