U.S. Capitol Visitor's Center Photowalk

Rather than the chaos of trying to figure out how to visit the various U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives buildings, it provides one focal point from which to enter the Capitol complex. Security, thank God, is very, very tight at the entrance especially, but throughout the edifice. 

The People's House has a new visitor's center called the U.S. Capitol Visitor Center. It is a wonder to experience and will restore your faith in the U.S. Senate and U.S. Congress.

The U.S. Capitol Police are professionals and get you through quickly but with the proper regard to prevent some jihadi or deranged individual who will be drawn to attack the beauty of these buildings and what they represent as symbols of American Democracy.

Two of the most innovative features of the U.S. Capitol Visitor Center are:

• You first report to a visitor's desk and are issued a bar coded pass. You wear one half of the bar coded pass on your shirt as you progress through the buildings
• A guide issues you headphones so you can hear her talk about the exhibits and history without hearing other guides guiding other groups about at the same time. 

Everyone will experience their visit in a different way. Below are a few photos of my visit.

With No Apologies Poem

It is not easy reading a poem about Sarah Bernhardt at the Frederick Coffee Company in Frederick, Maryland. 

Obstacles include chatty Hood College students, frantic AA Meeting drop ins, and hissing espresso machines blaring in the background at Daniel Armstrong's Dreamer's Poetry Series at he Frederick Coffee Company. ..but I tried.

With No Apologies, the poem I read, follows.

With No Apologies

"Legend remains victorious in spite of history." Sarah Bernhardt

After Paris, London and New York

In a life lived on stage with real drama,

Here I am among the Hollywood philistines

With their youth and money and brashness

And lines that can be said and re-said

To a forgiving camera; the theatre does not forgive.

I knew my lines and made them mine,

There was no one holding a cue card for me,

I stood before the audience and saw their faces,

All of them, and how they reacted to what I said

In plain sight, not like these Hollywood charlatans,

With their retakes and magical camera tricks

To hide every verbal and physical blemish.

That wily Marcel Proust created the actress La Berma

In his novel In Search of Time inspired by me.

Puccini’s Tosca was written for me.

I sat for famous painters and painted and sculpted myself.

During the Great War I performed for the troops

At the front lines and they gave me the Legion of Honor.

Illegitimate child of a courtesan…what did they know?

I owe Hollywood nothing…it was my role in Queen Elizabeth

That allowed Adolph Zukor to eventually found Paramount.

Here’s one for all the Hollywood hopefuls:

I have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

They seek fame; I sought the life-force behind words,

Words that create history...I was not acting…I was creation.

American Genius - SpaceX

For more SpaceX videos, click here.

Ever since the close of the Western Frontier exploring Outer Space has become the way for American's to continue their progress to the next stage of evolution. It is a very American idea. From Buck Rodgers to the Twilight Zone to the Outer Limits to Star Trek to the Mercury and Apollo programs, Outer Space has called Americans to discover, explore, find and conquer the natural elements to travel and live in its vast expanse.
SpaceX is a company that every day is undertaking the hard work, millions of tasks, and miracles taking us to Outer Space . I have followed it since its founding by Elon Must, who also founded PayPal and Zip2 corporation, since 2002.
Take a tour of Elon's company. The interior design has much to offer executives who want to get their employees to work together. My favorite line is where he gives credit to the scientists and engineers for making us a "space-faring civilization."
As a consultant who worked at NASA on Apollo once told me, "Apollo was a success because it was 400,000 private sector employees being managed by 50,000 government contract administrators." Space X goes even further, designing, building, testing and launching it own rockets for private sector companies and governments.
SpaceX is proving that the journey to space will be won by private companies like it that are lean, efficient, driven, and who hire brilliiant technicians and engineers.
Here is how SpaceX describes its mission:

"Although drawing upon a rich history of prior launch vehicle and engine programs, SpaceX is privately developing the Dragon crew and cargo capsule and the Falcon family of rockets from the ground up, including main and upper stage engines, the cryogenic tank structure, avionics, guidance & control software and ground support equipment.
With the Falcon 1, Falcon 9 and Falcon 9 Heavy launch vehicles, SpaceX is able to offer a full spectrum of light, medium and heavy lift launch capabilities to our customers. We are able to deliver spacecraft into any inclination and altitude, from low Earth orbit to geosynchronous orbit to planetary missions. The Falcon 9 and Falcon 9 Heavy are the only US launch vehicles with true engine out reliability.
They are also designed such that all stages are reusable, making them the world's first fully reusable launch vehicles. And our Dragon crew and cargo capsule, currently under development, will revolutionize access to space by providing efficient and reliable transport of crew and cargo to the ISS and other LEO destinations.
Our design and manufacturing facilities are located near the Los Angeles International airport, leveraging the deep and rich aerospace talent pool available in Southern California .
Our extensive propulsion and structural test facilities are located in Central Texas. We currently have launch complexes available in Vandenberg and Kwajalein Island , and in April 2007 we were granted use of and began developing Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral."

In his B-24, my Uncle Frank used to bomb the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy on Kwajalein, and it is good to see this island being used instead by SpaceX as a launch platform 65 years later.
When I was young, despite the horror of the Vietnam War and all the other bad news in the 60's and 70's, there was always the drama, inspiration and excitement of the Mercury and Apollo space programs. As I watch the Space X videos, that sense of wonder is rekindled.
I have collected space memorabilia and studied the space program and space-related businesses (for investment reasons) for years. For its brief history, Space X understands well the lessons of Mercury and Apollo (good and bad) and is taking us to the next stage of America's journey into space.
In the early 1990's, in a bid for financial freedom, I published a space financial newsletter until I discovered Phillips Publishing was doing the same but so much better. Still, I've stayed up on various space companies ever since. This one is a winner.
If I had large sums to invest, and if it was a public company, I would invest in SpaceX.

Working in Outer Space OMG

Image Credit: NASA
This photo stuns me.
Imagine doing this.
Here is how NASA describes it:

In Tandem

In this second spacewalk for the STS-126 mission, astronauts Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper (left) and Shane Kimbrough continued the process of removing debris and applying lubrication around the starboard Solar Alpha Rotary Joint (SARJ), replaced four more of the SARJ's 12 trundle bearing assemblies, relocated two equipment carts and applied lubrication to the station's robotic Canadarm2.

Emergency Exercise Carroll County MD Tornado

To help test our local emergency response services, I was a volunteer victim in a County-wide (Carroll County, MD) disaster exercise on August 2, 2008. The scenario tested was a tornado touching down on a family picnic at the Farm Museum of Carrol County grounds. The Carroll County Office of Public Safety ran the exercise.

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