Discovery

The orbiter Discovery lifted off in what appeared to be a flawless launch. I just found out yesterday evening that my niece, Stacy, and her family are in Orlando for family fun at Disneyworld. I hope they got to see the launch and I wish I had known earlier that they were down there. I could have gotten them into the area where the launch clock is and they could have seen the launch from relatively close up.

Space Shuttle Launch

Pictured is Discovery on launch pad 39B at Kennedy Space Center. Lift-off is scheduled for 5:02pm (Eastern) this afternoon.

Not Forgotten On Memorial Day

Buster Visits Larry

And reports:

I stopped by Larry's yesterday and spent about an hour w/ him- just chatting. He said that Larson Jaenicke had been by to see him. He was in town for his mother's 93rd birthday.
Larry starts his treatments this Monday which consist of radiation and chemotherapy. He and Ted Kennedy have the same ailment.
Larry is guardedly optimistic and while his speech is just a tad bit clipped, he was bright and optimistic. The grip in his left hand is much weaker than the right and that is the only physical difference, besides an overall lack of strength and endurance. He had been playing competitive tennis for some time.
You never know- hug and kiss your loved ones. B.

The added emphasis is mine and I echo the sentiment!

A Reminisce From Doug Elliott

I attended the dedication for Michael Christmas in December and have followed news and memories on Fred’s blog, but until now have not contributed. I feel that it is fitting that on this Memorial Day weekend that we should remember the contribution that Michael made for us and his country. I knew Michael from Little League baseball and City League basketball, and of course our days in school at Camden Junior High and Camden High –it seems as if I had always known him.
The last time that I talked to Michael was in the summer of 1968…he was at a gas station and we spoke briefly…about college …he didn’t think that that he was going back to USC in the fall and that he would probably get drafted.
Then, in the spring of 1969 someone told me that he had been killed in Viet Nam. I was finishing final exams at Clemson-what a shock!
Michael was a member of Company D, 1/52 Infantry, 198 Brigade (AMERICAL).
The Americal Division consisted of 3 brigades, the 11th Brigade, the 196th Brigade, and the 198th Brigade. The 196th area of operation was from Da Nang to Tam Ky a distance of about 40 miles. The 198th area of operation was from Tam Ky to Quang Nai a distance of about 40 miles, and the 11th area of operation was from Quang Nai to Duc Pho a distance of about 40 miles. All of the brigades operated from the South China Sea to the border with Laos. The Americal Division Headquarters was located at Chu Lai…if you have Google Earth you can type in the following coordinates to locate this on the map: lat=15.455004, lon=108.693237…….if you pan down to the lower left, you will be in Quang Nai Province-this is where Co D, 1/52 Infantry was located.
I know these facts, for you see, some 18 months after Michael was killed, I went to Viet Nam and was assigned to the Americal Division in Chu Lai…flew over Quang Nai Province and most of the areas that I described above.
I have struggled writing this because until this past December during the dedication program, I did not know that Michael was in the Americal Division ….. I have tried to remember the names of some of the firebases (FB), landing zones (LZ), and units but the names escape me now.
I hope this helpful,
Doug Elliott
If you want to know more about the Americal Division go to: www.americal.org.

International Space Station Sighting For Tuesday

This is for Columbia, but Camden should be very, very close:

Tuesday, May 20 at 10:18pm
visible for 3 minutes
maximum elevation 45 degrees above the horizon
approaching from 10 degrees above WSW
departing 43 degrees above NNWThis overpass should be very visible if the nighttime skies are clear. There are other opportunities for the next few days and I will be adding some later.

Pick out the correct compass orientation and look for a very bright light moving through the sky. The ISS is approximately 230 miles up and travels at 17,500mph so it is not like looking at a passing airplane.

[update] Interestingly the ISS is viewable at my house at exactly the same time (although Central time), but it will be almost directly overhead. The space station travels in a continually changing elliptical orbit so the directions here will be different from the Columbia directions. Here in a couple of days I'll post a screenshot of just how the orbit looks.

Sunday PM View From My Back Porch

Larry Owens Update ::

From Ann Ray Boykin via Buster:

I just got news today that Larry Owens has a serious cancerous brain tumor. We not only had our connections from high school, but he was also in my husbands Dental School class and they graduated together. I called his office manager to verify the information that I had and she confirmed that he was diagnosed about 3 weeks ago, went for an MRI which showed a large fast growing tumor. They have done radiation and will follow the results in six weeks and maybe do chemo. He can't be alone and Cathy has taken over the load of the office and different friends are coming in staying with him and takeing him out. He's mobile now, but his mental capacity is greatly reduced. The prognosis sounds dire to me, but when there is prayer there is always hope. I don't know what kind of networking you have in Camden, but I'm sure they could use some male help. Calvin is trying to get in touch with the president of his dental class to see where we can plug in. I know you may already have this information but would rather repeat than go unknown. I think I have you E address correct. I would appreciate it if you would verify the receipt of this contact and if you have any other information. Thanks! Ann Ray Boykin

My thoughts continue daily to be with Larry and his family as I am sure is true of each of us!

Monument Photograph

Jim Ring tells me that Johnny Jaynes deserves credit for the photograph of the monument.

There are several NASA photographs up on the web which will eternally be credited to me and, to this day, I don't know how I got the credit and there will never be a way for me to correct the error so I am very sensitive to giving credit where credit is due. In this case the photo credit is due to Johnny!

New Granddaughter!

Rylee Quinn Porter born this afternoon-6lb 10oz!

We will be heading to Nashville tomorrow morning anticipating some burping and drooling!

A Correction!

I just got the letter from Buster containing copies of the articles about the Michael Christmas memorial and I truly appreciate them and will keep them with my most treasured items, but I have to correct the credit to the photograph. All I did was supply the digital file to LaDonna Beeker. I was not able to attend the memorial service although I have subsequently visited over Easter weekend. This photograph should have been credited either to Townley Redfearn or, I believe, Richard Reed. I'm not sure which should be credited but it surely should not have been me and, for that, I apologize!

More Sad News ::

I have been in the habit of reading the obits in The State on-line edition each morning for several years and I found this item about the death of Katherine and Jerry Owen's daughter:

Born: Tuesday, October 27, 1970
Died: Sunday, May 04, 2008

CASSATT - Funeral service for Rebecca Elizabeth Owens, 37, will be held Wednesday at 4:00 p.m. at DeKalb Baptist Church with burial to follow in the church cemetery. Rev. Keith Coates and Rev. Denny Haston will officiate. The family will receive friends Tuesday 6-8 p.m. at Powers Funeral Home, Lugoff.
Mrs. Owens died Sunday, May 4, 2008. Born in Camden, she was a daughter of Jerry Sidney and Katherine Graham Owens. She enjoyed cooking and shopping, and was a avid animal lover.
Surviving are her husband, Michael Eugene Truesdale; father and mother of Cassatt; brother, Jimmy (Robin) Owens of Camden; sister, Amy (John) Truesdale of Cassatt; grandmother, Ruth Graham of Camden; nieces, Taylor Young, Kylee Owens, Sierra Anderson, Savanna Anderson and Madyson Anderson; and nephew, Lane Young. She was predeceased by a brother, Jay Owens.

I remember Katherine, Jerry, and Katherine's sister, Glenda, well and I have expressed my condolences on-line. I have a step-daughter about the same age whom I love dearly and I would be devastated if I lost her!

A couple of interesting things:
I probably would have missed this except for the mention of the grandmother, Ruth Graham.

My grandparents are buried in Dekalb Cemetery and here is a photograph I took there a couple of years ago:



I just happened to realize that there may be some family connection here that I never knew about. My grandparents were also Truesdales and I spent a good deal of the early years of my life in the DeKalb area.

Dealing With Adversity

This past week has brought enough bad news to last for quite some time and I have no quick and easy answers on how to best deal with facing serious medical problems. Other than being both mildly diabetic and mildly hypertensive I am in excellent health and I take a few pills a day to control what ails me. One of the benefits of my job is that I get a yearly physical from a NASA medical center in addition to my regular doctor visits so any potential problems are generally caught pretty early as was the case with the type II diabetes, but all too often the challenges we face come upon us without warning.

My wife was heading home from work on January 23, 1998 and was about 1/2 mile from home when her little Toyota pickup was hit by an 18 wheeler. She was ejected through the passenger door window, which was rolled up, and she landed about 40 feet away. Luckily one of the witnesses was a nurse who helped greatly until the ambulance got to the scene.

The force of the blow and ejection tore the subclavian artery which goes from the heart to the left arm in half. When I got to the hospital the trauma surgeons as well as the heart surgeon met with me and described what needed to be done. I sincerely hope that no reader has had to sit down with doctors to discuss such a serious situation because they're not going to give you much positive hope. The heart surgeon told me that, in his experience, less than 5% of patients with an injury such as my what my wife faced lived. That is a sobering thing to hear.

The surgeons worked through the night and J. came out of surgery at around 4am. She was given a goretex arterial graft and immediately taken to the neurological intensive care unit. Amazingly there was little other damage. The cheek bones in the right cheek were broken and her jaw was broken. During one surgical session the plastic surgeon took the broken cheek bones out and put in a titanium plate and the maxillofacial surgeon wired the jaw.

J. was in a coma for exactly 5 weeks and spent a total of 8 weeks in the neurological intensive care unit. The head injury is very much like having had a stroke and she spent another 8 weeks in the local rehabilitation hospital. She basically had to relearn how to walk and her cognitive reasoning ability was severely damaged and continues to be problematic even until now. As I say, her head injury is very much like having had a stroke, but she is doing pretty well with most things now.

I am going to be adding some links over to the right to The American Red Cross and The National Bone Marrow Registry.

I give blood as often as I can and I also donate platelets although I have been derelict in this lately. Platelet donations take about 2 1/2 hours so scheduling this is, more often than not, a problem for me. I am also registered as a bone marrow donor.

A good friend, Ronnie, died of leukemia several years ago, but before he passed away his family had organized a bone marrow drive and I participated. As it turns out I was a preliminary match with the child of a U.S. soldier. A preliminary match triggers another round of blood testing which can take a couple of months. Unfortunately before the testing was complete the child had passed away. I wish I had been able to help, but I remain active on the donor list.

I urge everyone to donate to whichever charitable cause is most important to them. United Way contributions can be designated and I always make sure that hospice care gets the majority of my donation.