Florida Spring Break

The main attraction here is the Space Center tour. We decided to do it first because it takes a few hours and so that we didn't forget to go on it. It's great because this is a real working government facility that really puts people and stuff into space. It's not animatronics like Disney; this is the real deal people. So think about that the next time you start singing "It's A Small World."

I'm no astronomer, but I think that this giant sphere contains constellations and shows their relative proximity to each other. My Dad's always been a fan of the stars, and some of my fondest childhood memories were camping and checking out the stars with him. He even named his dog Perseus after the mythological Kraken-slayer Clash of the Titans dude who saved Cassiopeia.

There wasn't too much excitement going on around here cause they save that for launch days when they strap some astronauts onto a rocket and blow their asses into space. Too bad there wasn't a launch today, but I already knew that it wasn't going to happen. They plan that crap out like months in advance. It's NASA for crying out loud - you think they're just gonna randomly shoot stuff into space?

This is about as close as you can get to the launch pads if you aren't a scientist, mechanic, or astronaut. Since my Dad and I were none of the above, we had to settle for checking it out from the top of this 4 story viewing platform. I tried to argue with the security guards that my Dad was a computer programmer and I was out of this world, but since we didn't have security encoded name badges, we couldn't get closer. I told my Dad I was gonna make a break for it, but when he said that he couldn't afford to post bail for me, I gave up on that idea.

I took a picture of the pad with my camera through those stationary binoculars that you have to put a quarter in to use. As you can see on the picture on the right, the zoom in the binoculars was just the same as the zoom on my camera, so what's the point in wasting a quarter? Normally I would have pissed that I squandered my money so frivolously, but since these binoculars were free, I didn't have to worry.

A cape is defined as "a piece of land jutting into the sea or some other body of water." Google map this bitch and you'll see that the piece of land that the NASA Space Center sits on fits that definition. We had to drive over the water to get there, and this joint was exactly like I remember it when I was just a wee lad of 16 years.