Graduates launched into space

This past weekend we attended my youngest niece's high school graduation ceremony. The good thing was that it was held at 9am, before the heat of the day really kicked in. The bad thing was, it was held at 9am!!


Some 400 kids were graduating from McAllen High School (MacHi, for short). The school was started in 1908, and it graduated its first kids in 1912. More recently, Mike Fossum, now a NASA astronaut, graduated from MacHi in 1976. In fact, Mike launched in the Space Shuttle at 4pm that very afternoon. At the ceremony, they played a short video of Mike doing "spacey" things, and wishing the new graduates well. It was pretty cool, and a good example of what you can do, if you stick to school and graduate. Reach for the stars, kids. It did make me feel rather puny, considering what I've done since graduation. Oh well, it takes all kinds of people, and all that rot.
The parents of the grad organized a party for that afternoon, and much food and too much beer was consumed. It was blisteringly hot, easily over 95 degrees, but fortunately they had a swimming pool to help us stay cool.


This was the first time I over-imbibed in many a moon. I didn't notice anything particularly wrong, even after the last beer. Lost track of how many I drank, but it must have been around a dozen. Very unlike me, but hell, it was so hot out, and, hey, is this a party? I didn't start to feel bad until everyone had left and we tried to hit the sack. Without all that motion, my body gave me the unmistakable signal, and I promptly hurled several times (in the toilet, fortunately) before being able to fall asleep.

The older we get, the slower we recover, and I was moving pretty gingerly and slowly the next morning. Was it worth the pain? Hard to say.

Is it worth the pain to get "ink?" One of my nephews was sporting a new tattoo. His Mom couldn't get too upset about it, though. Look at what it says...


Awwww....

We had a good time at the party, and I enjoyed "arguing" with a couple of the partygoers. Didn't really argue so much with the fundamentalist preacher as "discuss" religion. This preacher just would NOT condemn Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson for their insistence that God had punished America for its sins, such as gays, lesbians, and our allegedly "permissive" culture by "allowing" 9/11 to happen. My patience with God-fearing people is short, but he's a nice guy overall, so I didn't slam him too harshly.

I saved the hard slams for one of my wifes old boyfriends. Her first boyfriend, in fact. His initials are, fittingly, BS. We began arguing politics rather loudly and a few of the other partygoers cleared the decks for us. He produced almost every hackneyed excuse for Republicans you can think of while insisting that the Democrats are just as bad. I tend to agree, somewhat.

The Democrats have fallen far, far short of what I consider to be a viable, strong party that stands up for their ideals. In my short time on Earth, the Democrats will screw you JUST A LITTLE BIT LESS than the Republicans. Of course, if you're a big businessman, you tend to lean Republican, but what irks me is people on the lower rungs of the economic ladder who STILL think that the Republicans are their friend.

I can't remember every single thing that we said (see above reference to too much beer), but, in my mind, I was fucking BRILLIANT! (see again: beer) heh heh. I do wish we could have had a recording of the exchanges. For all I know, I could have been totally full of shit. Fortunately, we kept it on a relatively friendly, even-keeled "disagreement" level and didn't come close to blows. Good thing, because the guy is rather much larger than me, and he's an ex-Marine. Certainly doesn't make him a genius, however.

Sunday morning was rather painful. We had a 350-mile drive ahead of us, augh! Fortunately the wife drove most of the way while I recuperated.

Once again, congratulations grads! Good luck cleaning up the total mess we're leaving you!