Sorry for such a late update. It was another busy day. And, I'm kind of (ok, more than kind of) a little groggy. Sailing last night was excellent. We did fairly well. There were two Thistle's out who blew us out of the water (those are such cool fast boats). I think we probably ended up 4th or so, all things considered. But I'm really happy with our performance. I'm getting so much better at judging wind shifts and whether we're using good tactics or not. Its strange, because I'm not conscious of absorbing this information. But its happening slowly.

My mom says we use parenthesis so much because people don't use footnotes anymore. I think that may be true, especially since footnotes don't interupt the "flow" of writing as much as parenthesis do. I'm going to use a lot of footnotes in the book I'm writing.

I want to be an astronaut. (ok, duh). But not just because of the fly in space thing. That's cool. But these astronauts (plus some engineers - not me, unfortunately) get to spend two weeks scuba diving off of Key Largo. Its making me jealous. Plus, you know, jetting around in T-38's. And one of the people I'm working with has all these cool pictures of astronauts at NOLS - which I've always wanted to do, kind of like Outward Bound on steroids with more educational merit. Of course, trade that with always having to smile for the cameras and being a minor local celebrity. Well, I don't know. I like my job, but somehow I think it lacks a certain level of excitement. Though, I think this is one of those things you are never satisfied about. Always wanting more excitement.

Its making me think I should really start flying again. I guess I'll need to start saving money for at least a year before I could really make that worthwhile. Not that it would make my job any more exciting. But I just feel boring. Plus not flying is like having this big gaping hole in who I am.

Boring!? I must have unusual standards of excitement. Peru, Greece, sailing, Colorado, skiing, hiking, flying space shuttle simulators, working in mission control... and I still don't feel stimulated enough! What the heck?!

Remind me never to give N and/or S any thoughts about each other. I should just be a good friend and listen without anything but the sympathetic comment. Complicated relationships just aren't my forte. I like things simple. "I like you." or "I don't like you.", none of this in between crap. Oh, its so hard for me to not give my opinion about things!

I just wrote the guy who is arranging our trip to Peru and reemed him out about not getting us information that I requested via e-mail. He wrote me a very apologic reply that included: "Sorry its taken me a week to respond, I was in the Gualapagos with Q. Noor" I guess he can be forgiven, eh?

Oooh, scattered thoughts, here's some awesome pictures of SpaceShipOne on Monday. Maybe I should quit my job and become a Burt Rutan groupie. If only I had an engineering mind like that! Another engineering mind, Jen O., took the risk that has the potential for enormous rewards and accepted an incredibly cool job! So, good luck to her!

And here's an e-mail I wrote to Cari today -- 100% true and scary:

So you know how I e-mailed you a while ago and said our neighbors thought Bennet was a vicious attack dog that was going to jump out the front window and eat a baby? Well, Nick R. just called me. He said he heard this banging noise coming from our house from a HALF A BLOCK AWAY! Apparently Bennet is doing full-on body slams of the front window, over and over and over! Nick said about 5 slams into it, the light in the front window flickered and went out. So, if Bennet is a little more retarded than he was before, now you know why... You have a whacked out dog. Anyway, I'm going to go buy a gate tonight to keep them out of the front part of the house.