A NON-SPACE / MOVIE RELATED BLOG... But an actual journal entry!! So anyways, if you’ve been visiting this page since I first started it in October of 2000 (Mr. Burns from The Simpsons: “Not bloody likely.”), you’d notice that I constantly mentioned a girl I called Denise—not her real name, of course—whom I met in college at Cal State Long Beach in Fall of ‘00. Well... Being that I thought about her constantly (and still do...which is the point of this new blog), I tried to dispose or put anything away that reminded me of her. I also tried not to look at her profile on MySpace...despite the fact she’s on my buddy list [deleting her from my list would definitely not be a good idea...since I’d eventually regret not being a part of (at least) the online aspect of her circle]. I was successful in trying not to stare at a photo of her for maybe, like, 5 months...but temptation gave in a few weeks ago and now I’m back reading up on her in her profile and seeing what kind of new, gorgeous pictures she has up. She hasn’t updated her MySpace profile for a couple of months, but her friends did, and it sure does make my day (I’m being sarcastic. It drives me insaaane.) when I see her wearing all these sexy outfits in these different photos. She never dressed that way (i.e. show that much skin) when we had a class together in college, which is disheartening because it obviously meant that there was no one for her to impress while she was at school. Which is opposite of me...since I tried to dress and look as nice as possible to make an impression on her...despite the fact we had a class together only once a week.

So here I am, back to Square One... Trying to think about how I could get her out of my mind again. There was one new photo I saw of some dude putting an arm around her, but I don’t really know if he’s just a close friend or the boyfriend I said not-so-nice things about in this entry. I would think that seeing these photos of her, especially ones where other guys are lucky enough to stand right next to her in pictures when I haven’t seen her in person for like, um, 4 years [I had a really good chance of seeing her again early this month...when I attended a Vietnamese culture show (Denise is Vietnamese) at Cal State Long Beach. One of my co-workers who is also a CSULB alumnus directed the show.] would finally get me to shun any thought of her because of the anger, but it doesn’t. 5 months or 6 months, or even a year... It would only be inevitable that I see what’s going on in her life again in the future. Which basically means I’m in as much a no-win situation not thinking about her as I am thinking about her. ‘Cause life sure does feel empty when you try not to think about someone who you were very, very fond about for many years. And still are.

EDIT: Lakers: 99, Suns: 98... HELLL YEA!!! Kobe vs. Nash: Who's the MVP now, biatches???

ABOVE: The green line marks the path traveled by the New Horizons spacecraft as of
8:00 PM, Pacific Standard Time, on April 12, 2006. It is 64,884,826 miles from Earth.
Click here to view the official webpage showing where New Horizons is in space.

NEW HORIZONS Final Update (For Now)... As of right now, the Pluto-bound New Horizons spacecraft is flying past Mars’ orbit...being at a current distance of 65 million miles from Earth and speeding its way towards an encounter with Jupiter on February 28 of next year. All but one of Horizons’ seven instruments have now been checked out and will begin making observations within a few months [two instruments, the Student Dust Counter (built by the University of Colorado) and the Solar Wind At Pluto (SWAP) device, have already made "first light" observations]. The final instrument to be checked out, the LORRI (LOng Range Reconnaissance Imager) camera, will not open its lens cover and be tested till later this Fall...since the instrument is extremely sensitive to light, and mission engineers don’t wanna risk damaging it if the camera was accidentally pointed at the Sun. In terms of the Jupiter flyby in 2007, the planned observation list for the giant planet will be finalized by October, 2006. New Horizons has already made three trajectory correction maneuvers (TCMs) to fine-tune its flight path to Jupiter and Pluto...two thruster burns on January 28 and 30, respectively, and the third one on March 9.



In terms of mementos that New Horizons is carrying onboard during its journey out of the solar system, it bears a canister holding the ashes of Pluto discoverer Clyde Tombaugh (shown above), a piece of material from the experimental SpaceShipOne vehicle and a Florida coin commemmorating the U.S. space program (both shown below).



Unless events warrant it, I probably won’t talk about New Horizons again till the few months leading up to the Jupiter flyby. See ya!



NEW HORIZONS Blog Entries Archive:

September 26, 2005
December 19, 2005
January 7, 2006
January 17, 2006
January 19, 2006
April 12, 2006

UPDATE: Today also marks the 25th anniversary of the very first space shuttle launch. Hail Columbia!