Travis and I were at Durham’s excellent Museum of Life and Science yesterday for his friend Patrick’s birthday party. I had just finished playing with one exhibit where the museum visitor aims a satellite dish to various audio sources, one of which was from July 21st 1969.

“That’s one small step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind,” crackled the voice of Neil Armstrong from a distance of 43 years and 239,000 miles.

Moments later I learned from my smartphone that Armstrong has rejoined the heavens, having passed away at 82 from complications arising from his recent heart surgery.

I never met the man and wouldn’t know what to do if I had. I probably would’ve been too excited to speak. Armstrong was a “recluse’s recluse” as Dave Garrett, a former NASA spokesman, says. Still, I’ll long remember the thrill I got just by viewing the signature I saw in the guest book of the Lowell Observatory during our visit to Arizona two years ago.

The man who first left his mark on the moon also left it here. Pretty cool.

Travis made a new friend at his Art4Fun camp a few months ago and asked to set up a play date with him. I took him over to his friend’s home a few weeks ago and they had a wonderful time while I enjoyed chatting with his parents. We invited the family to our home for lunch today and everyone seemed to hit it off.

You can tell a lot about people by studying their children. If a kid instantly becomes fast friends with my kid there’s a good chance that kid’s parents are just as cool.

Considering the people Kelly and I are privileged to call friends, so many of them became part of our lives through the relationships first built by our kids. Some people worry that their social lives will end once they have kids. For us it has been just the opposite!

I’ve been fighting this sense of dread ever since Kelly and I returned from our weekend at Hanging Rock. You see, Saturday morning I left out a bowl of food and water for Jupiter, the feral cat who adopted our front porch as his home. Upon returning Sunday evening the food was still there, completely untouched.

I haven’t seen the little orange fuzzbucket since Friday and now I’m seriously wondering if we’ll ever see him again. Though he’s always been a wild cat and only adopted us late last fall, the cat has become part of the family. The enthusiasm he always shows when he comes tearing across the yard to see me really brightens my day.
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One thing I keep hearing about our kids is that they’re both “natural leaders.” Next to hearing how considerate they are and how helpful they are, this is some of the highest praise I can hear about our children. We saw this in action at Travis’s engineering camp last week when, in a room full of 150 people Travis fearlessly raised his hand and shared with everyone about a broken bus adventure. Hallie’s equally fearless about holding an opinion and not being afraid to share it. I wonder where they get that?

I’m not sure what professions each will pursue but I’m sure it won’t take them long to establish themselves!

I learned two things this weekend:

1. Oracle CEO Larry Ellison spent over $500 million buying himself a Hawaiian island, the island of Lanai.
2. Only 0.58 percent of Liberians have electric service to their homes. The hydroelectric dam needed to increase supply needs $165 million in repairs.

I went to bed last night wondering how someone like Larry Ellison can purchase such a luxury when there are people in the world who consider electricity a luxury. Malcolm Gladwell said that 50 years from now no one will remember Steve Jobs but they will remember Bill Gates, because Gates’s wealth is being put to good use in charities working to improve health, among other things. Looks like people will be saying “Ellison who?” in the future as well.