Last Post from Prescott

This will definitely be the last post from Prescott. As soon as I'm done with this, I'm tearing the system down and boxing it up for the drive to Michigan. We've gotten most of the stuff out of the apartment and down in our storage area. That will make loading it on the truck fast and easy. Even better, we have help coming tomorrow afternoon for the really heavy stuff. We may be able to update from the road, depending on what sort of hotel we can find when we get tired of driving. We are still looking at Monday afternoon/evening for our arrival in Burt, Michigan. That gives us a couple days to unload before we have to have the truck back, so we won't have to kill ourselves as soon as the wheels hit Debbie's mom's driveway.

Got word that Ted Kennedy died today. I hate to speak ill of the dead, but hanging on to his Senate seat long after he was physically able to even make a perfunctory effort at the job was a disgrace. Doing it so there could be a "plan of succession" is on par with drowning someone in your car then not bothering to call the cops until the next day. We have this thing called a Constitution which lays out exactly what is to happen when a Senator is incapacitated or dies while in office. Senate Dems may have heard of it. Or not; by their actions I would suspect they've never seen it.

If you think Political Correctness is just a recent irritant in political discourse, do yourself a favor and go watch this video. This is why I don't bother with any of the networks' news programs; a film clip or image can be manipulated to tell 100 different stories, none of which are even a passing acquaintance of the truth.

And finally, it looks grim for the Spirit rover. It has been stuck in soft sand for months, and just when NASA thinks they have a plan to get it unstuck, a dust storm hits, cutting the available power from the solar panels (also a good argument for an RTG power source like those used on the first Mars landers). Still, not a bad run for what was supposed to be a 90-day mission.

OK; that's it. The next post will either be from a hotel somewhere between here and Michigan, or will be from Debbie's mom's house.