Here's some news you may like to hear...NASA will pay you $160 a day to lay in bed. I'm not kidding.   NASA is seeking volunteers for Spaceflight Simulation Studies by using long-term bed rest to simulate the effects of weghtlessness on the human body. It seems they are getting ready to send astronauts back into space...or maybe pillownauts.  

I admit that I always looked down my nose and barely tolerated the dog lovers who constantly peppered me with pet pictures and their related cooing.  Over the years we have had dogs, which i have tolerated, and one wonderful cat (Kitzel).  As many of you may know, this year, after many petless years, I submitted to my wife Joanne's request and we got a hyper allergenic puppy.  Her name is Charcoal and she is a Schnoodle (Schnauzer-poodle).

    I like it when we -- that is Flo, me and all of the children -- are in the same time zone. I can safely write about this because my daughter, Mea, and son-in-law, Charles, who live in Seattle, are in New York for the next few days. Everyone else lives in New York and, until Monday, we'll all be in the same time zone.

Every year coaching hockey we have a draft.  Each team is allowed to protect 5 kids from year-to-year, as they enter the division at 14 and leave at 17.  It is always a big challenge dealing with the kids that go back into the draft, particularly when we are not able to get them back on my team.  Last year, the last kid picked in the draft absolutely loved playing for us and was sincerely upset at the possibility of not getting back on our team (he did improve significantly).  

For years, I have ended each day asking my children to “tell me something nice you did today.” I have heard really great stories over the years.

Marisa came home from L.A. to attend her cousin Tara's wedding. Tara was the flower girl when Shelly and I married. When Marisa took flight to CA, she left her softball equipment home. She pitched, caught, played every infield position.   Initially I played her where I lacked someone to do the job. When the girls began to pitch, we found my daughter framed the plate well and we developed her as a catcher; she threw out her share of baserunners.

One of the most solemn prayers we say on Yom Kippur is U'netaneh Tokef, written centuries ago.  It is in many ways the highlight of the long service.  

In Star Trek, The Motion Picture, a destructive space entity travels back to earh to find its creator. In doing so it obiliterates every nonplanet thing in it path except (cue the music) the Starship Enterprise. The crew discovers that it's Voyager I which encountered an alien culture who then decided to fulfill its mission of reporting back to its creator.