This sculpture, "Ad Astra," stands in front of main door to the Air and Space museum and I snapped this only-minorly-PhotoShopped picture before everything went to hell on Easter Sunday. I never really noticed it before and I've been to the Air and Space Museum a lot... and when I say a lot, I mean, a whole lot. At one point, I knew a dude who was getting a degree in Aeronautical Engineering who gave me a tour of the place and opened up such details to me as "Hey, here's something I learned in my Space Vehicle Atmosphere Reentry class, you wanna know why the burn mark on Apollo 11 reentry capsule is in a different place than on the Apollo 9 reentry capsule?"

Yes, please.

He gave me such a good education that I could probably have been a docent at the museum with very little effort and I began giving tours of the place myself to any out of town guests that happened through town from my former life.

It pays to know people.

"Ad Astra" means "to the stars" in Latin. But I think if I tried really hard, I could make myself believe it meant, "Dude, look up here and check out that crazy-assed blue sky."