China to Launch Manned Spacecraft

BEIJING — China will launch three astronauts this month to dock with an orbiting experimental module, and the crew might include its first female space traveler, a government news agency said Saturday.
A rocket carrying the Shenzhou 9 spacecraft was moved to a launch pad in China's desert northwest on Saturday for the mid-June flight, the Xinhua News Agency said, citing an space program spokesman.
The three-member crew will dock with and live in the Tiangong 1 orbital module launched last year, Xinhua said. The government has not said how long the mission will last.
Xinhua cited Niu Hongguang, deputy commander in chief of the manned space program, as saying the crew "might include female astronauts."
The government said in 2010 that two female air force pilots had joined the astronaut program but has disclosed no other details.

CRONIS' TRANSLATION --- China will execute three barely-qualified doomed prisoners this month in an elaborate and costly incineration using the Shenzhou 9 POS bottle-rocket aka "Divine Craft" aka "Chingy-chingy CHOW!" aka "Bottle Rocket of Moderate Death and Sadness".  The three prisoners might include a female perpetrator, a government news agency (aka Mindcrime Evil Control Fart) said Saturday.
A rocket carrying the "Chingy-Chingy CHOW!" was moved to a launch pad in China's desert (aka, not the mountainy-part or the violently overcrowded and polluted watery part) for the mid-June execution, the Xinhua News Agency said, citing a space-program spokesman (aka prisoner/scientist).
The three-prisoner crew will explode at 1000 feet and die into a pesky village blocking a future dam which will power more Chickity China Chinese Chicken restaurants, stating, "Have a drumstick and your brain stops tickin'."
The government said in 2010 that two female prostitutes have joined the astronaut program and have minimal STDs but disclosed no other details.

Your Kids Make You Retarded

  Firstly, the new Rush album Clockwork Angels is due out next week, and it's been leaked onto YouTube.  There's no concern though, I of course will buy it so I won't affect sales.  It's very progressive like the way they used to be in the mid-'70s in the same way Emerson, Lake and Palmer's triumphant 1972 release of Tarkus is progressive (which interestingly ranked #9 in the Billboard Top 200 and #1 in the UK at the time, yeah, your parents were probably "banging" to this, because A Passion Play was #3 the next summer by Jethro Tull.. this was what was on the radio at the time!  Frack Lady Gaga!  To hell with Linkin' Park!  THIS was what it was all about, and Elvis can choke on his own b'cawk.)
  Update*  The link was just taken down after only being up for 2 hours.  Still, you can hear the song Carnies on my hidden website page here:  MikeCronis.com Hidden Page.

  So there I am at work, minding my own business when someone started talking about kids.  It's a common subject I'm bored to death about.  I mentioned that people stop learning when they have kids.  They stop growing as people.  I was countered with the argument that no, this is not the case, and in fact you start growing as a person.  I insisted on an example, because most people I know who have kids were so burned-out and glazed-over in their eyes and all their hobbies stopped and life became all about their kids.  He explained that you watch how they grow cognitively and then you learn about yourself that way.  I was unimpressed. 

  I watched a lot of Sesame Street and other child-developmental shows when I was young, and then again when I was in my early 20s to understand child development.  So fascinated I was about it that I spent many years afterwards watching the hidden subtext of cognitive learning and techniques by use of color selection, sound selection and childrens' responses.  It was very intriguing on all media levels.  I explained this and insisted on an example that I might have missed since he said actually having kids makes it more poignant.
  He gave an anecdote of how his kid had a Buzz Lightyear (of the Pixar film Toy Story) doll and after several months got on top of the couch and jumped off it, holding the doll high.  His eyes gleamed in delight.  The other child-owner in the discussion also was delighted by this, "See how you learn by this?"

  Babies are stupid and learn by trial-and-error usually.  No duh.

  I was disgusted.  That was not a very good example.  Indeed, it seems rather retarded, but it was obvious the child assumed he could possibly fly if he held Buzz up high and jumped, or perhaps he was using imagination to show flight for the toy.  Either way.  No big deal.  Rather dull.  Who hasn't done something like that?  I admitted to him it was pretty uninteresting.
  He argued that when you're a teacher, you learn more from your students than not.  I've always found this not the case and said so, because I research the HELL out of something before I teach it.  Rarely did I ever have to dig something up beforehand to the students.  I prepared for it early-on and did my job properly.  He then countered I was not a very good teacher then, though I neglected to tell him all of my students scored a grade of "A" in my entire career in the USAF because of my good teaching of whom some were real stumps.  So proud I am of that fact that it's on my resume.  I, my friends, am an expert teacher.
   I'm still pissed-off about his slight though.  I doubt I'll ever forgive him for it.  He also said several months earlier that I don't love cars by way of argument that I have no shitty ones which might be cool in aesthetic purposes; however I must confess I take such good care of my vehicles that I go as far as change the oil twice as often as I should and when detailing with Q-Tips actually wax the underside of my hood and the engine components.  I've used bottled water to rinse off my car in North Dakota because the water was too hard with minerals.  He, on the other hand hasn't washed his beat-up shit-cars in months and takes his vehicles in annually to trust the dealership to do their maintenance.  One car is missing a dashboard for the last year and has mismatched seats from another car in it.  None of the cars have ever seen wax.  I love my vehicles so much I don't trust dealerships to do any work on them and if I'm stuck having to go to a dealership I insist on waiting in the garage and watch them work on it, verifying torque settings on the wrenches and what-not.  I'm sure I'm a PITA for them but.. ah yes, I don't love cars.

  You see, people have kids and the majority (yeah, not all) give up a lot of their life to live for their kids.  A glaze goes over their eyes of happiness and they forget that they don't have a life any more.  They're just in joy of the kid.  Fine fine, but it's a bit sad.  The kid is almost always unimpressed with this and will rebel in their teens regardless and be ungrateful.  Guaranteed.  Inevitable to some degree.  It's the Way of Life.  In my opinion, the parents act retarded over this.  They love it.  They love thinking they're learning something when, no, you're not, unless you are super-dumb and had no passion for investigation.  The Internet was the best thing that ever happened to me for that hobby, gleaning all sorts of goodies making my thirst for trivia satiated.  I enjoy learning new things on my own.  It's fun.  When a parent thinks their kid is the shit, they usually are wrong.  No one gives a shit about your kid except you.  Even your kid doesn't give a shit that you care that much.  They don't require or want that much attention.  Some is good, sure, but doting, gushing?  Nope.  I found that about girlfriends too.  38 Special helped with the song Hold on Loosely.  Good wisdom there.  Parents get so involved with the kid's doing things that they become brain-dead about it with glee.  By 16 the kid has moved-on mentally while the parent's brain has regressed into mush and can't go back to normal.  The parent loves the kid so much that in a few years of birth, the stay-at-home parent becomes a mental-case and is happy to watch pre-kindergarten TV all day and talk baby-talk all day long until, well, they become to the same mental level as the kid a bit.  When they snap out of it, that rubber-band of sanity doesn't have the same tensity, and you never make it back all the way day after day until.  Zombie-time, and your kids resent it, and you're done.

  It's not the kids that make you complete.  It's your passion for life, and admiring them dosen't improve you except for your capacity for compassion.  The secret lies elsewhere.  Find it.

  So if you have to have kids, keep your wits about you, or try to.  The Earth doesn't need any more humans, and you're not doing anyone a favor by having them, but it's fine if you have kids.  Try not to have too many, because no, you're not that important.  If your IQ is over 140 or you're a super-athlete which later can become a slave working-class creature then fine.  Screw away.

I am Bryan Adams

  The legal battle against YouTube is still on-going as they're still convinced that the guitar and bass work (as well as keyboards) was none other than Bryan Adams and not myself on the cover song Run To You off the album, "Reckless", however it is going up against their lawyers right now.  I find it unusual because to me it's obvious I'm not using a single-coil Fender Stratocaster for the tune or a Fender Jazz bass guitar and the keyboards I added to enhance the bass overture is not something Bryan did.  It can be seen at my Music Video section of www.mikecronis.com if you're interested.  Interestingly, a girl at work was embarrassed by my poor rendition of it, nor did she "get" the video which has to do with the "other woman" spoken-of in the song as his "guitar" and not a cheating mistress.  If you watch the "Official" Bryan Adams channel on YouTube, it's apparent as he speaks of, "..if she ever found out about you and I", he points to a Fender Strat sticking out of the snow on the set.  In other scenes in the video, the only other girl there is his "guitar" that he "runs to". 

"Self-expression doesn't seem to be one of your problems..."

Sunrise from my back porch (facing, well, east of course..)

  Colorado Springs has a few interesting touristy locations, and I hadn't been to a good portion of them in nearly 2 decades (yes, I'm that old), one of which is called Seven Falls.  Though some would think it a boring location, (most Americans would and do, as it's mostly out-of-country tourists now, because there's limited lens-flare and Americans are too busy thumbing their dumb-phones to notice God)  it's actually not that bad.  En-route we stopped at my favorite bar, The Hatchcover, which is delightfully non-pretentious and has great wings and a fantastic selection of beers, ciders, and whiskies (and whiskeys) catering to American and Canadian cuisine under the shadow of Cheyenne Mountain where I used to work from 1999 to 2002.  Delicious. 

  We get to Seven Falls and a small elevator can take you to a vantage point to look at each of the seven cascading waterfalls (some rather short being only a few feet) all interconnected.  To actually climb the falls is another matter as it's about 30 stories to get to the top via stairs with one rest halfway up.

Tunnel leading to elevator

View at top of elevator (click picture for closeup)

(notice the stairs)

Hot guys got problems too.

  Surprisingly, Becky was up to it despite her broken foot in 36 places never mending and her toes locked permanently in place due to a rather harsh motorcycle crash from an out-of-control car a few years back. 

  We purposely brought "critter snax" with us to feed the chipmunks as I remembered a plethora of them about 19 years ago (they're still there, the great great great grandkids of the ones I met in 1993).  Cute "cupcake shapes" and some nut-cluster-goodies specifically made for rabbits and chipmunks from WalMart for a few dollars to feed the scurrying species of chipmunk (no Snooki breeds as they're all at the bar in preparation for her "Snooklings" brood-birth) were handed out to chipmunk glee.

GooGoo Chipmunk cluster

Whatcya' got?

    We were interrupted with this snack-fest when incredibly unintelligent folks with their "DE-STROY" kids would come smashing through into our space to "pet" the chipmunks as they screamed, throwing rocks.  This is great birth-control btw.  If I ever did that, I'd get swacked, and no, you won't go to jail for that, you're just lazy parents and pathetic.  Do it and you'll get a Hero's Medal (for doing your job).  Jesus would high-five you, and everyone would pitch-in and do a collection and give the parent $100 each.  This is what happens if you don't, they grow up like this: CLICK  Parents are so drained they don't even stop them, and are too unintelligent to realize that to approach an animal you have to be very slow and quiet and be patient and wait for sometimes up to a half hour, but this "generation" doesn't get that.  We did, and got the animals to climb up on the seat with us and take food from our hands.  Baby Destroy Voltron Monster did not get so lucky, nor the clones of the wasted remains of the iPhone Generation.  I suspect their demon-spawn will have very strong thumbs as they're worked hard, glued to their low-qual touch-sensitive LCD screens, probably while high and drunk.  No one likes your kids, girl, they just want to get in your pants and then leave you.  They're lying.  Did you know 1 in 3 kids now have autism.  I blame Apple's 800Mhz at 1.6 watt of brain-damaging goodness.  My 4G makes me feel itchy.  Yep.  Drain Bramage.

 The rather challenging 300 steps to the top rewarded for an excellent view of not the falls as, well, we're on top of them now, though it was amazing and I was able to shun my fear of heights because I was too busy rooting Becky on for great success. 

(Note* 200 foot drop to the right of this picture.. 100 feet to go).

At the top of Seven Falls, a 300 foot drop behind me btw.  Becky made it!

Seven Falls local fauna.

Something important is happening, but I can't see it because of lens flare!!!

After this, only 200 more stairs down and we're back!

Down we go!

  She normally has a hard time descending stairs more than ascending but managed it in no time and we escaped a near-downpour as we greeted a nice Kiwi New Zealander and then avoided the "I have a kid so it's okay if they frack-up every possible nature environment peaceful time because I don't get to have peace so why should anyone else oh I'm so drained but kids are the best thing that ever happened to me though I have a New Life Church glazed-over lie in my eyes".

At the bottom.

  We went home, took a nap, and woke up to watch the 1933 film Night Flight staring John Barrymore and Clark Gable on our theater screen.  Good film, never seen it. Most Americans wouldn't have the patients for it.  Not enough lens-flare or false science.  As I quote one soul-less chap I work with, "I don't go to watch movies to think.  I go to be entertained."  To which I quipped, "I go to movies to think, which makes me entertained."

                               

   Took in a little Hulu Plus pop-culture and watched Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares in New Jersey (season 3, ep.1) as our thigh muscles complained from the climb and she made it to midnight, her face buried in Siamese cat (it's what Siamese do, hence the concern for the baby's survival in Lady and the Tramp, for they like to sleep sideways on faces to keep warm, though Becky's used to critters doing that as she lived on a farm and her dogs and cats would all pig-pile anyway).  Working a mid tomorrow she urged me to stay up so as to be alert for tomorrow, and hence, this blog.  There are those that fall asleep at work, and to those, I find them traitors to America and are weak and pathetic.  We work on a USAF Operations base!  We must stay vigil, America counts on us to!  To those who don't care, I spit at them.  P'tewie! 

  Overall, a great day.  Now to play King's Bounty Crossworlds.  Tricky game.  Huzzah!