I have yet to hear Bruce's tale of Commander Cody piloting Bob Lusk's shuttle. It must have been breathtaking to witness. How badly was it damaged? I mean, Bill can't be that bad of a pilot...can he? He seems to be so smart. I would trust him with the Shuttle anytime.
C'mon Bruce...tell the story one more time.
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OK, here's the story, as told by Bruce Condello, to Bruce Condello in his twisted, snoring induced (not MY snoring, by the way), dream-trip in the upper bunk bed of Lusk Lodge II.
Bruce Condello, Theo Gallus and Sunil were taking a relaxed stroll through the beautiful acres surrounding the Lusk Lodge. The weather was a gorgeous 70+ degrees. The trees were fully leafed out and the sun was beaming.
Theo pointed off to the southwest part of the Lusk acres and says, "Hey, Isn't that Bill Cody meandering toward the Lusk Space Shuttle?".
It wasn't until that point that I realized that Lusk actually was in possession of a shuttle. I squinted through the amber, sunny haze and beheld a gleaming space shuttle, complete with launch pad.
I was admittedly a little taken aback that Lusk had one of these things. It didn't seem right to me, but I was willing to accept it. And yes, sure enough, there was Cody actually opening the door to the shuttle.
Theo Gallus then offers "I'm a little uneasy about Bill Cody getting in the Shuttle. I think he may be attempting to fly that thing!".
Suddenly flames shot out of the base of the Space Shuttle, and within seconds he had achieved a flawless takeoff....but soon things would go wrong. Horribly wrong.
The Space shuttle began with an uneventful straight-up launch, but then unexpectedly turned into a horizontal path and blew directly across us, overhead at about Mach 1.5. Then, shortly after passing over us, it took a starboard 90 degree roll, then went nose down and smashed hard into the dirt about 100 yards on the other side of Lusk's main pond.
A plume of dust rose up, but thankfully the shuttle was mostly intact.
The door to the Space Shuttle opens, and a sheepish Bill Cody walks out and surveys the wreckage, taking a moment to dust off his pants.
Sunil, in a moment of understated mixture of disgust and sarcasm let loose with his immortal statement.
"Well, there goes ten million dollars."
I'm hoping that Theo will repeat his original interpretation of the dream, offered to me that following morning.
We had just had the dream interpretation thread here, which Sunil had enjoyed (in a past life, he was eaten by a leopard without any pants on) (that is to say, no pants on either him or the leopard), and he challenged me to interpret Bruce's shuttle dream. I replied:
1) Bruce is truly impressed by all the neat, sophisticated technical stuff Lusk has here at LL2,
2) Sunil has a keen mind for business and is really comfortable with large figures, and
3) Bill Cody, although an incredibly intelligent microbiologist and most capable pondmeister, is no rocket scientist.
Now we know what you guys were doing in the bunk room - being creative as usual.
BTW DD1 and I did not hear the story nor did Dave W. - we were excluded from the bunk room but could hear the snoring.
DD was clear down at the other end of the house. The snoring that woke me up wasn't loud enough to carry that far, so if snoring woke DD up it must have been, uh, nevermind.
I'm not a true rocket scientist but "I do play one on TV". Actually all those loud snoring type noises were from me testing the Shuttle's engines. All systems checked out okay. The primariy reason for the crash was the clean-up crew left too much fish slime on the pitch and yaw pedals and I was not used to that much lubrication - NTSB decision - pilot error.
Man, I like the Stooges. Thanks.
That's pretty much the way it happened.
No comment from Sunil?
Amazing.
I've just been gathering my thoughts.
I think Cody's high-jacking of a Space Shuttle represents the fact that he is like a little kid with 110% interest when it comes to his passion. He looks at the Space Shuttle with great interest and says "I'm going to fly that thing!"
I think he's reached that nirvana where your living is doing exactly what you love.
Then again, this whole thing is your dream, Bruce, so I can't say too much, but it is classic.
I think that the Shuttle, carrying Cody, crashing on Lusk's land may represent the fact that we're lucky to have him and that we can't let him get away!