Yes, for sure this. I wrote a comment to one of your other articles with my "ships passing" metaphor, and how we have to choose to travel together. So true. Sad story. Every breakup sucks. Unless you are a psycho (no insinuation!), no one chooses to enter a relationship wanting to break up or get divorced. I was not happy at the prospect of getting divorced from my first wife, but I was very happy when it was over. No tulips were involved.

Thanks for another great article. When we finished high school, a mormon buddy of our little group did his year long mission in Santiago. I enjoyed his stories when he came back and envied his exotic travel. At that time the most I'd done was drive across the northern border when we lived in the north and walk across the southern border when we lived in the south. Santiago seemed super exotic and exciting. It still does and I'm sad I've never made it there.

I read this because my future daughter in law spent her childhood in Ireland and I want to know more about her and her past. I'm also just curious by nature. Super informative and well written. Thanks!

Great story! I'm probably a bit younger than your father. I moved from a city I loved in the late 70s, and was never back again until 40 years later. The house I lived in was still there, but the people were never at home. Until my last trip there... It was a wonderful experience. I hope to write about it some day when I have more time. Suffice it to say I got pretty choked up seeing my teenage basement bedroom for the first time in over 44 years, among other special places in the house.

Urine stench is a sign of a lot of people with little time. If you smelled urine all the time it is because you never left the mass-tourist path in any of the places you visited. I've been to Italy dozens of times. The last time in September for 5…

As an engineer building complex systems, I understand the "test until failure" approach. The problem for SpaceX, and the world, is the cost of those failures. When limbs, lives, and the surrounding environment are "just the cost of doing business" then maybe the business as it is being run is not viable.

Compared to Musk's claims for Autopilot, they are way ahead of schedule!

Thanks. I really like your comment as well. Too right that the duopoly won't help us, young or old, poor or rich. Oh, wait, they'll definitely help the rich. Trump and Biden are to my mind about equally bad, just in different ways. Both of them will do nothing (IMO)…

Economics for young people today are horrible and have been getting worse for 30+ years. That being said, in 2023-2024 whatever candidate speaks out against the genocide of the Gazans is going to get a huge boost from young voters. Right now "Genocide Joe" is digging his own political grave (pun intended).