It was 41 years ago today that Neil and Buzz separated the Eagle Lunar Module from the Columbia Command Module, waved goodbye to Michael Conrad, and proceeded to land in the Sea of Tranquility. A few hours later (and way ahead of schedule, as they were supposed to sleep for 5 hours after they landed, but, sleep? Seriously? They didn’t think so), at 10:56 PM EDT (which was pretty late for an eight year old kid – even if it was summer vacation), Neil took that first small step onto the lunar surface. Ah, those were the days. Men were men, women were women, music was music, the US was entrenched in a pointless, un-winnable, and undeclared war on foreign soil (ok, so some things never change), and there was a Republican president who makes Barack Obama look like a John Bircher by comparison.

Of course, there was a lot of stuff we didn’t know back then – like the computer would have landed them in a field of boulders, so Neil had to take over and fly the thing himself – nearly running out of fuel in the process. And Buzz busted the handle off the circuit breaker that they needed to arm the main engine to lift off (they wound up using a pen to flip the switch).

Meanwhile, back here on Earth 41 years later, 10:56 PM is even later for me now than it was back then, and the only giant leap I’ll be making today is the one that launches me into motion to get ready to go to a job that seems to do nothing more than give me a nine or ten hour headache five days a week. Not that I’m complaining (well, obviously I am complaining, but you know what I mean), of course. The only thing worse than working is looking for work. So, hi-ho, hi-ho.