Just a quick shout out to one of my all time favorite people in history (right up there with Kierkegaard and Patton) Sir Richard Branson.

I watched as Sir Richard went into space and safely returned.

For the past few months I’ve been pondering this thinking that it was a waste of effort/a vanity play… maybe it’s a bit of a flex.

As I watched it dawned on me that I was witnessing the beginning of something special. This was the first time a ‘person’ (not an Astronaut – who are NOT the same as just people – they are much much more than just people) has : decided he wanted to go into space… devised a plan… hired a team… EXECUTED the plan… and went into space. (And came back.)

We are now going to see our first forms of art coming NOT from astronauts with Moleskin notebooks, but from folks like you and me. And THAT has me excited.

… I remember the first time I flew Virgin Atlantic to London; it was cool. The people were cool. The outfits were cool. The food was “ok” … there was a bag of ‘stuff’ waiting for me at my seat. There was Virgin Cola to drink (which I actually preferred to Coke for a long time! (finding places that stocked it was NOT easy.) There were video games to play on the seat-back display. It was an exciting way to spend 6 hours and change and I landed in London an inspired person who was ready to change his whole life around (and I did.)

[Even though the pen didn’t seem to work when I got back home, I still kept it on my desk!]

Just think about what a journey to see the Earth from space OR to see the Earth and the Moon as separate things from one another could do.

Where’s my checkbook?