Quick! What Would It Be?

My number one son came up the stairs this evening and asked me an important question. If you could have just one super power, what would it be?

Hmmmm.

Jacob decided that he would like to be able to fly, though, he had reservations about it. He thought he'd like something more effective in actually changing his surroundings.

What inspired the question is his newfound interest in the NBC program "Heroes".

Anyway, after brief deliberation, I decided I would want supersonic speed like Flash (pictured). As we all know, Batman is King, but he lacks any super powers. And of course, this is a large part of why he is King. I always liked Flash and having super speed is not a bad power at all, it's as good as flying in many ways.

So, Porch Heads, what would it be? Flying? Super Speed? Web-Spinning and Wall-Crawling?

And, not to be overlooked are Slipping Under Doors Like Jello and the Ability to Be Lint. These are options, as well.

Let Me Clear Something Up

I posted yesterday about Sputnik and what I remember and, mostly, what I don't. The end of the post says that Bob posted, not Mike.

That's an error.

It was Mike, not Bob.

As you were.

Mike's On the Porch

I am younger than Sputnik, so I either have to just make stuff up (which I can do), or do some homework (which is not appealing at this hour), or go off on some tangent.

Well . . . . I think we can see where this is headed.

Sputnik, eh? So how far does a Sputnik go?

I went to school with a guy named Spuddy. Spuddy Weigel. It's like Sputnik, only it's Spuddy. Spuddy was a distance runner on the track team. I think he also hurled something - trackwise, I mean. Spuddy ran the two mile race and so did Arve. Arve Levang. He was an exchange student from Norway which is pretty close to Russia, I think.

That's what I remember about Sputnik.

It was fifty years ago today...

Happy birthday to the Space Age, fifty years old today. On a personal note, I was old enough that I could have remembered when Sputnik launched. But, like many kids growing up in the '50's and early '60's, I lived a kind of sheltered life. What I really remember, what got me interested in rocketry and space travel, was Alan Shepard's suborbital flight in May of 1961.

For a couple of Sputnik 50th anniversary articles, try these links...
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/features.cfm?feature=1487
and...
http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/50th-sputnik-timline-2007.html