Just about the time I thought I was back to normal, or whatever passes for normal with me, my darn back is out again. We stayed up late to watch the launch of the SpaceX “block 5” Falcon 9 rocket, which lifted off at 1:18 AM Tuesday morning from Cape Canaveral. A little while later, while I was brushing my teeth and getting ready for bed, I started feeling some twinges in my back. I took some ibuprofen and hoped it would let up.
That didn’t happen. Instead, about 4 AM I woke up with strong pain and it kept me up most of the night. So yesterday morning I went back to the chiropractor, and she said my back was almost as tight as it was when I first came to see her back in February. She gave me an adjustment, and then I had an ultrasound treatment.
Back at home I took a pain pill, then tried to get some writing done. That wasn’t happening because my brain was just too foggy. So I sat down in my recliner and slept for two or three hours, and when I woke up the pain had let up quite a bit.
Except for answering some emails, I still didn’t get anything accomplished the rest of the day. I will see how it goes. I may be going back for another adjustment in the next couple of days.
Since we bought our place here on the Intercoastal Waterway, I don’t know how many rocket launches have taken place at the Cape, but there have been a bunch of them. I’ve never been into Star Wars or Star Trek or any of that spacey stuff. I’ve never seen even one of those type of movies or paid much attention to NASA’s activities. I really don’t have a huge interest in it, either in fiction or in real life. But it is always fun to go down to our dock, or even out in our driveway, and watch the rockets take off.
This launch, to put an Indonesian communications satellite into orbit, was the first previously-flown rocket that SpaceX has reused. After it did its job it returned to land on one of the company’s barges.
Their news releases say they expect to be able to reuse a booster as many as 100 times. Here’s a picture I took with my camera as it was making its way to outer space. The quality is not great, and not nearly as thrilling as seeing the real thing taking place live, in front of you.
We are about 25 or 30 miles from Cape Canaveral, and it takes about 15 minutes before the rumbling sound of the rocket’s reentry reaches us, but when it does, it’s loud. One of these days we need to go down to Titusville and watch a launch up close and personal. You can bet that when we do, we will have lots of photos to share with you.
Thought For The Day – It takes only one drink to get me drunk. The trouble is, I never can remember if it’s the thirteenth or the fourteenth.
