Thursday, March 13, 2008

3 a.m.

I have issues. With sleep. There's nothing I love more than sleeping all night long without getting woken up. Unfortunately many things interfere: having to go to the bathroom, husband snoring, cat purring and nudging and standing on my feet, raccoon noises, skunk smells, etc.

Last night I woke to a loud rumbling and window rattling. Living in California, my first thought was "Earthquake? But the bed's not shaking." As the brain haze cleared, I looked at the clock. 3:05 a.m. The next thought was, "A missle launch?" There's an air force base 25 miles away. "At 3 in the morning? Hmmmm." Then the brain hazed over again and fortunately I fell asleep again.

Yep. A local paper reported: "The United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas 5 rocket, which stands 19 stories high, climbed above Space Launch Complex-3 on South Base at 3:02 a.m. today, ducking in and out of clouds while thundering off the pad."

Why, oh why, did they have to launch it at 3 a.m.?

1 comment:

Vanessa said...

I agree, 3am is not the best time for a launch! Perhaps 2 in the afternoon would have been better.