Today NASA announced that their Lunar Prospector satellite, in orbit around our nearest heavenly body, had detected ice on the moon - hence today's title. It lies in the bottoms of deep craters at either pole.

Some training today from the two guys from New Jersey. My time was spent mostly with the coughing older guy mentioned previously; at times his fits are so uncontrollable and consumptive it sounds like he's got pneumonia. Rather difficult sitting next to him. But he's an okay guy; with their tasks complete they went off to the Visitor Center and he came back with a NASA baseball cap looking like a character on "King Of The Hill". "He's official now", his younger companion stated. At lunch between liquid coughings, he spoke of working in an Atlantic City casino for several years - "It was weird", was his assessment. This was Trump's casino, an individual for which we found a shared dislike. My negative descriptions of these two reflect my own ever-fussy world-view, plus I feel that flavor of my writing's more entertaining. Actually it's a characteristic of mine that I wind up liking people I take an initial dislike to, and these two were no exception.

Back up to Palo Alto after work to retrieve my new spectacles; they're still not perfect but I'm weary of these repeat visits. Was planning on dining at the Sushi House on the rebound, but it was mobbed, so I returned to Mountain View for the usual thrifty nourishment at Tung Kee Noodle. Afterwards, loitering around on Castro Street, a charming - oh, I'd gauge her age to be four years - girl was running way ahead of her parents and older sibling, and as she reached me her dad's stadium whistle brought her up short. Her name was Rebecca and she was wearing those athletic shoes, popular among the young, which have LEDs embedded in the soles' flanks. They must be activated by a piezoelectric crystal - I need to know more about them - brand names, etc. (Sorry if I'm snowing you with jargon here - they flash red when their wearer-user steps hard.)

Churchill Quote of the Day:
"Thus we arrived at those broad, happy uplands where everything is settled for the greatest good of the greatest number by the common sense of most after the consultation of all. But in war of the kind we were now to feel, the conditions were different. Alas, I must write it: the actual conflict had to be more like one ruffian bashing the other on the snout with a club, a hammer, or something better. Al this is deplorable, and it is one of the many good reasons for avoiding was and having everything settled by agreement in a friendly manner..."

Also read somewhere on Usenet today: "History distorts to entertain."