Spider Robinson, in a Ballardian mood, appears in the Toronto Star:

The 'space age' in total eclipse

Spider Robinson was sitting on a rain-soaked tour bus at the Kennedy Space Center when reality gave his eyeglasses a good, hard flick.

It was there, through a bus window, that the gangly B.C. science fiction writer spotted the rusting hulk of a Saturn V rocket among the palmettos. Once responsible for blasting his childhood heroes to the moon, the Apollo-era behemoth had been left to die the death of old washing machines.

"I still find myself using the term 'space age' to mean modern and forward thinking," Robinson says. "But it hurts to realize that the space age has been over for 30 years."

Robinson, who grew up with his nose wedged in Robert Heinlein novels, has a hard time understanding why NASA's space program has retreated from the stars and instead contented itself with flying in circles around the Earth.

He's been waiting for a bold new direction -- and, like many others, thought he had found it in scorched pieces of the space shuttle Columbia, which fell from the skies over Texas on Feb. 1.

MEANWHILE, happy 2nd birthday to Ken Houghton and Shira Daemon's daughter Valerie. And congratulations to Caitlin and Scott Blasdell on the baptism of their son, James, at which I was present this morning at church.

OUTAGE UPDATE, 8:58 PM: All services now restored. We've got our dialtone back and David can now get at his email. (The phone service had been out for about 29 hours.)