On February 24, NASA launched the space shuttle Discovery for its final mission. (According to Wikipedia, the shuttle "is carrying the Pressurized Multipurpose Module (PMM) Leonardo, the ELC-4 and Robonaut 2 to the ISS.") I figured, "How often is it that a goddamn space shuttle is taking off in [ok, near] my town?" So after doing a little work at UCF, I hopped in the van and took off to find a good viewing spot near Cape Canaveral. But then Sarah called and, due to some current life crises with my future career (more on this later!), I got distracted.

By the time I was back on the road, it still looked like I had plenty of time. What I hadn’t accounted for, however, was that everyone else in Orlando had the same idea. When it got close to launch time, we all realized that we weren’t going to make it anywhere near Cape Canaveral. So everyone pulled over, climbed on the roof, and looked East.