The Rapture and the Week's End.

Hello Troops,
A few days ago we flew several fifth grade classes from Highland Elementary. They were a delight. They were attentive in the simulators and did their best to win the mission.

I told Intolerance, the story of the escaped slave. The story starts with the ship setting course for the Romulan border and jumping to warp. The first few minutes of warp travel is used for a bridge wide explanation of everyone's jobs. I do this over the microphone in my Tex character. The opening speech ends with:
"Captain, we've had a power fluctuation. Engineer, Left Wing and Right wing, please check your power numbers, get them balanced and don't forget to hit the red update or lock in buttons."

I reached out and pressed a button to send a sensor prompt to the Sensor Station. I heard the computer make the happy sound. The happy sound is the sound the old Sensor computer makes when it received my order to move to the next screen. Our Sensor Computer has issues sometimes and refuses to follow orders from the Flight Director. It's stubbornness sometimes requires patient coaxing. If that doesn't bring it around then a restart would be next.

I watched on the CCTV system as the Sensors Office straighted up when seeing something new coming in on his screen.
"Captain!" he shouted.
"Ralph," the Captain answered. (Ralph is a made up name. I don't want to use the real name of the boy).
"There is a rup...... rap......rep......" the boy struggled to sound out the word spelled out on his screen. He paused, searched his mind for a word that looked like the one on his screen and blurted it out.
"Captain, there is a Rapture near the Nebula......!"

I laughed. In my mind I visualized the literal meaning of the young boys very serious statement. This is the definition that came to mind that caused me to chuckle.

Read definition 2. In most of the Christian world, the Rapture means that point in time when all true believers will disappear from the real world and be caught up into the sky and heaven at the time of the second coming, leaving behind the sinners and the non believers.

Having been raised outside of Utah and having many Pentecostal friends I knew this word and its meaning all to well. My friends used it on me all the time. I would be the one left behind at the Rapture because of my LDS beliefs.

So, here I was, once again faced with the Rapture and just as my friends predicted so long ago, I really was left behind at my Flight Director's Chair. The whole thing just struck me as funny.

The Week's End

Well troops. We are at the end of the week. It is 4:39 P.M. on Saturday and the Center closes in twenty minutes. Our custodian is taking tonight off so I'm going to finish this post, go to the custodian's closet, fill a mop with water, put on a pair of rubber gloves and clean the school's bathrooms. I really mean it when I say even at Disneyland, someone's got to clean the toilets. It's true hear also except here, the boss takes his turn like everyone else.

Have a good weekend,
Mr. Willamson