It can be a problem, especially because you are here and s/he is there.

Montana has the answer. You can get married in Montana with a double proxy wedding. Both of you appoint a proxy to act on your behalf and the proxies do all the work. They take the vows for you. Neither of you have to be there.

Think I’m kidding? Read the article.

I monitor the web and new for information about people named “Huggins”. It is one of my many curiosities.

As a result of that monitoring, this news story, with a “Frank Huggins”, showed up in my inbox today.

Dogs Put To Sleep While Owner In Hospital
Man Plans Many Lawsuits

May 18, 2007

FORSYTH COUNTY, Ga. — A Georgia man said he is suing the Forsyth County’s animal control for killing his two dogs while he was in the hospital.

Mitchell Greenway’s dogs, Misti and Dakota, were euthanized in January when Greenway was in a hospital after having a heart attack.

He said he could only now bring himself to talk about it. Greenway also said he is lost without his beloved dogs.

“This is the first time I’ve been able to talk about it without tearing up,” Greenway said. “I just want to make sure this never happens to another individual.”

He admitted he signed a release that handed the dogs over to animal control but said in his condition, he didn’t realize what he was doing.

“I should have never been asked to sign a legal document in the condition I was in,” he said.

The release for Forsyth County Animal Control clearly stated the dogs might be euthanized if they could not be adopted or if the shelter was lacking space. After four days, that’s just what happened. Both Misti and Dakota were put to sleep.

“I basically didn’t want to live anymore because I didn’t have my dogs. And I just don’t know how to put it. I felt so alone without my dogs,” said Greenway.

Forsyth County Animal Control and the sheriff’s office, which supervises animal control, said they made every effort to find another solution.

“He said he had no relatives to take care of the dogs, no neighbors, no one to take care of the dogs,” said Capt. Frank Huggins.

But Greenway’s neighbor, Doug Green, said he told animal control he would help and said the woman at the shelter made him a promise that they would be loved and well fed.

Animal control said it is sorry.

“We’re sorry it happened, but it happened and we can’t reverse that now,” said Huggins.

Greenway said he not only plans to sue animal control and the sheriff’s department but also the hospital. He said the doctors and nurses pressured him to sign the release to animal control.

No, that’s not my personal philosophy.

It is (was) the text on a large outdoor sign put up in Chicago by lawyers Corri Fetman and Kelly Garland.

According to the AP (Toronto Sun) the sign came down, not because it caused an uproar (which it did) but for technical reasons.

Apparently they didn’t have a permit.

Imagine that. Lawyers failing to get a permit.

Apparently it worked, though. “Since it went up last week, the two lawyers said calls to their law firm have gone up dramatically.”

A few days before James Doohan’s remains were rocketed into space, Stephen Hawking experienced weightlessness … eight times.

Hawking is a celebrated British astrophysicist, black-hole theorist and author of A Brief History of Time. Now 65 years old, he is paralyzed by Lou Gehrig’s disease.

In side of a Boeing 727, Hawking and his caretakers rode the plane as it made 8 arcs in the sky, each arc offering 25 seconds of weightlessness.

Like Doohan, Hawking also has a Star Trek connection. He played a hologram of himself on an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Article: Famed physicist Hawking takes first step toward space

The phrase “Beam me up, Scotty“, is a part of the American venacular.

Oddly enough, like many such phrases (e.g., “Play it again, Sam“), it was never actually spoken in the show.

But it doesn’t matter. It is the phrase many of us remember whenever we see a photo of the actor, James Doohan, who played the starship Enterprise’s chief engineer Scotty.

James Doohan died two years ago. Yesterday, Doohan finally made a brief sojourn into space. A spacecraft, containing a capsule of his remains, remains of Gordon Cooper, who first went into space in 1963 and died in 2004, and capsules of about 200 other people road a rocket to an altitude of 72 miles, the edge of space.

After the trip, the rocket returns to earth via parachute, the capsules are retrieved, mounted on plaques and given back to relatives.

The flight was arranged by Houston-based company Space Services Inc. The company charges $495 to send a portion of a person’s ashes into suborbital space and return it.

Wikipedia reports this story about Doohan:

In the 1997 documentary Trekkies, Doohan related a very somber story: a female fan sent him a suicide note. Doohan immediately contacted the fan and arranged to speak with her at his next convention appearance. Doohan continued to see her at several other conventions, but ultimately didn’t hear from her for several months, which quickly became years.

Doohan, visibly moved by relating this tale, then revealed the reason for the eight-year-long silence: one final letter arrived, thanking Doohan for his kindness and comforting words, and informing him that because of his encouragement, she had gone back to school and earned a degree in Electronic Engineering.

As Scotty once said in Star Trek: “I’ve giv’n her all she’s got, Captain, an’ I canna give her no more.”

Bye (again), Scotty. We miss you.

My brother, Major Jon L. Huggins, is a U-2 pilot. I just received this notice from him. It seems appropriate to note it here:

The Society is sad to announce that Lt. Col. Robert Riedenauer, USAF (Ret), (F), passed away Monday, 23 April 2007 at his home following a long battle with cancer. He was 70.

He is survived by his wife, Sharon; two sons, Jeff Koontz of Palmdale and Scott Riedenauer of Bellflower; and two daughters, Cheryl Clayton of Palmdale and Kimberly Sweazy of Florida; seven grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.

A celebration of Riedenauer’s life will begin at 4 p.m. Saturday at the Antelope Valley Country Club, with military honors and a fly-over.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations may be made to the Antelope Valley Country Club Scholarship Fund, 39800 Country Club Drive, Palmdale, CA 93551.

Riedenauer is the only test pilot to have flown the U-2, SR-71 and F-117 during a lengthy military and civilian career.

A 1969 graduate of the U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base, Riedenauer began his test career on F-111 programs and the U-2.

He flew more than 120 hours in the U-2 in aiding the development of advanced sensor systems.

Riedenauer then flew developmental flight tests of the SR-71, retiring from the Air Force as chief test pilot for that program.

As a test pilot and director of operations for Lockheed’s Skunk Works, he helped design, develop and test classified programs such as the F-117 stealth fighter.

In 1982, Riedenauer crashed on the first flight of the first production stealth fighter, when the program was still highly secret. Although he was unable to eject, he survived the crash. However, the injuries he sustained ended his flying career.

The aircraft was damaged beyond repair, but its remnants were used in the stealth fighter which stands on display in front of Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Co. facility in Palmdale.

Among his many accolades, Riedenauer joined Lancaster’s Aerospace Walk of Honor in 2002 and was named an “Eagle” by the Flight Test Historical Foundation in 2005 for his work with the development of the U-2.

Riedenauer served as executive director of the Flight Test Historical foundation in its early years and was heavily involved in the initial fund-raising efforts that resulted in the foundation’s ability to build the museum facility at Edwards AFB, Air Force Flight Test Center Museum Director Doug Nelson said.

In recent years, he was active as the chairman of Palmdale’s Aviation and Aerospace Commission, tasked with advising the city on matters relating to Air Force Plant 42 and the L.A./Palmdale Regional Airport.

Riedenauer logged over 6,500 hours in more than 50 different aircraft.

He flew 120 combat missions in an F-105 over Southeast Asia in 1968, and was honored with the Air Force Distinguished Flying Cross with two oak leaf clusters, the Air Medal with 11 oak leaf clusters and the Meritorious Service Medal.

Born in Fresno on Aug. 2, 1936, Riedenauer earned a bachelor of science degree in mechanical engineering from Arizona State University in 1967.

There is a story in the news today that will be completely new for most people. It is not totally new to me … I have tracked it for about two years.

If you go to http://www.cem.va.gov/cem/hm/hmemb.asp you will see a list of the religious emblems that the Department of Veterans Affairs has approved for headstones.

Many different emblems are permitted. These include a generic Christian cross, most of the individual Christian denominations, Hebrew, Buddhist, Native American, Bahai, Muslim, Hindu, Konko-Kyo Faith, Sufism, Tenrikyo, Seicho-No-Ie, Eckankar, and even Humanism and Athiesm.

Today, at number 37, after a request that was made about 10 years ago, and a lawsuit that has dragged on for almost 2 years, the symbol of the Wicca religion was finally added.

In the meantime, adding 6 other symbols took a few weeks each.

The New York Times reports

There are 1,800 Wiccans in the armed forces, according to a Pentagon survey cited in the suit, and Wiccans have their faith mentioned in official handbooks for military chaplains and noted on their dog tags.

So, why did it take so long?

I’m not sure. But the appearance is that someone who had strong influence over the VA worked to prevent it.

I’m not sure who that was, but the New York Times also reports

In reviewing 30,000 pages of documents from Veterans Affairs, Americans United said, it found e-mail and memorandums referring to negative comments President Bush made about Wicca in an interview with “Good Morning America” in 1999, when he was governor of Texas. The interview had to do with a controversy at the time about Wiccan soldiers’ being allowed to worship at Fort Hood, Tex.

“I don’t think witchcraft is a religion,” Mr. Bush said at the time, according to a transcript.

Humanists? Yes. Athiests? Yes. Wiccans? No.

That “no” is finally a “yes”.

My first encounter with environmental study was in 1971. In that summer, and again in the summer of 1972, I was privileged to participate in the Clear Creek Basin Water Quality Study. I had just graduated from Clear Creek High School. That summer, for 8 weeks, we collected water samples in Clear Lake and Clear Creek, the mixed water estuary across from the Johnson Space Center (then the Manned Spacecraft Center) south of Houston.

We showed the impact of the tides on the salinity of the lake and creek. And our temperature measurements showed the impact of the cooling water discharge of the Houston Lighting and Power (HL&P) Webster power plant on the lake, elevating the temperature and, for example, potentially encouraging elevated levels of algae growth, sediment and water pollution.

Our groups received Presidential citations both years for this work. And I felt proud about it then, and, looking back, still do.

That said, I’m not sure it made much difference. I learned a lot about pollution, and Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD) and laboratory techniques for measuring pollution.

But in real terms, I don’t think our studies had any impact.

The power plant is gone now. It became part of Texas Genco, a subsidiary of Centerpoint Energy, and was recently demolished to make way for a 330 acre subdivision.

Clear Lake is still not even close to clear.

And some thirty-six (36) years later, we continue to pollute the soil, water and air, destroy the rain forest, threaten entire species and heat the planet.