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Finally got around to seeing this movie today.\u00a0 Here are a couple random thoughts:<\/p>\n
It was definitely not the soaring inspirational treatment of the moon landing that one might expect from knowing nothing other than the general topic of the film.\u00a0 Instead the title is to be taken more literally:\u00a0 it was about the \u201cfirst man,\u201d that is, Neil Armstrong, and may or may not have taken liberties with his life and his personality.\u00a0 I had read that the film is somewhat grim and emphasizes the risks and the fear, so I wasn\u2019t taken by surprise by it, though I did get annoyed with the handheld-camera shakiness in so many situations when it just didn\u2019t seem to be warranted.\u00a0 And the missing flag-planting?\u00a0 There was so little screen time devoted to the time on the moon, and the flag didn\u2019t fit in with the narrative being developed, so its absence wasn\u2019t particularly noticeable.<\/p>\n
But to a certain extent my reactions had comparatively less to do with the movie and more to do with personal stuff.<\/p>\n
For one, even though the timing wasn\u2019t entirely the same, Neil Armstrong as portrayed in the movie reminded me of my Dad.\u00a0 Yes, only superficially \u2014 Dad was a young engineer in the 60s, though the timing is somewhat off, as he only married my mother in 1966.\u00a0 But the Young Neil Armstrong bore a superficial resemblance to old pictures of my Dad from the time.\u00a0 And, heck, Dad wasn\u2019t an astronaut, but he was a Builder in his own way, serving a tour of duty in Germany after college supervising 100 civilian workers at a vehicle repair depot, and, after he returned to the states and married my mom, getting together with a group of friends to build fiberglass 27\u2032 sailboats.<\/p>\n
And even though I\u2019m not a child of the 60s, there\u2019s plenty of resemblance between the\u00a0world of the late 60s and the 70s in which I grew up.\u00a0 Not in terms of war protests, which weren\u2019t my world, but the home environments, the plaid shorts on the children, and what-not.\u00a0 And lately I\u2019ve been thinking about how different the world is, in my adult life, than\u00a0it was for my parents.<\/p>\n
On the one hand, there are so many ways in which we take computers, the internet, and smartphones for granted.\u00a0 When was the last time you planned a vacation without looking for lodging on the internet?\u00a0 (For me, I think this was when we lived in Germany and used tourist offices or travel agents\u2019 booklets.)\u00a0 When did you last call a movie theater to find out showtimes?\u00a0 We check the weather online.\u00a0 Read the news online.\u00a0 Make and monitor our investments online.\u00a0 Heck, there\u2019s no way I would have gotten the idea in my head to be a Freelance Writer and Researcher (whatever that ends up being in the future), but, on the other hand, who can say what pension consulting would look like in the year 2018 had ever-more sophisticated valuation software, and ease of communication, and all manner of other tech-related changes that fed into the decision by one employer after the next to end their pension plans, not existed?\u00a0 And in any case, I wouldn\u2019t have had so many years of working remotely preceding the career change.<\/p>\n
But on the other hand, I do wonder what I\u2019d be like, personally, in the world of the 70s.\u00a0 After all, I do feel much more comfortable with writing than having a conversation, and, on the one hand, the world of blogs, comments, facebook, etc., is great for introverts.\u00a0 On the other hand, the world of the 70s might have meant more actual in-person socializing, which would probably be good for me even if I don\u2019t necessarily like it very much.<\/p>\n
And third item:\u00a0 the moon landing itself.\u00a0 Folks, I was born \u2014 well, I\u2019m not going to tell you my actual birthday, but I was a newborn at the time, and I always felt like I had some sort of special connection even though I know that\u2019s not really true.\u00a0 I imagine my parents rocking their newborn baby to sleep while watching the moon landing.\u00a0 (Confession:\u00a0 I\u2019ve never asked my parents to tell me about their actual memories of the moon landing, that I can remember.\u00a0 I suppose at this point I don\u2019t want to be disappointed \u2014 that is, I\u2019d rather imagine that it was just as dramatic for them as in the movies, rather than a prosaic, \u201cwell, we were busy with other things at the time.\u201d)\u00a0 And here\u2019s something that is admittedly kind of dumb but still has personal meaning to me:\u00a0 when I first started writing at Forbes, and the post I wrote on Andrew McCabe\u2019s pension took off like wildfire and I got a big fat check from Forbes for my pageview counts, which was basically \u201cfound money\u201d at the time (especially since I hadn\u2019t quit my Day Job), I used some of the money to buy a celebratory Saturn V Lego set, which was just something fun at the time but took on significance afterwards as the first step in a Life Change.<\/p>\n
And, yes, I am getting older and far more conscious of the Passage of Time.\u00a0 Earlier tonight I was looking at pictures with my youngest son of our last big vacation, back in summer of 2016.\u00a0 He pretty much looked the same then as now.\u00a0 Likewise for my oldest.\u00a0 My middle son?\u00a0 In the space of two years he went from a little kid to a teenager.\u00a0 Yowza.<\/p>\n
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Image: \u00a0https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/centers\/marshall\/moonmars\/apollo40\/apollo11_aldrin.html<\/p>\n
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Finally got around to seeing this movie today.\u00a0 Here are a couple random thoughts: It was definitely not the soaring inspirational treatment of the moon landing that one might expect from knowing nothing other than the general topic of the film.\u00a0 Instead the title is to be taken more literally:\u00a0 it was about the \u201cfirst […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n