I got our resident astronomer one time. He was sitting on his front porch, drinking a beer which clearly wasn't his first, or second, or 6th of the evening and I came home.

I walked over and asked if he'd heard the news. He hadn't.

I said the county had decided to tax the collection of ancient photons. Those people who wanted to keep them for themselves would have to pay. I added that it made sense to me but I didn't know how they'd count them.

He went ballistic, said he'd move first, that it wasn't fair and really carried on until I broke down and laughed. And laughed and laughed.

Until the day he died he had no sense of humor about that occasion.

I had the opportunity of spending the evening with him and the fellow who was the American flight control officer (or whatever title it is) for the last Shuttle launch to Mir. Only he wasn't on duty for this one with Americans, he was in Russia watching how they were handling the docking including that miscreant antenna which threatened to scrub the event. He reported directly back to NASA.

He said NASA was very nervous, and his boss kept asking if the Russians were competent, if the problem could get resolved.

His reply, as related by him, was interesting. He said he knew his boss trusted him, and that if he were working on the problem his boss would be confident of resolution, and that the Russian was doing everything he would do.

As it turned out they got it out of the way and the Shuttle docked.

That was an interesting evening.

Arf