And when the time comes to write the history of civil astronation, they will say of June 21, 2004:

First civilian-piloted spaceflight; deemed slightly less important than taped footage of Kobe Bryant (contemporary sports celebrity) walking into a courtroom.

CNN: Televising ground-breaking achievements, unless it takes too long.

Normally when I end up biking in the rain, it fills me with anxiety, as I worry about whether I'll be able to keep this or that part of my body dry. I found it strangely liberating to have to bike home when it was raining so hard that there was no chance of travelling more than 100m without everything being drenched.

I rode through puddles ignoring the fact that my shoes had ceased to define a boundary between my skin and the environment, and had settled instead for the role more commonly associated with a whale's baleen. I passed calmly through the sheet of water pouring down from the crack in the middle of the tunnel under the railroad. I squelched unashamedly down on the sodden sponge that was my seat (my bike seat). I neglected to consider the effect that water had on my brake pads, and nearly hit a car that decided, at the bottom of a hill, to cut me off to make a right turn that was so magnificent that to cheapen its glory by indicating would have been a crass insult.

Good times.