Now, Andy did you hear about this one? Tell me, are you locked in the punch?
Hey Andy are you goofing on Elvis? Hey, baby. Are we losing touch?
If you believed they put a man on the moon, man on the moon.
If you believe there's nothing up his sleeve, then nothing is cool.

REM...Man On the Moon

REM made the stament "If you believed they put a man on the moon..." There is a conspiracy that the United States never made it to the moon. That it was all fake. I've known about this for quite awhile but I watched this video about the theory just the other day.

Do I believe the conspiracy? That's a loaded question that some may not like the answer to.

But first I'd like to get some thoughts from blogland. Do you believe that the United States went to the moon?

What is this you ask...

It's a piece of my past. There used to be a house that sat here. Now there's just an empty lot.

There used to be a band that played in the garage. We were called Astaroth. We would play for hours defining who we were through our lyrics. We totally sucked but we were on our way to being rock stars. Plus, the chics dug musicians.

Gun's N Roses and Tesla could be heard from the windows of the house as a few teens would bang their heads and sing along while playing air guitar.

The scent of chicken and noodles would come from the kitchen as Mom would be getting supper ready.

Bob would come over with his iced coffee. At the time I thought it was nasty, never knowing that it would later become my favorite drink.

Sean and Phil would come knocking on the door and we were off to roam the streets with no plans or cares. We would let the evening take us where it wanted to. Sometimes we would just sit on the steps and let the summer sun set while talking about girls, music and life.

Looking back, there are things I miss about my childhood, things that I wish I could live over...not do over, but live them again.

You see an empty lot...I see alot of memories.

"WHAT!? NO WAY..." Were the words that came out of my mouth when I heard that Steve Irwin died. "Not the Crocodile Hunter, I thought he was invincible." He exchanges heroic escape stories with Superman and Wolverine. He can't be dead.

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Not that I knew the guy or anything, but he has been a part of our culture since I graduated from high school. he's my son's favorite(next to Jeff Corwin.) And he was killed by a stingray! I was just holding one of those things about a week ago in the Cayman Islands...creepy!

Looking at what he did for a living always made me wonder when his number would come up. I mean, you can't go jumping on alligators backs and wrestling with pythons and expect to live forever. But this was somewhat of a freak accident. The stingray barb just happened to hit him in the heart. I still can't belive it.

So as all of the newspapers and television stations cover his death, we will pay homage to the man who inspired us to wrestle the reptiles. Even if all I can handle is a ghecko...