Yeah, All Cleveland has to do to get back into Nancy's good graces is to give her that dazzling smile of his.

As for car chases, when Loru isn't looking, we've been known to drag race golf carts down the taxiway at CSSC

Not very exciting I'll admit (sort of domestic). But I've got to work on getting Kirby out of Polygon, for a bit to check on some other things. Nancy will be along shortly to vet Maria as a potential girlfriend for Kirby.
And hopefully soon the space station will be coming together (I need to finish up the scenarios so I can run the missions to get screenshots.

And here we go...

John L. Kirby had always considered himself a nerdy chemist who’d gotten very, very lucky. Bucking a family Annapolis tradition, he’d forged his own path, and through an extraordinary chain of events found himself at the helm of a multinational corporation. With some networking of old friends and a few informal meetings, he’d broken into the market of commercial space applications. He’d rolled the dice on an ambitious project to set up a manned moon base, and despite a few setbacks, had managed to pull it off.

It still amazed him that he had the ability to look at a person across a desk and ask them, seriously, if they wanted to go into space (or the moon). After a few years of that, a thought started to grow in Kirby’s mind. It wasn’t enough to send people to space, Kirby wanted to go himself. He knew the path wouldn’t be easy, and it would begin with his physical conditioning.

He’d been on the treadmill for just over 30 minutes when the woman started up the machine next to him. He had his I-pod playing Pink Floyd’s “Run like Hell” on a constant loop to give him a decent pace and he’d been reciting emergency “bold-face” procedures to help him pass the time. But with all that, he was about ready to call it quits. Until, that is, the woman started up the machine next to him. While she wasn’t exactly a “stark-raving-beauty”, Kirby thought that her mixed-Asian features made her very cute. Given the improved change in scenery, Kirby thought he could tough it out a bit longer.

Kirby continued his litany of emergency procedures as the sun traversed towards the horizon. Shortly after the woman stopped her treadmill, he decided he’d had enough. As he wiped down the console he noticed the woman gazing out the windows, presumably watching the sunset. He did his best not to ogle at her reflection in the glass, choosing instead to focus on, what was admittedly a nice display put on by Mother Nature outside.

Suddenly the woman turned towards him. “Are you a pilot”? She asked.

Startled by her British accent Kirby answered, a bit too quickly “No, But I’m learning things. How’d you know?” OK, don’t say anything stupid he told himself.

She smiled, “It took me a while, but I recognize bold-face procedures when I hear them. What platform are you working on?”

She’s got a pretty smile, he thought, “The MAKS” he answered, almost sheepishly. “Well, not MAKS, it doesn’t really have a name yet. MAKS-2, return-of-MAKS, son-of-MAKS. We nicknamed the spacecraft Maxine though, after a comic strip.” Maxine?!? You dufus!
“I flew a chase plane for that the other day.” she exclaimed, “You are one of the Americans working on that I take it?”

“Yes, I guess you could say that. Wait that was you? In that old SU?” he asked, “I thought that was a man”. Remember that part about not saying anything stupid? Kirby mentally winced at what he hoped wasn’t perceived as an insult.

“Yes, that was me” her voice taking a rather serious tone. “In the future I’ll try to fly our rust buckets in a more manly fashion”.

Aw crap! “No, no, no. That’s not how I meant that.” Come on Kirby, why are you fumbling like this? He chided himself. It’s not like you’ve never spoken to a woman before.

“It’s those radios; they make everything sound very mechanical”. She laughingly replied “And, while all those SU-27’s might be old, they are lovingly maintained”.

“I’d love to see them up close. I have a fondness for all those old war birds.” Kirby decided to take the safe route and the two spent the next several minutes in deep conversation regarding everything from maintenance cycles to FOD prevention. Before he’d realized it, they’d made their way outside and he had a standing invitation to tour the aircraft hangar and maintenance groups. She’d given him a scrap of paper with several extension numbers written on it.

Kirby tried not to pay too much attention to her graceful form receeding into the twilight. Wonder where this might go? he thought to himself as he turned towards his own housing unit.

Thanks! I'm not sure what Kultch had in mind when he created that spaceport, but I figured it to be an Eastern Bloc version of what we did at Ascension. In my own little "Orbiter World" I thought it made sense.

I'm working on this same encounter from Kirby's point of view; I figured it was time for him to have a love interest.

Uhh, no.. Maybe we could say that your an honorary member? But anyway, Roll Tide!

I've toured the Alabama, it was very different then the Iowa class, but similar enough in places to give me some deja vu. The guns are the same size and caliber, but in places the layout is drastically different (plus she's quite a bit shorter). One thing in particular that sent me time-travelling was that after all these years the Alabama still has that familiar smell of grease and oil. It was faint to me, but my wife said she thought it was pretty strong. She looked OK, but I wish they had more money to take better care of her (referring to the ship here, not the wife, she looks A-OK).

I want to go see the North Carolina too, all the pictures I've seen tell me that the "Showboat" is well maintained. I'd also like to see the Texas, mainly to see how the design has changed.

I used the term Phantom Cruiser for my car for years (still do actually, I'm on the Mark IX model). It's from an old cartoon Space Ghost. But I'd would have tossed that Glick thing out an airlock as soon as it showed up in the series (same with Bandit on Johnny Quest).

The E? Honestly I think I'd been in better dives. The transient berthing they put me in was awful. I elected to spend the night on a roll of bubble wrap in the line shack. As far as carriers go, I think the Kitty Hawk was the best one I've seen.