How long will it be before scientists think up multi-billion dollar experiments for you and I to pay for, so they can try to detect or harness "dark energy." In the 1980’s, the United States Congress initially approved 50 billion dollars for the construction of the worlds largest particle accelerator. It was to be called "the Super Conductor Super Collider." Different regions competed to be the one chosen for the construction site of this giant donut shaped machine with a 60 mile diameter.

     Scientists touted the usefulness and need for this machine. They said that once it was operational, Mankind might someday understand why gravity and acceleration feel like the same thing. Fortunately, Congress killed the project after 25 billion dollars had been spent.

     Knowing why gravity and acceleration feel like the same thing is the Secret of the Universe. A 50 billion dollar machine will not give them the answer. The Secret of the Universe will also tell them how to find the "missing matter" and the "dark energy."

     Cosmology, astronomy, physics, and mathematics, are all things that I never really cared about. When I was in school, I was a straight "A" student, and I would have graduated in the class of 1974, but I hated school so I quit. Classrooms move at the speed of the slowest person there, and I felt I was actually being tortured by boredom. Highschool was just a re-hash of things that we were taught in 5th and 6th grade. In fact, my junior year social studies text book was the same exact text book we had in 5th grade. The only class where I actually learned anything was typing.

     I did not want to go to college. A certificate would be nice, but I could not stand the thought of spending years sitting in rooms listening to teachers trying to drive the simplest ideas into the skulls of people who’s intellects are just above the mentally retarded. I wanted to work and make money.

     I went to vocational school and studied radio engineering. I got my 1st class F.C.C. radio-telephone license and came back to Spokane. After a few months I realized that working in a radio station was a dead end job. Jobs were easy to get, but the pay was minimum wage or less. I had to work two full time jobs to make ends meet. Everyone I worked with thought that they were some kind of celebrity. My friends who were carpenters or auto mechanics were making twice as much as I.

     I quit and went to work in an auto parts store. After a while, I realized that what I really wanted to do, was become self employed. I wanted to own my own small business. I’ve been self employed since 1981. I now work as a licensed electrician, repairing electric signs and area lighting.

     When I was in high school, I was really good at math and science. There was a lot of pressure from counselors and teachers for me to become a mathematician. I remember a school visit from a college math professor who came to show us the square root of zero. I could not have been less interested. Math is boring.

     Mathematics is a tool. Studying an open-end/box-end wrench would be boring. Using an open-end/box-end wrench to tighten the hot exhaust header bolts on a fuel altered dragster or a late model superstock race car is more interesting. Using mathematics to solve problems is a very valuable tool, and therefor very interesting when the numbers and equations save the day.

     I’ve had to use math all my life to make a living. I couldn’t succeed without it. Having not gone to college, I learned to make my own rules to solve the problems I needed to solve. Even though I depend on math ability, I still never cared about the cosmos or how it all got there or where it will go. Solving problems like ‘missing matter’ seem like a waste of life, if it requires any public resources to venture a guess. If somebody wants to discover where all the ‘missing matter’ went, they should use their brain, and figure out how to do it on their own dime.

     In March of 2000, my brother called me up from Seattle. He needed help moving. I agreed to meet him at 2:00p.m. on March 26th. It happened to be the same day that the Kingdome was being imploded, so I left early to watch the event up close. It was over by 9:00a.m. so I had some time to kill. It was a really nice sunny day, so I got a Sunday newspaper and went to a city park.