Finally up

So I wrote a post yesterday. Really, I did. And then Blogger ate it and I didn't have time to rewrite it. So in recap - my cert sim went great, we had fun at Astroworld on Sunday, I dislike the JSC clinic, and my laptop now works with our wireless network.

Today was safety day at work. Basically, that means that we all have breakfast at the office, walk around some booths to get free toys, go on a long lunch, go to a flight safety seminar, and go out to a 5K run/walk. Then you go home early. I had a really bad headache for most of the afternoon, which caused me to skip out on dinner at Mely's and the moon eclipse watching at the park. I dozed on the couch for most of the baseball game, and then woke up enough to watch the last two innings.

I don't really have anything in particular to do at work now. I need to finish up my tasks to get my cert paperwork signed, and there's more software stuff to do over the next couple of months. But compared to my recent certainty that I had to finish testing and cert sim prep every day, my schedule suddenly looks wide open. It's a bit scary. I have a flight-specific sim next week for STS-114, so that's kind of cool. I hope we really are ready to fly in May. It's time.

Not much is going on until the weekend. The house needs to be cleaned at some point in preparation for our Halloween party on Sunday. And I still need to find a crown and scepter for my costume. I'm very proud of the job I did on my cloak. I knew I was smart enough to teach myself how to sew. :)

Hello wireless

My lapotp came! My laptop came! My laptop came!
AND
We got the wireless network set up yeah, yeah!
AND
I'm currently sitting on my couch watching game 7 of the NLCS and typing in my blog!

This is so cool.

I'm going to love this laptop. It's super-cool. The battery life doesn't seem to be the best imaginable, but I can set up a docking station at home that should be pretty convenient. Right now, all I can say is that I'm pumped!

We're going to go to Astroworld for free this weekend courtesy of a co-worker who's wife gets a bunch of free passes to stuff from her company. They have little kids so they don't get a chance to go to the stuff much, and lucky me! I'm his officemate so I often get first dibbs.

Anyway, yea for wireless!

I know, I know

It's been an eon since my last post. I am actually quite impressed with myself for how well I've been doing with my blog considering that all previous attempts at creating a journal have met with complete, miserable, and near-immediate failure. However, I have been pretty busy lately, especially at work, so I haven't been taking these little breaks to write out my life story onto the nether reaches of the internet. Not that I really consider my blog the nether reaches, but some might. :)

So, first of all, here is a picture of Caroline and I.

Isn't she adorable. So small. I think she likes me. :) Our visit to Wyoming to see her was great. Gavin and I took Mom and Dad's dogs on a walk and got our arms pulled off. Made me grateful for the fact that ours learned about leashes fairly easily. The weather was beautiful while we were there. The trees were changing, but it was still pretty warm. (It's not now, from the looks of it.)

This past weekend, I didn't do much of anything. I used the computer a lot while Gavin was in Katy playing games with his little friends. I watched the Astros beat the Cardinals twice. I started cross stitching for the first time in about 6 months, and decided I needed to go out and get more embroidery floss. Then while I was in the craft store, I decided to buy material for a Halloween costume. I'm going to be the Queen of Hearts. And, yes, the fact that I can use my red dress in that costume did cross my mind. There, I admitted it.

Then last night I went to the Astros game in person. I took Chris's ticket since he had to go back to California to go to class or something. :) That was the best game I've ever been to. 8 1/2 innings of shutout baseball. 1 hit for each team coming into the 9th. Beltran with one unbelievable catch and one that was only amazing. And, then Kent hits one onto the tracks for the win. Do you know how great shutout baseball can be when the game is that important and the crowd is that into it. I mean, I can't even count how often the crowd got up to encourage strike three, or to celebrate a good play in the field, or to just celebrate one more 0 on the board. Wonderful.

OK, I'll try to be better about the entries. If my new laptop comes tomorrow, it should be better after that.

Upon a night in Mid October

So Jen is starting to smile whenever she checks our email -- her laptop has been replaced and is now meandering back to our house, hopefully should arrive this week. She beams whenever she imagines loafing on the couch, working on her laptop while occassionally watching the baseball game or Friends episode that is on the TV. I look forward to using it too... at some point.

Tonight Jen is with Sarah at the Astros game. Last I checked it was the 5th inning with no runs. Seems slow. But, not as long as the Yankee/Red Sox game where Boston scored in the 12th inning to breathe some hope into their fans and into the series. I'm glad Boston is making a fight of it. I am suddenly amused to find myself talking about sports, and even perhaps sounding like I follow sports. I follow some, but Jen is the real sports fan of the family. Hence why she is at the game. :)

So it was a quiet evening with the dogs at home. I finished mowing the lawn just before the clouded pink sunset. After taking the dogs for a run we trotted back home where they collapsed unceremoniously on the tile floor. They really like running. I do too. In fact, I'm running again to prepare for the Houston Marathon in 14 weeks! Yeah, I know. It's a little late to start, let alone cold turkey. But I remember how fast I was able to bounce back into shape ten years ago... hmm. Well. We'll see! So I made a master plan today, with my planned daily and weekly mileage through to the marathon. (Hey, taking 2 semesters of running at A&M has to be good for something.) I think it suits me well. Most of my weekday runs will be between 3 and 5 miles, which should only take up 20-40 minutes plus showering. I plan to do that before I go to work in the mornings. On the weekends I'll do the longer runs, building up to 10, 12, and 20 mile long runs before the big run.

Jen was quite amused and, dare I say, perhaps a bit skeptical when she saw my master plan. And Becca too. I think these ladies don't take me very seriously. Stay tuned.

On another note, Jen and I registered for our own domain name. Sarah found a special sale with her provider where, for $10, you can register a domain with 800 MB space for a year. Great deal. So Jen and I tossed around ideas for an hour. After discussing welovespace.net and ravenslake.net we ended up compromising by selecting v-infinity.net. If you go there right now, it doesn't look very promising. Jen does not yet have her laptop, after all. And if you're not familiar with astrodynamic terms, the term V-infinity describes the velocity a vehicle has as it departs the gravity sphere of influence of Earth and embarks alone around the Sun. Pretty neat when you think about it.

Upon hearing the name, Becca called us nerdy. Which is terribly funny considering she attended Star Trek conventions. In costume.

Speaking of costumes, Jen has her Halloween costume nearly done. She's going to look great, as usual. I find myself wondering if I could pull together a costume. I also find myself wondering how I might convince Jen to make me a costume. :)

Grrrr

So last night I got my new laptop. It looks really cool, and I was incredibly excited. Then I turned it on and it played some music, but the screen just stayed white. So I called places and they told me it sounded like the laptop had a bad backlight, and to send it back. They then said I could either wait about two weeks for the new one or charge a second computer on my card and they'd refund it when they get the old one. Um, I don't think so! So I have to wait another two weeks until mine goes back and then the new one gets sent. I'm so not impressed.

But, to put things in perspective, I should be happy because I got rave reviews for my Cert Qual sim yesterday. I'm scheduled for a final on Oct 27. After that, I'll be an actual FDO. Wow.

I get to use the computer tonight because Gavin and Cari went to see Hero. It's raining like the dickens outside - I hope they can get home alright.

I'm going to make the most of my surfing time...

Jen Out

UPS

So, my new laptop should be delivered today. I'm not sure what they'll do with it since we aren't going to be home this afternoon. I really hope they don't leave it out on the doorstep for the potential rain to ruin. I also hope they don't take it back for redelivery, because I'm excited to play with it. Maybe they'll leave it with the neighbors.

So far, my sim hasn't been too bad. I think I took care of the failures they put in quicker than they had intended - I haven't been doing anything for more than an hour now. I screwed up one little thing, but it all worked out fine. Now I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop.

We had a meeting for Yuri's Night last evening. This is pretty early to start planning for an April event, but we want to get organized early. Hopefully, we can bring some sanity to the planning process that way.

In the news

It's official. NASA and the Russian Space Agency are no longer the only game in town as far as manned space flight goes. This morning, Burt Rutan and Scaled Composits won the $10 million X-Prize. They sent a spacecraft capable of carrying 3 people above Earth's atmosphere twice in one week. Only one pilot was onboard - there was extra weight to simulate the other two people required for the X-Prize. More...

How do I feel about this? Mostly - great! It is an amazing accomplishment, and something I honestly didn't expect to see happen for a couple more years. I'm also quite glad to see that he's setting his sights on a new goal now, making his design safe enough for the general public.

There were some interesting comments on the television broadcasts about the difference between what Scaled Composits did, and what the US manned spaceflight program does. For one, there was a gratifying recognition of the difference between orbital and sub-orbital flight. There was a comparison of the attitude toward risk taken by the two programs - "NASA is risk-adverse" was part of the quote. I have to agree with that, but I also would like to point out that a public agency is usually what the public makes of it. I remember one particular comment by a CAIB member that they wanted to be sure that "this never happens again". It's going to be impossible in the long run for any agency, or company, to meet expectations if the expectations are a perfect record.

Many people have used the argument that a private endeavor is allowed to take more risk because it isn't spending public money. But what's the difference, really? That money comes from somewhere, and all money originates at the same place. Ultimately, the public either buys a product that supports the private research efforts or pays taxes to support the public research efforts.

One of my friends sent an application to one of the X-prize companies. I don't remember exactly how the feedback was worded, but essentially she was told she was tainted because she'd worked for the government. It's like they think that people that have worked in this system are incapable of being creative or innovative. Personally, I think that is a load of crap. Sure the system stiffles some of the more radical ideas out there, but that doesn't make the individuals in the system any less capable of coming up with those ideas.

Anyway, congrats to the SpaceShip One team. Maybe we can all go to space before we die.

What to talk about first?

So, wow. Today has been eventful. I don't know where to begin.

1. The Astros beat the Rockies, even though they tried really hard to give the game away at times. I've sloppy, but it got the job done.
2. Ichiro tied and then beat the single-season hits record by the third inning in Seattle tonight. I'm ashamed to say that I was watching the Houston game instead of hanging on Ichiro's every swing.
3. The Cubs lost. LA just picked up a run on the Giants to make it 2-1 Ginats in the 5th - Go Dodgers!
4. Mt. St. Helens errupted. I'm really, really jealous of anyone who got to see/hear/feel that. Anybody out Seattle way catch the action? I want to see a volcano erupt (just a little one).
5. I stayed at work 1 1/2 hours longer than I intended to today, and then realized that what I was doing should have been done by someone else anyway. Ironic - yes. Office politics suck.
6. The Peru gang gave a slide show of pictures from our trip at work, and it was very, very well attended. I made comments like "I'm not in this picture because I was in the bus sick." It made me sad; I wasn't in very many pictures.

I'm really excited about my laptop, which should be here by Tuesday. :) At least I can commandeer Gav's new desktop for long enough to update my blog now.