Slippery Road

I have a slight cold. This isn't too suprising considering how busy/stressed I've been. I woke up today wondering if I shouldn't sit Schlitterbann out, but I was too interested in seeing the water park to follow through. So, off to Galveston we went.

The water park was fun, although it is obviously still a work in progress. The lines were pretty long, but that's what you'd expect on a Sunday. The fact that it was the NASA picnic probably made things slightly worse. Anyway, it was very fun. They have the best "lazy" river I've ever been in. Very cool.

I took like a 5 hour nap when we got home, so I'm thinking that I was at least partially right about wondering if I should go today. Hopefully, I won't regret it later this week. I'm going to take Wednesday off in preparation for working a few weekends pretty soon here.

Flying By

Another busy week. Monday I played volleyball after work. Tuesday I went to the Astros game. Wednesday I got home at about 7:00pm and Gavin and I watched Battlestar Galactica all night. Thursday we went to see Roger Clemens pitch for the first time this year. Yesterday we had a party for people at work who have gotten certified and/or promoted recently (I'm in that group).

This morning, Becca took me flying. I used to think that I would get my pilots license as soon as I started working full time. Other things have taken priority for the last few years. Buying a house. Travel. But, I've started to feel the itch again. Having a good friend who is flying regularly probably isn't going to help.

World Cup

We're over at Sarah's apartment in the morning, watching the US-Ghana game in the World Cup. It's critical that the US win in order to proceed into the next round. Plus Italy needs to win today, which they seem to be on their way to do. We just can't believe the penalty kick called against the US at the end of the first half.

People were wondering if I would really show up to watch soccer, since they know I'm generally lukewarm about sports. I like sports, I just have a short attention span. Plus, we had donuts this morning. Always a good thing to lure me with. :)

Equality is Hard

I’ve been sitting here staring at a blank page, thinking about what I’d like to say about this article that Jen O mentioned on her blog. I’m finding it difficult to organize the thoughts that are swirling around in my head. This subject always gets me going.

I don't necessarily agree with the idea that child-rearing is unrewarding. Of course it is rewarding. If it wasn't, nobody would ever have kids (on purpose). The question is, why do so many women feel it is more important than career, when so few men feel the same?

I want a baby right now as much as I’ve ever wanted anything in my life. I also love my job. I’m ambitious. I don’t want to take time off from my career to raise children. Nevertheless, I will love my children as much and as fiercely as any traditional mother you care to name.

I've been been accused in the past of being too judgemental about this subject. After all, I love my job. Not everybody does. Why not stay home with kids if you don't need the money? But that could be said of men, too. Why don't you see as many men with 9-5's that don't thrill them volunteering to stay at home with the diapers and the laundry?

Here's what I'm afraid is happening. Women have made enough progress that a determined, talented woman can usually have the career she wants. If she's willing to sacrifice, if she won't take no for an answer, she can probably have a the career she wants and a family. But we seem to be pulling away from demanding that women be truly treated as equal partners in the home. I'm belive that this may be because we as women have been unwilling to accept the negatives of true equality along with the positives.

Because there are negatives. We would have to accept responsibility for some things we don't want to do along with the things that we do want. Working when you really don't want to work. Spending time away from your children when your career requires it. Paying for the guy on dates half the time. Equal responsibility for defending our nation and our communities - yes, I am partially talking about the draft here.

Personally, I will accept the bad with the good. But how many women feel differently, deep down?

Two

OK, so my Saturday didn't rock quite as much as Emilita's did, but it was still pretty good. It started off by having a sleep-in next to my HUSBAND for the first time in 3 weeks. Very cool. It then progressed to watching 4 episodes of Battlestar Galactica - which after a false start, we have discovered that we love - also with my HUSBAND. Then after finally changing into actual clothing at about 4pm, I capped off the day with an Astros game, which we won - again with my HUSBAND. See the pattern here?

Oh, and also... The big bosses set the launch date for July 1. It's official. We're going to try to get off the ground again.

luck be a lady, tonight

I flew back home today, it's great to be back home. Houston was even relatively cool today. I can't fall asleep yet... I've been staying up until 1am, California time. So I quietly type away on my laptop in bed, while Jen's snuggled comfortably next to me.

My last few weeks at JPL were great. The PDRs went well, the landing site workshop was really interesting, many friends took me out to eat and much beer was drunk. I accomplished most of what I set out to do. The only area I feel I didn't really make any progress was in figuring out other opportunities for JSC and JPL to work together on (which is probably above my pay grade, anyways). But I think my stay was a good example of how well the two can work together.

This week I took a day off and drove up to Edwards AFB, one of my friends set me up with a personal tour of Dryden. That was pretty fun, lots of neat planes and hearing some of the stories from a few guys who have been there for decades. That day was beautiful in Los Angeles so I spent the late afternoon hiking and jogging around Griffith Park, snapping shots of the urban and mountain landscape. I "discovered" the big Hollywood sign too! I had deliberately not looked up where it was, so it was a nice surprise.

I spent much of the last few weeks with Andy C, who works out there now and was our best man at our wedding. It's great seeing him again, and I think we'll continue working on a novel we cooked up almost ten years ago. We might as well start writing it.

My going-away lunch was at a great Italian restaurant in Pasadena, Mi Piace. The team was pretty relaxed, having passed a set of hurdles and looking forward to the work ahead. Many at the table discussed Mars and what excited them about going there. Certainly, landing on Mars is a fascinating technical challenge for an engineer to work on. We discussed the reason why we go to Mars right now: the science. Learning about Mars and whether life did or does exist there... that really means a lot to these guys.

If there was a theme song for our team, it would probably be is the Frank Sinatra classic, "Luck be a Lady". In particular the recording found on the Sinatra Reprise album which Jen and I have enjoyed for years and which the team plays at least once at every party or happy hour that I can recall. As engineers we try to design luck as much as we can out of our creation. As much as cost and schedule allows. But Mars can be a fickle, fickle planet. There are many uncertainties that we try to make sure our lander can handle. The day that our lander streaks into the Martian atmosphere and spends several minutes on its own trying to land safely will be very exciting and... well, we can always use luck on our side.

Please Be GO

We have to launch in July. If we don't, I may end up in a psych ward somewhere. I've been way to stressed out for way too long. My jaw is clenched all the time. I can't sleep at night, and when I do I have stressful dreams. I'm hoping the imminent arrival of my husband will help the sleeping thing a bit - I always fall asleep easier when he's there.

In spite of all that, I'm having a blast. I am a key cog in the wheel of human spaceflight. I am needed. It's great. I just didn't realize how stressful being needed would be.

The big bosses are meeting today and tomorrow to determine if we are ready.

Go, Discovery, Go!

Dental Hell

Yesterday I had one of the worst trips to the dentist ever. Both the normal hygenists were out sick. So I got a temp. It starts with the part at the beginning where they just look at your teeth and poke at any spots that look odd. The woman grabs my lower lip and pulls it out away from my teeth. It didn't hurt, but it was suprising. Then she grabs a gauze pad, tells me to stick out my tongue, and then grabs it and yanks it around.

Then she starts cleaning my teeth. Every time she wipes the little pick thing on my bib, she thumps my chest. Again, just enough to startle. Of course she's lecturing me at this point about flossing more. I was somewhat distracted by the fact that she managed to squirt me in the face with the water thing. And the time she gets the pick way up under my gum.

Then she gets out the polisher. Working from behind my head, she rests the heel of her hand on my eyeball for about 30 seconds. Then she fills my mouth to overflowing with the water thing so that I'm wet again. After mopping my face up, she leaves the vacuum thing hanging out of my mouth but in a location where it often forms a seal with the soft part under my tongue. (I don't recommend that.) The light gets adjusted so that it's shining right in my eyes.

Now the floss comes out. She proceeds to jam it down into my gums all the while telling me that I wouldn't bleed or be in pain if I flossed every day. I know that's true in general, but I'm not sure I believe her about this floss job in particular.

I think the dentist could sense I wasn't happy when he came in. He rather appologetically told me about the normal hygenists being out sick. At least they didn't find any cavities.

Long Night

I had a rough night last night. Becca, Cari, Sarah, and I went to dinner at Zios. I had a pepperoni and chicken calzone. Four hours later, my stomach started to cramp. It continued to cramp until about 5am. I slept fitfully from about 2-5am. I alternated back and forth between two dreams. In one, I was a revolutionary war general, planning a battle outside Boston. (I'm reading Jeff Sharra's Rise to Rebellion right now.) In the other one, I was the ascent flight director for a shuttle mission. In both cases, I was having a very tough time doing my job because I kept keeling over with stabbing pains in my stomach. It wasn't a great night.

Wrapping Up

In a few minutes I leave work to go to an early happy hour in Pasadena. I expect it to be crowded, MSL has a couple hundred people right now working on it and we just passed our PDR. Actually, I think we slamdunked our PDR. :) We're already trying to figure out what we could do to slamdunk the next critical review in a year. Basically, stay ahead of the curve and look like we're old hands at this.

This time in a week I'll be pulling into the airport to fly back home to my family and friends. Time to schedule some meetings to work out some final details before I hop on the plane. A coworker of mine at JSC offered to help set me up with a tour of Edwards AFB, which I would love to do. I just don't see myself having the time right now, though.

It's been a great time out here. Several long hours... I've earned a week off in overtime. Maybe I'll take every Friday off for a month. :)

Time History

I've had a few busy days...

Monday
0800: Arrive at work
0815 - 0930: Generate flight data
0930: Meeting
1030 - 1900: Generate flight data

Tuesday
0830: Arrive at work
0900: Polish up flight data. Publish
1500: Send e-mail to THE WORLD telling them where to get Shuttle
trajectory data
1515: Freak out about the e-mail I just sent
1600: Go home to change
1800: Go to baseball
2000: Astros win!
0000: Finally sleep

Wednesday
0530: Alarm rings *ugh*
0645: Arrive at work
0700: Explain to the Russians, via an interpreter, what the Shuttle
trajectory will be like after Undocking
0745: Back to my desk. Try to make sense of a bunch of weight and
center of gravity calculations
0930: Break the office printer. Spend 15 precious minutes fixing it.
1000: Masquerade as an IT help person by talking a USAF colleague
through a file transfer over the phone
1030: Walk across site for a meeting that is actually scheduled for
1230. Walk back.
1045: Turn down lunch off-site, which my sanity could really use,
because of 1230 meeting
1100: That red, sore eyeball I woke up with is getting worse
1101: Receive phone call from Eastern Missile Range about Shuttle launch
periods. Don't really know what they're talking about.
1110: Manage to get off the phone so I can get some lunch.
1145: Back from lunch. Try to figure out what to do about 1101 call.
1210: Get another call about Tracking and Data Relay Satellites (TDRS).
Everybody I need to talk to is at lunch.
1215: Notice that I can see a couple coworkers at cafeteria from my
window. Stop by on the way to my 1230.
1225: Call the TDRS guy back from my cell phone as I walk across site.
1230 - 1530: Sit through 2 1/2 hours of stuff I don't care about for
about 20 minutes of stuff I do care about.
1545: Back at my desk, talk to people about Eastern Range call. Nobody
knows what it's about.
1630: I've been here long enough. It'll keep until tomorrow.
1715: Arrive home irritated that I have to go through construction to
get to work either way I take.
1720: Take my contacts out and goggle at my completely red left eye.
1800: Fall asleep on couch.
2100: Wake up and everything's dark. Briefly think I've slept on the
couch all night.
2200: Call Gavin
0030: Finally get to sleep again.

Thursday
0700: Alarm rings - snooze
0830: Finally get up because the dogs are whining at me
0945: Arrive at work. STUPID TRAFFIC!
1000: Find key to Eastern Range puzzle from yesterday. Cross that off
my list
1015: Begin sending about a billion e-mails about different things
1130: Leave site for lunch (yea!)
1135: Call the eye doctor from my car because there is something VERY
WRONG with my eye
1230: Back to work. Fight small fires.
1430: Go to eye doctor. I apparently have an ulcer in my eye. Get
drops. Am told it will clear up in a week.
1500: Back at work. More e-mails. More small fires. Need to go
generate some launch data.
1800: Leave work
1900: Blog for the first time in a week

Forgive the silence.

Near Thing

The rain kept the temps down during the early part of this week. But today, it was full-blown Houston in summer. It particularly sucked because I had put off mowing the grass half a week too long, and had to mow tall grass in the heat. It's my own fault, I knew I should have done it Monday or Tuesday.

The Astros game tonight was fun despite the fact that the 9th inning rally fell short for the 'stros. Andy Pettite almost got a tripple by hitting the ball a mile up the middle over the centerfielder's head. Would have if he could run. The ball was up on the hill in centerfield before it was picked up. You know after hitting the ball that far, Andy had to try for three. But you could see as he rounded 2nd that he was laboring HARD. His knees were coming up to about his ears and you could SEE him puffing. He was out by a step and a half at third, but you can't blame him for trying.

Gotta work a bit tomorrow. At least it means that we're getting close to flight.

MIA Emilita

An amazing woman who loved the outdoors.

Beloved by many, including her favorite dog Shiloh.

Alas, she went missing after taking the GRE.

No idea how well she did.

We miss you, Emilita. :p

Post sometime, eh?

Last PDR Presentation, Check

So I talked for nearly an hour today about entry guidance, it went well. I'm burned out on making slides, though. And I didn't have enough time to properly prepare for this one. Mostly because I'm a perfectionist. There were some great questions from the review board, there is one lady who I can tell really knows this. She asked some questions that reminded me I wanted to mention something about this or that, which is nice.

Anyways, off to happy hour now. Sarah may only stay for a bit before she heads off to a Dodgers game.