It's Raining

Very bad news today. Thunderstorms with 2" hail and Space Shuttles sitting exposed on the launch pad do not mix well. Just when we start to get rolling again...

I made a Baby Countdown web page to answer some of the questions I was getting. I'll be updating in periodically, I hope...

Baby Mendeck Countdown

Back in Town

We're back in Houston today. I had a great time on vacation, and for once I actually feel more rested at the end than I did in the beginning. Strange!

I have a flying lesson scheduled at noon. It's beautiful here - sunny and 70 deg. Today, my goal is to do the patten with the radio calls. And maybe not bounce at least a few of my landings.

Vail Trip Photo Recap

Here's a quick photo survey of the trip...


Warming up in Vail



Snowmobiling



A beautiful day at Breckenridge

Breckenridge

Today we all went to Breckenridge. I shopped until I pretty much dropped. Carrying 25 extra pounds around at 9000 ft isn't a picnic. Fortunately, I had the foresight to think that I might want a break in the afternoon, and found a place to get my hair cut. That took some of the afternoon. Then I took my book (more foresight) and found a bench by a firepit at the base of the mountain.

They have these fire sculptures at all the ski resorts here. There is a metal sculputure in the shape of burning logs, which is lit with a gas fire. I'm sure these are much easier for the ski resorts to maintain. And, they look nice. They're really warm. But, sitting by one for a couple hours made me wonder what kind of fumes I was breathing. Smoke isn't so great for your health either, but it is more familiar, I guess.

I had thought that I might take a car and go for a mountain drive tomorrow, but after looking at the weather forecast I think I might have to abort that plan. The snow is supposed to start around noon and blow around to boot. Not great weather to try to drive across a mountain pass by oneself. Oh, well. Maybe I'll actually work on my ground school studies like I planned.

Pampering

Today I did something very unusual for me. I went to a spa and got pampered for two hours. I had a "prenatal massage" and got a pedicure. The massage was AWESOME! They had a special pregnancy pillow that had cutouts for my stomach and boobs. Even the baby liked it. Baby started moving around the second she started the massage. The masseus even commented that she could feel it moving.

After that I got some lunch and headed to Vail to meet up with everyone else. For a day when I did so little, it was amazingly fulfilling.

Avon, Colorado

We're in Colorado this week. Everybody else is out skiing today, leaving me to take a long bath and check out what Avon has to offer. I'm going to set up snowmobile tours, find someplace to rent snowshoes, and check out the spa for pedicures for the girls. I never take vacations where I just relax. Usually my vacations are busier than when I'm at home. (Although, still way more fun.) So, this is going to be an experience for me. I've already spent more time in the condo than I normally would over about 2 days.

The good news is that the snowmobiling looks like it will happen without me having to hide the pregnancy. The first couple places I called wouldn't touch me with a 10 foot pole. The last couple, while hesitant, say that they'll take me out. I promised to discuss it with my doctor, which I did. He has absolutely no problem with it (although, he was happy to hear that I'm not skiing). At least these last couple places left the decision on what's best for me to me. :P

Gripes and Goods

Today's Gripes

1) Work has started blocking access to Blogger. This is understandable, but annoying. Maybe I'll install movable type after all.

2) Apparently, BBQ doesn't go so well with a pregnant stomach. This sucks because I like BBQ.


Today's Good

1) The teddy bear my co-worker got for Valentine's Day. There's a picture in my photostream. It not only looks that cool, but it sings "I want to be loved by you... Boo-boo-bee-doo". Good for hours of amusement

2) Trading casual e-mails with an astronaut. How cool is my job?

Ticker

More cutsie that I'd normally go for. But, configurable!

What's New?

So, I'd like for you to try to guess what's different about this page today. Anyone? Anyone? Look around; try guessing...

2 + 2 = 15

Roxy had a tooth pulled today. While the incision in her mouth is healing, the vet wants us to feed her canned dog food. So, I went to the store today and got a couple six packs of cans, figuring that would last 4-5 days. Tonight we open up a package and read the instructions on how much to feed her.

"Feed 2/3 can per day per 8 lb body weight"

Oh. My. God. Roxy weighs 100 lb. Do the math - that means these people are suggesting we feed her 8 1/3 cans of food per day. 8 cans! E-I-G-H-T! As in 2/3 of the amount of food I thought would last 4-5 days!

Now, those cans weren't terribly expensive, but I paid about $4.50 for each six pack. So, now let's add this up... At 8 cans per day that's $6.75 per day. $202.5 per month. I think we normally spend about $100 per month on food for both our dogs.

I thought, it has to be a mistake. We decided to start her out with 3 cans tonight - she didn't have any breakfast because of the surgery, after all. Then I came upstairs and checked Iams web site. For a 100 lb dog, it says 3 2/3 cans per day.

Somebody's math doesn't add up, and I've checked mine 3 times.

Bad News, Good News

I had to go in to work this morning for a couple hours to run a telecon, but I came home right after. I don't think Gavin and I have ever been so sick at the same time before. Gavin had to come out and sleep in the living room last night because we were just waking each other up all the time. I hear rumors this is a 3-5 day thing. I hope I'm on the low end of that. I need a better night's sleep tonight.

I found out that I can upgrade my phone now. Thank God. I was not appreciating my old phone with the cheesy ringtines.

I got some very good news from my sister this morning. If all goes well, Baby M should have a cousin just a few months younger than him/her.

bleh

Whatever knocked Jen out got me too. My throat was sore Monday but around 3pm yesterday the cold hit me too. Neither of us slept much last night. I hope this is a 24 hour thing.

When we get sick, we really get sick. :/

Under the Weather

My luck ran out today. I've been remarkably healthy all winter, but today I woke up with a sore throat. I didn't have much going on at work, so I decided to stay home. By lunchtime, I had a full-blown cold. Gavin talked to someone at work that said there's a flu going around that starts with a sore throat and runny nose.

Now, I meant to get a flu shot last fall, but at first I wasn't sure I should with the pregnancy. Then once the doctor OK'd it, I just put it off. I hope I don't regret it.

The vet is 99% sure Roxy has an abscessed tooth. She's got an appointment on Thursday to go under, get an X-ray, and surgery to pull the teeth if the X-ray confirms the diagnosis. At least recovery is fairly short - only a few days. No idea what this adventure is going to cost us.

First Real Set of 4

This was, I think, the first rainless weekend we’ve had in about a month. I celebrated by getting a great flying lesson in on Saturday. We went up and did a few stalls. I’m still not great at doing a banking stall without making the bank too steep, but it’ll do. I finally went into a power-on stall with the ball uncoordinated enough to make the airplane roll. My instructor was glad it finally happened, because he wanted to see at least one that rolled on me.

Then we went back to the airport, and I did 3 touch & gos plus a full-stop. My first three actually went very well. I was remembering what to do before told most of the time and I made pretty good soft landings. After the first one, I even was able to remember what to do to get off the runway again without much prompting. The last landing was a bit rocky, because I flared too much and ballooned and then pushed forward too much and ended up porpoising down the runway for a bit. Ah, well. I was going to screw one up eventually.

When we got back to the airport, there tons of planes around and all of them were being all kinds of crazy. One tried to cut me off as I was turning crosswind (after takeoff) on my 2nd touch & go. One was flying a right hand pattern. One started pulling out onto the runway before the plane taking off was past it. One got to the numbers and stalled his engine before takeoff. It was enough to make me a bit nervous!

Yesterday was the super bowl party. It went swimmingly, although I’m not sure how much time any of us spent watching the game. We got lots of approval for the new TV.

We also started the process of registering for baby yesterday. We’ve got a way to go, still, but we had fun. The first “impluse” registry item is a set of speakers you can clip to the side of the crib and plug your MP3 player into. It’s just a gimic, you could get the same thing with any set of portable speakers, but how cool is that?!

Flashback #10

I woke up this morning to a very insistant kicking in my belly. I could see my tummy moving. This is the first time the baby has ever actually woken me up. Somebody's getting stronger.

This is the last flashback post. After this, we're back to real-time.


November 5, 2006 8:52 PM

For the most part, this whole pregnancy thing is fun. Yeah, my stomach starts complaining every night just about the time I want to go to bed. And I’ve been sleeping so much that I don’t know how I have been managing to do anything in the evenings.

But, we’ve been enjoying this so far. First, there is the novelty of actually being pregnant after so long of trying. And, it’s pretty fun letting people in on the secret slowly. :)

Some things are scary, though. We just went through several pamphlets about screening for genetic abnormalities. I know that the likelihood of anything like that happening is small. I guess the whole parenting deal is about worrying.

Reflecting on 1 Feb 2003

Introspective post today. This is the fourth anniversary of the Columbia accident. It was a day where I learned a lot about myself and the people I work with. It seems that every 'generation' in the NASA workforce has suffered a human spaceflight accident to remind them how unforgiving spaceflight can be. Will accidents happen in the future? Most likely. But we do what we can to push that day further into the future. How do we learn from mistakes, both our own and from those before us? How do we pass on such wisdom to the next generation? It is sometimes harder than I would have expected.

Below is an email I replied to a friend of mine the night after the accident. My friend had asked beforehand if he could share the words I sent, and I ended up striking a 'never give up' tone near the end. At the time, I really felt that way; I was ready to charge back into the office and work 12 hour days for weeks to help the investigation. And that is what we did. The next shuttle launch was two years later and we found we hadn't fixed the problem completely. That took another year. It doesn't feel like it took years, but it did.

Thanks for your words, my wife and I have commented several times today how good it is to know we have such good friends in the world. You can share this with those you know, if you wish.

We woke up with a phone call from one of our friends who was watching the news this morning. My work at NASA involves spacecraft re-entry for other vehicles besides the shuttle and I have also worked on analyzing entry breakups such as the Space Station Mir. I immediately recognized from the videos that we were seeing a breakup... and that the chance of the crew surviving was infintismal. It was not going to be a good day. I thought of the astronaut families that would have been excited and eager to see their loved ones arrive, and now never would. I tried to imagine what the last moments of the astronauts might have been like, and realized I really couldn't handle that right then. So my engineering mind took over.

The space shuttle should not have been visible from Dallas. It was too late in the morning, the sunlight too bright, to make out the shuttle or the usual plasma trail it leaves behind. Given that it was clearly visible was not a good sign -- breakup was probably already underway before the bright and large fragments were videotaped splintering away over DFW.

During and after breakup, each debris piece would create its own sonic boom until it slowed below the speed of sound. The reports from people on the ground of hearing a 'train-like rumbling' or several explosions was likely the effect of dozens or hundreds of overlapping supersonic booms being heard as the debris soared overhead.

Later that morning as we watched the news reports, I received a call to head in to work to perform some analysis work. A few of us were asked to estimate where debris may have fallen to help direct the emergency response teams and focus the search area. By the time we had that done, there were already reports of fragments in Nacodoches and other locations. It looks like our estimates were very close to what others were finding. By 2pm there was little else I could do today. So my wife and I went home.

As we sat at home I realized how nice it had been to be busy and working, instead of having a lot of time to dwell on the events of the day. It was the first time in my career that I had dealt with and observed something of this magnitude, and now that I think about it I was proud. Not of what I did, because it was but a small part, but of how the people at Johnson Space Center were responding: efficient and professional.

I'm proud to be a part of this team that can deal with unexpected situations, the team that is going to determine what happened, and the team that is going to find solutions and return Americans to space. The months ahead will be difficult and challenging, but they will be months with a purpose that I imagine few ever experience. Those I saw at NASA today felt great sorrow, but by no means felt disheartened. And hearing all of the thoughts and prayers from our family, friends, and even strangers steadies our resolve even further. I don't think I can ever express how much that means to us.

One of the experienced flight directors commented in a news conference this afternoon how it is events like this that really bring this country together and how it is too bad that we don't come together more often in times of happiness rather than in times of tragedy. I thought they were good words. I look forward to us all coming together again when the next crew launches from Florida for the skies above.

Thanks for writing me, hope you are faring well.
Gavin

No more bouncing up

Work has been crazy this week. I can't seem to find any time to catch my breath. I got a meeting notice for a meeting the last week of April. It's a pretty big one, so I feel like I need to try to go. But, it's a bit initimidating to be making travel plans for 6 weeks before my due date! I suggested we have a backup ready to go in case I can't travel.

Recently I've had to make some fairly major pregnancy adjustments. I have to scoot my rear to the front of my chair to stand up. If I'm on the sofa, I need to put a hand on the back to push myself up. I have to be careful about using my stomach muscles to sit up in bed, because it usually causes heartburn if I do. This stuff is making me feel more pregnant than anything before. Even than when I started to be able to feel the baby move, which I thought would be wierd. But, that actually feels very natural. I guess I was expecting to start to feel unwieldly, and now that I do it's a confirmation of my expectations.