Where Am I Going Next?

Onion News Network

noreply@blogger.com (Gavin) — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 15:34:00 +0000

I had heard they were doing this, but I hadn't seen any clips yet. This one was pretty funny, as a parent. Or even if you're not a parent. I especially liked the text headline on the bottom of the screen that kids support increasing military funding to protect toys.

They may give the Daily Show a run for their money soon.

Study: Most Children Strongly Opposed To Childrenâ��s Healthcare

24 Hour Yuk

noreply@blogger.com (Jen) — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 14:57:00 +0000

Yesterday I woke up with an upset stomach. I suffered through my morning at work, went home after lunch, slept all afternoon on my right side (that felt better for whatever reason), picked up Carina from day care and tried to watch her while curled up on the floor, forced myself to eat a bit of soup when Gavin came home, went back to bed, and woke up this morning feeling fine.

WTF?

Guess I should just be happy that it didn't last longer.

Tonight, Gavin and I have a date night. We got a regular babysitter on Thursdays, theoretically so we can play softball, but since the season hasn't started yet we are going to take advantage and get out by ourselves the next couple weeks. It works out pretty well, actually, as next Thursday is our anniversary.

Need to Hike

noreply@blogger.com (Jen) — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 15:37:00 +0000

I wrote a long e-mail to Melanie yesterday with a bunch of information and advice on what to do in Hawaii. It made me very nostalgic recounting all the best parts of that trip. Even though Gavin and I had a week long vacation in Florida less than a month ago, I still have a huge travel itch. The vacations we take that I reminisce about for years include hiking, camping, foreign lands, hiking, mountains, and more hiking. We haven’t done anything like that since before I got pregnant, and I’m totally missing it.

Becca and I have been talking at a half-serious level about going to Colorado for some hiking in the next month. I think it needs to happen. It will be a bit different going with Carina, but she needs to get used to sleeping outdoors from time to time. We probably won’t actually backpack this time out, though. Hmm… Need to research good car camping locations. :)

Check Ride Recap

noreply@blogger.com (Jen) — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 18:52:00 +0000

Regarding my check ride... It was actually pretty vanilla compared to some of the other stories I’ve heard. I flew with an awesome lady who is one of the top acrobatic pilots in the country. She gave me a very low-key oral exam, just making sure I had things mostly stored off in my head or easily accessible to look up. Like most professional pilots, I think she was a bit amused at the lengths I will go to to plan a cross-country around class-B airspace. We went flying and I zipped through all the maneuvers. I wallowed a bit in the recovery from the power-on stall, but although it wasn’t the most graceful recovery I think it did show her I understood why the airplane was behaving the way it was. I got a bit low on airspeed during my simulated engine failure, which she forgave. I was also a bit fooled by the completely limp windsock and didn’t do my good crosswind technique on the last landing or two. My shortfield landing stopped short of a taxiway she didn’t expect me to be able to make, though. :)

On Saturday, I took Gavin and Pat out in the 150 as my first passengers. I think they both had fun. We told my daredevil niece that she could go next year. That kid isn’t even 4 yet, but she wanted to ride the roller coaster at Kemah.

I sent my sister’s family off on the 2-day car trip back to Wyoming this morning. I hope the kids make it in good spirits. They’re doing a LOT of driving this summer.

Trial versus Tribunal

noreply@blogger.com (Gavin) — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 13:31:00 +0000

The recent Supreme Court decision will have important ramifications for the future of anti-terrorism efforts by the U.S. The U.S. military, in response to an earlier decision by the Court, had already granted detainees much more legal process than required for enemy combatants by the Geneva conventions. Apparently that wasn't enough for five justices.

I Passed!

noreply@blogger.com (Jen) — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 20:46:00 +0000

I don't really have time right now to do it justice, but as of yesterday I am an official Private Pilot! Several folks came over last night to celebrate, which was really fun. I think I might take Gavin and Pat out for rides tomorrow.

We took Caroline, Jackson, and Carina to Moody Gardens today. Everyone liked the acquarium a lot. Carina had a great time watching the fish. The rainforest wasn't as good for her, maybe because she was getting really hungry.

I haven't been capturing the best moments of this visit in photos yet. Caroline is being very sweet with Carina, but I seem to miss those moments and then by the time I get the camera out, one or the other isn't as happy anymore.

Iraq is Improving

noreply@blogger.com (Gavin) — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 18:11:00 +0000

It's been clear to several on the ground since last fall that the situation is improving dramatically. There are a number of reasons for this. One is the surge of American troops, as the numbers previously there were too few. But much of the credit goes to the Iraqis.

Now that the US primaries are over, this is starting to make the news. The Economist has a decent summary of where Iraq is. The more who read it, the better. I agree with its statement that America must remain flexible to conditions in Iraq, and not make a unilateral promise to withdraw troops regardless of the situation.

Please don't become BSG 1980

noreply@blogger.com (Gavin) — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 03:53:00 +0000

That's what I was repeating out loud 15 minutes from the mid-season finale when Jen and I watched it tonight. It was great, there's been a lot of stuff happening in the last few episodes as they begin to close up the series with half a season left.

Anyways, I'll post the rest in the comments. With spoilers.

My Brain Is in the Computer

noreply@blogger.com (Jen) — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 21:54:00 +0000

I was doing some long-range schedule/vacation planning today, and I suddenly realized that the reason it was so hard I have no holidays on my work calendar for the rest of the year. What gives? Turns out, I needed a service pack update to get the next couple years of holidays in. Hmmmm. Maybe that's why I was having so much trouble remembering which weekend Memorial Day was this year. :o I have started having to write things in my calendar like "Gavin in CA" or "flight bag to work". Otherwise, I find myself getting angry at Gavin for being at work so late when he's on a plane over Arizona or trying to fly the plane in a skirt.

I keep thinking that next month, it will be calmer. I won't have as much to do next month. Every month, though, by the 3rd or 4th my calendar is looking quite full. This mission was supposed to give me lots of time without many interruptions to catch up on some stuff. Today was only the 4th day I have had in my office, though, and a few of those have been short days due to doctor's appointments, outside commitments, or going to do my last pre-check ride lesson.

That's right, I'm GO to schedule my check ride. My instructor said if I fly like I did this morning I should pass no problem. Why am I suddenly nervous? Like I have to take a test or something. :) Anyway, we'll see how fast I can get an examiner scheduled. I'd like not to have to use Alpha Wolf if I don't have to. (Jose, shame on you for not having a post I could link to for that!)

iPhone 2.0 in 60 seconds!

noreply@blogger.com (Gavin) — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 16:30:00 +0000

It took Apple 142 minutes to talk about the iPhone 2.0 a few days ago. Someone was nice and condensed it down... it's fun to watch. The price is cheap enough that maybe I'll get one now.

Mid-June Already

noreply@blogger.com (Jen) — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 15:11:00 +0000

We are told Carina took three steps at daycare yesterday. I've seen her take about 1/2 of a step myself. I can't believe we're almost to the walking phase. I expect she'll be getting around pretty well by the time her cousins get here next week.

Speeking of her cousins coming - where did the last month go? Last time I thought about this it was almost a month away and all of a sudden it is next week.

I'm stuck in a two-day meeting of which probably about 1 hour cumulative is going to be interesting to me. I hate that. At least I remembered to bring my laptop so I can work on my e-mail.

insomnia

noreply@blogger.com (Gavin) — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 07:35:00 +0000

being up this late kinda sucks

but listening to karate kid, part ii, is a nice distraction

and by nice, I mean amusing

Florida Wrap

noreply@blogger.com (Jen) — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 04:18:00 +0000

We're back. Our last three days in Florida were spent at the beach, and at Disney World. It has been years since we were at Disney, so we had a great time seeing all the updates. We made the most of our two days there; we visited Epcot, Hollywood Studios, and Magic Kingdom. We rode the new Toy Story ride (SO COOL!), saw Fantasmic, the SpectroMagic Parade, and the MK fireworks. We stayed out until midnight yesterday, even though we knew we had to get up before 7:00 to leave for the airport.

Florida was amazingly fun, but we were very ready to get back. We were both pointing out babies around Carina's age all the time in the parks. Carina was asleep when we got to Grammy and Grandad's, but she didn't make us wait too long. I heard her talking in her crib, so I cracked the door and stuck my head in. At first, she just stared at me. Then her eyes got huge - I mean HUGE - and she started running in place. Very satisfactory reaction. :)

So, now we're home, and tomorrow I go to work to see if the fact that we're flying means I'm less behind than I normally would be... I can hope. We actually got back home at around 4:00 this afternoon, so I have at least had time to do some stuff around the house.

"What does the space program represent to you?"

noreply@blogger.com (Gavin) — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 14:08:00 +0000

I was asked this question inside the Saturn V building at KSC, an hour before launch. A self-described reporter with a slight Dutch(?) accent was wandering around the crowds and asking them this question. I didn't mind the question; in fact, I felt it was a rather good one. I thought about my answer for a few seconds.

"The space program represents the challenges that humanity can overcome, and our hopes for the future."

Not a great sound bite, I suppose, but not too bad. I would love it if I could come up with stuff like that without having to think hard about it. Feel free to add your own views in the comments.

T+2 minutes

noreply@blogger.com (Gavin) — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 03:46:00 +0000

The launch was great! We were maybe 3 or 4 miles away from the pad, and plumes were brilliant against the blue sky as the shuttle climbed. The photo above is just a few moments after SRB separation, at the full-res you can see the pinpoint of light as the shuttle races away from the 'dirty' SRB exhaust clouds. And if you zoom in, you can make out the SRBs tumbling away but they're only a few pixels big.

We're meeting some friends tomorrow and maybe we'll hang out on the beach near Canaveral. Mom and Dad have been emailing us some photos of Carina, and with those plus the ones Sarah put online we're managing to not call every day and see how things are going. :)

L-1

noreply@blogger.com (Jen) — Sat, 31 May 2008 02:56:00 +0000

If you've been watching the Flickr screen, you'll see that we are in Florida. There are an amazing number of friends and acquantainces here for this launch as well. We got our tours today, which I have to say was a little underwhelming. They wouldn't let us into any buildings; something about stacking SRBs in the VAB and not wanting 200+ people tramping through.

We went to see Blue Man Group tonight. That was fun. I've never seen so much toilet paper in my life.

Tomorrow, hopefully, we get to see Discovery go to space!

Happy Birthday, Baby

noreply@blogger.com (Jen) — Tue, 27 May 2008 14:52:00 +0000

One year ago today (in about 3 hours at 12:45 PM), Carina arrived. It is absolutely unbelievable that it has been that long. And yet, also unbelievable that we ever existed without her. It seems like her little arms around my neck and her little face snuggled into my shoulder are as necessary to my existance as breathing.

Her party yesterday was a huge success. She pulled in quite a haul, as expected. Everyone loves shopping for kids. In addition to enough clothing from Grammy and Grandma to keep her dressed to the 9s for the next year (or at least 6 months) of her life, she got some very cool toys. There were several aviation-themed gifts, including this Elmo ride-along airplane that has more buttons on it than Cari's Prius. This was both an adult and child favorite; Becca set about getting it out of the packaging right away as Aerik was fascinated.

The slip-n-slide got lots of use. ("Not for adult use", whatever. I think we proved that thing is fun for ages 3 to at least 31.) They've gotten quite a bit more sophisticated since our Version 1.0 we had as kids. I remember it was always a challenge setting up the sprinkler to evenly wet the slide, but that has been taken care of by the addition of an integrated sprinkler tube on the side. And then there is the splash pool at the end - definitely satisfying. The water in the wading pool was also dirtied with grass clippings from all the comings and goings. I never turned on the sprinkler as it didn't seem to be missed.

Carina opened her presents, and then had to go take a nap. She woke up in time for cake, but she was still groggy and wouldn't eat any of it. She did play with the frosting a bit on her hands, thoroughly decorating the table in front of her. No cake on the face, unfortunately. Maybe we'll try again tonight with a smaller piece.

The Pen

noreply@blogger.com (Jen) — Thu, 22 May 2008 03:49:00 +0000

I got an announcement at work this week for a "special project" team that interests me. Thinking that I'm might apply for this team, I sat down tonight to work on a resume (haven't done one of those since college) and the requested short essay about why I'm applying. I haven't done any persuasive writing in a long time. In fact, setting aside e-mail and technical writing for work, I think this blog is probably the only (semi)public writing outlet I have had since college.

I've always considered myself a decent writer. Maybe with a bit of a tendency toward pomposity at times, but decent. I felt totally overboard while writing my essay. Metaphores. Symbolism. I think I learned about that stuff a decade or so ago.

Engineers should have to write more. They ought to force us to write pieces on why our projects are important to humanity. Tell a story about working our first Shuttle mission. Write science fiction about what space exploration will look like in 50 years. Something to force me to go beyond powerpoint bullets more than once a decade.

Mystery Bag

noreply@blogger.com (Jen) — Mon, 19 May 2008 15:44:00 +0000

This is so funny! Thanks, Val!

"Now is a good time to mention that four plus four equals eight, which means that this article has caused me to own no fewer than eight decks of cards. If you assembled these decks together to play a game of war, it would actually take longer to complete than the war in Iraq."

I was at a dollar store myself the other day, shopping for goodies to put in the party favors for Carina's birthday. What do you buy for party favors for a party at which the age of the attendees varies from 7 months to 60 years? Well, our back patio should be a work of sidewalk art once we're done, and everyone likes bubbles. :)

TOL Practice

noreply@blogger.com (Jen) — Thu, 15 May 2008 21:34:00 +0000

The clouds were just high enough yesterday to allow me to fly in the pattern. The automated weather service at the airport was reporting the sky as "clear", which was obviously not the case. I called the next nearest weather station at Hobby and that one was reporting scattered clouds at 2800 ft, so I decided to go. The bottoms of the clouds at Pearland were way lower than 2800. I realized this as I nervously approached pattern altitude at 1000 ft. I stayed clear, though.

I flew 7 landings, practicing some normal ones, and some shortfield/softfield. It's amazing how short you can stop a Cessna 150 when you want to. I had one scary moment when I forgot to close a window I opend while taxiing back to the end of the runway to do a softfield. I should have just ignored the window until I got stable off the ground. I ended up flying in ground effect off near the edge of the runway with the stall horn still going off, which was not the best thing. Live and learn, literally.

Drama

noreply@blogger.com (Jen) — Tue, 13 May 2008 15:30:00 +0000

I’m sad... Nobody has updated their blog today. Even me. But I’m fixing that.

The word of the week seems to be “drama”. I know that office politics happen everywhere, but most of the time I feel somewhat immune to it here. In general, I feel that we do that “team working toward a common goal” thing pretty well. Even with the strong personalities that I work with day in and day out.

This week, though, I have had discussions about hurt feelings like 4 times in the last two days. Jokes that were taken personally. People feeling unappreciated. People not talking to the people they should and instead making a big fuss to those above them. People still bitter over missunderstaindings I thought we took care of months ago.

Maybe I flatter myself, but I consider myself a pretty empathetic person. I think I understand why people are taking things so hard, while at the same time thinking that they might be overreacting a bit. I can see the good intentions on both sides, and it’s frustrating to me that the good intentions are getting lost in the communcation barrier.

Really, I just want everyone to get along. If half the world would grow just a slightly thicker skin and the other half would learn to think before they speak, so much drama could be avoided.

Don't Blink

noreply@blogger.com (Jen) — Fri, 09 May 2008 22:14:00 +0000

Don't blink
Just like that you're six years old and you take a nap and you
Wake up and you're twenty-five and your high school sweetheart becomes your wife
Don't blink
Just might miss your babies growin' like mine did
Turning into moms and dads; next thing you know your better half of fifty years is there in bed
And you're praying God takes you instead
Trust me friend, a hundred years goes faster than you think
So don't Blink
- Kenney Chesney

I've been feeling like this is the soundtrack of my life right now. Carina turns 1 in a little more than two weeks, and I can't believe it! It seems like just last month I was driving to the hospital with enough adrenalin in my system to make a horse jumpy. And just the other week she started eating people food. And just yesterday that she started crawling. In about 2 seconds, she'll be walking.

The problem is that blinking is an essential human function. I would be happy to remember every second, but no matter how hard you try it just blurs together. I can practically see her growing every time I watch her for 5 minutes straight, and time will not SLOW DOWN for me. So I take a lot of pictures and try to stop blinking.

Blink.

Damn.

Launch Trip

noreply@blogger.com (Jen) — Fri, 09 May 2008 00:47:00 +0000

I'm backseating another operator for a simulation tonight, and it's much more interesting than I was afraid it would be. Luckily, I had checked out a laptop for a 2-day meeting earlier this week, so I can fill the slow times with e-mail and other small tasks. I'm still not totally used to being the "voice of experience" in this job, but I'm filling that role more and more every day.

I bought plane tickets yesterday to accompany Gavin to the launch at the end of the month. It's going to be fun. I haven't gotten any tours at KSC since I was there as a teenager and took the public tour, so I'm pretty excited about that. And seeing a Shuttle launch, of course.

Here's hoping for a launch no later than June 3.

Left Foot, Right Foot

noreply@blogger.com (Jen) — Wed, 07 May 2008 02:19:00 +0000

Carina is learning to walk, and boy does she love it! Sunday, we had her in stitches by sitting a few feet apart and encouraging her to walk back and forth between us, holding Gavin's hands and then mine. Then last night, I stood her up holding on to this pushalong/ridealong car she has, and she walked 5-6 steps with it. Tonight she crossed the floor a few times with it. We've both seen her stand unsupported for a few seconds.

As always, she's being careful Carina. I remember when Caroline was around this age and learning to walk with her pushalong elephant, she had to keep walking faster and faster to keep up with it. TOTALLY out of control! Carina is keeping her balance, though. The car has gotten ahead of her a couple times, but she's always stopped and rocked back to get it in a more stable position.

I thought about getting a video tonight, but my camera was out in the car. Soon - gotta capture those first steps.

Iron Man (2008)

noreply@blogger.com (Gavin) — Sat, 03 May 2008 14:42:00 +0000

3.5/4

Another great movie. Hopefully the summer keeps turning them out. Dowdry Jr delivers a great performance. He comes across as a modern Howard Hughes, minus the obsessive compulsion disorder. One of the best comic book movies to date. The story paces well and the action scenes are spot on. Make sure you wait and watch the scene after the credits.

The movie studio is setting up for more than a sequel.