February 2003 Archives
here i am updating as my post-processor runs in the background. the hope is that it runs successfully, so i'm crossing my fingers. i can't believe that i've become a coding freak. granted, it's nothing hardcore, just some unix scripting and matlab, but...
yesterday afternoon we put up a big poster created by another division onsite. it's basically a huge comprehensive 107 timeline, and it's been gathering a crowd all morning. too bad their data isn't all right. {sigh} too many cooks in the kitchen.
since it's been rainy and cold all week but was lovely last weekend, i'm hoping the pattern repeats itself and things clear up for tomorrow. i have no big plans for tonight, but do have stuff tomorrow (soccer, curt's girlfriend's birthday dinner) and sunday (katie's husband's birthday lunch) so it will be an activity-filled weekend. i can't shake the feeling that i've committed to something this weekend that i've forgotten about...but i hope not.
i can't believe tomorrow is march. where did february go? with work in its current state, the month was a complete blur.
it has been suggested that i edit the entry i had posted earlier today. so here's the edit: screw online diaries. i give up.
wet, dark, and freezing cold. thus is my current weather. it sucks.
(2:38 p.m.)
it works, it works, it works, IT WORKS!!!! at long last, my atmosphere works!!
it's becca's birthday today. everyone wish her a happy one. and for whoever just called her work phone immediately followed by her cell phone...dude, she's not at her desk right now. ;p
in other news, how does it go from being warm and brilliantly sunny on sunday to raining and 40 degrees today?
(10:31 a.m.)
Astros to wear Columbia mission patch
HOUSTON -- The Astros will wear the mission patch from the space shuttle Columbia's doomed final journey to honor the seven Houston-area residents who died Feb. 1 when it broke apart as it returned to Earth.
The team said it has secured permission from NASA and the families of the astronauts to wear the patch. The team also will conduct a special ceremony on Opening Day, April 1, at Minute Maid Park.
"We are honored to receive permission for our team to wear the mission patch from the space shuttle Columbia during the 2003 season," Astros owner Drayton McLane Jr. said. "The astronauts on this mission are true American heroes, and we are deeply grateful to be afforded the opportunity to pay tribute to these incredible people."
When the Colt .45s changed their name to the Astros in 1965, coinciding with the opening of the Astrodome and the nation's plunge into space, 24 astronauts threw ceremonial pitches at the team's home opener.
In each season since moving to Minute Maid Park in 2000, the Astros have hosted a "NASA Day" honoring astronauts and employees of the Johnson Space Center in southeast Houston."The name Astros reflects the courage and determination of those involved with our space program, and we are proud of our association."
this weekend was lovely. fantastic weather, sunny and just the right temperature. saturday i ran, got a pedicure, ran errands, had dinner, saw a dumb movie. yesterday i went to galveston for some fun, and posted pictures from our stops, including the lone star flight museum, an imax at moody gardens, and an early dinner at the rainforest cafe.
today is is back to cloudy. yuck.
cool article of the day: nasa is still in contact with pioneer 10, a spacecraft that was launced in 1972 and is now almost half a light day away from earth. 7.5 billion miles. wow. cool.
the race yesterday has the coolest website ever. not only do they have our 5k split time along with the overall 10k time, but they have my place in my age group, my place among all females, and my place overall. and graphs. and a 30-second clip that includes me crossing the finish line.
i've never seen myself running before. i do this weird thing where i kick out my right leg as i push off the ground. that can't be helping anything.
i ran a 10k this morning, and i made it the whole way. hurrah!
as a reward, becca (who ran the 5k) and i are treating ourselves to pedicures this afternoon. mmm.
it is really freaking windy outside. but also really gorgeously sunny and about 65 degrees, so i'm willing to deal with the wind. ;)
i really smell. shower time.
Often it is as far from journalism as it is possible to get, with unsubstantiated rumour, prejudice and gossip masquerading as informed opinion.
Without editors to correct syntax, tidy up the story structure or check facts, it is generally impossible to rely on anything one finds in a blog without verifying it somewhere else - often the much-maligned mainstream media.
The much-praised reputation mechanism that is supposed to ensure that bloggers remain true, honest and factually-correct is, in fact, just the rule of the mob, where those who shout loudest and get the most links are taken more seriously.
It is the online equivalent of saying that The Sun newspaper always tells the truth because four million people read it, and The Guardian is intrinsically less trustworthy as it only sells half a million."
the article is actually more about google, and whether it's getting too big and powerful (mwa ha ha)...but i found the comments about blogs interesting.
also, my group made the news:
"Analysts calculate the exact time and angles of the observation by determining exactly where the videos were taken from and by identifying planets or star fields in the background. The team calculates trajectories to predict probabilities of where the debris may have fallen to Earth by estimating properties of possible debris from the video and incorporating known atmospheric and wind data. Radar data is then retrieved and investigated to search for specific signatures. This process serves to drastically reduce the area that must be searched."
guys down the hall do the observation calculations. i do the trajectory calculation. becca does the radar investigation. and that's the vastly simplified explanation of what i've been doing since february 1. i figure if it's in the news, it's ok for me to post here...
(12:59 p.m.)
the scene: becca and me, walking in from the parking lot after gt alumni lunch at fuddrucker's. time span: about three seconds.
becca: "la la la."
me: "la la la."
the sky: "drip.........drip. ...drip. drip.... drip drip drip...dripdripdripdripdripdripdrip..."
me: (pause)
becca: (pause)
me: "umbrella! now! NOW!!"
the sky: "ROAR! sploosh! rainrainrainrainrainrainrain lotsofrain!!"
today i whittled my data on the fml computers from 15 gigabytes (yes, giga) down to a nice, neat 4 gb. hooray for me.
work sucks.
a translation of the article that was in la provence yesterday, featuring nick and his friend elizabeth.
(9:36 p.m.)
found tonight while waltzing through memories: a poem, written by an old friend.
To Sarah
One day I found a treasure
As I was looking for advice.
I was having my little worries
Chasing after a guy.
Then again, guys come, guys go.
Good friends can last forever.
Someone once said friends are people
Whose faults one can tolerate.
You seem to know and love
That I'm only human.
never a particular fan of poetry, i probably would think it cheesy...if it hadn't been written just for me.
so i did actually manage to go for a decent run yesterday...decent in distance, at least, but definitely not in time. it turned cold outside all of a sudden, so i ran two miles on the treadmill. my "famous" friend was there again, so we talked for a while. he works at nasa too, so we talked about columbia, and also about running. hhe's following this 26-week "build up to a 10k" book that he bought after christmas. sundays are the long run days, so yesterday he was doing 5 miles. what a wuss i was with my 2 miles.
anyway, the treadmill was making my legs hurt (i don't know why it does that, aren't treadmills supposed to be easier on your legs?), so i walked back to my apartment. by the time i got to the door, i had cooled down enough that i talked myself into running another 1.1 to make a nice 5k. so i did a lap around the complex, and one leg down the street. and the good news was that the run took away the groggy headache i'd had all day up to that point.
anyway. i wish i could write about something more exciting, but my life has been pretty routine lately. i looked at the calendar today, and was shocked to find that it is february 17th. february will be over in, like, less than two weeks! where did it go??
i think my car is leaking oil. not seriously, just like the filter is a tad loose. just drip....(hours pass)....drip. it's about time for an oil change anyway, so maybe i'll go do that today.
welcome to my boring life.
so there is a story about becca on the front page of the boca raton news. but even better than that is that my picture is there too. ;) hee hee.
(3:56 p.m.)
it's one of those days that i can't seem to wake up. i slept for 10 hours, and yet all i want is a nap. i need to go running, but it has suddenly turned cold outside again, and i have no energy. but i'm going to try.
hung out with james and chrissy and liz last night. we had dinner, talked, and watched a movie. it was nice to see all of them. we always say it's been too long since the last time we saw each other...and yet it always ends up being another month before we see each other again. i don't know why. anyway the updates are thus: james and chrissy are deep into the "we're engaged" mindset, and they seem absolutely thrilled about it, which makes me smile. and liz is going to puerto rico in two weeks, and it sounds like a fun trip.
i'm going to attempt a run.
last night i left work a little after 7:00, picked up my dry cleaning, and made quick stops at blockbuster and the grocery store. i went home, turned on hbo, and watch sex and the city while i cooked dinner. i also enjoyed french bread with tomato tapenade (thanks to my mwa ha ha faux-french friend) and a glass of delicious french cote d'aix red wine. after dinner, it was nice enough outside for me to sit on my balcony and read for an hour and a half. when it started to get a bit chilly, i came back inside and finished my book in the comfort of my papasan chair with two fuzzy pillows.
so all in all, it was a lovely little v-day for me, by me. who needs a valentine? :)
so now it's 3:00 on a saturday afternoon and guess where i am? that's right...work! this week should add up to 56 hours, including the 4 hours i expect to be here today (meaning 2 hours longer, seeing as how becca and i came in at 1:00 after a lovely lunch at mediterraneano's). but i really don't mind being here, actually. in fact, it's sort of nice in a strange way to be able to get up at a leisurely hour, bum around for a little bit, eat, and then finally head to work when i feel like it. and besides, we have monday off for president's day, so i'll still have my lovely weekend...it'll just be on sunday/monday instead.
so that's that.
tonight i am leaving at midnight. yes, midnight.
see, yesterday i made the mistake of saying i thought i might actually be able to leave at 5:00. i was wrong. totally and completely wrong. as has always been the case these past two weeks, stuff came up, and i actually left at 8:30. so i figure that if today i say i'm leaving at midnight, that's erring on the side of caution and i'll be happy with leaving anytime before then.
i got a valentine's present and i don't even have a valentine. that was nice.
last night i went for a run and i was absolutely pathetic. i ran my worst 5k in a long time. i'm never going to be ready for the rodeo run...it's only a week away. damn.
there is a good article on sfgate today about nasa people. the article focuses on ames, because that's san francisco's local nasa connection, but the thought can be expanded to all nasa centers, including jsc:
"And they saw the shuttle missions as living things, something they had worked on and worried about and checked and double-checked until safety permeated every aspect of every day.
They are engineers who believe they can reduce the risk of manned space flight, only to be reminded in the most public of tragedies, that their pursuits are dangerous and fragile...."
and:
"That's why people stay at NASA. That's why they pass up job offers from high-profile companies and stock options and bonuses. They are dweebs, and they know it. But they are Icarus and Leonardo da Vinci, Magellan and the Wright Brothers, John Glenn and Neil Armstrong.
"Space flight seems to be a call to the human spirit to do something beyond ourselves," said Boyd. "It is a fire in all our hearts that cannot be extinguished."
i know it sounds incredibly cheesy, but well, that's it.
today is better than yesterday. i anticipate actually being able to go home at 5:00 for the first time since the accident.
i am too damned incompetant to do this job.
i could be a poster child for nurture vs. nature. somewhere along the way, my brain made a bad connection and lost the ability to distinguish debate from heated argument. i get upset. i cry. i think i'm dumb, and i forget that i'm not dumb.
i don't feel like i'm being anti-social. i'm just tired of everything.
i still can't sleep at night.
the wisdom to know the difference...
good things. i saw a cardinal this morning, and cardinals are my favorite bird. it was sitting in the tree waiting for me when i left my apartment, and made me think of home. also, today is my dad's birthday. i called as i ate lunch at my desk to catch him before he went to bed, and that was nice.
(7:13 p.m.)
these are the days i want someone to come home too. not even a husband or boyfriend per say. just someone. to come home to, and to take away all the frustration. to hug me and tell me that they love me.
work is better today. i got some sleep, and got together with rich this morning to mentally lay out what i need to do. my goal is to have the file finished by the end of the day, so rich can q&a it.
i ran a 5k last night, which was good. on the 22nd i'm signed up for the rodeo run, which is a 10k race. i've never run a 10k before. i was going to be training for it, but with work as busy as it has become, i haven't really run in almost two weeks, except for saturday and last night. i'll get back to normal now, but the race is less than two weeks away. i know i can make it 6.2 miles, there's never really been a question of that...but i just don't think i'll be able to do it quite as fast as i'd hoped to be able to once i worked up to it. :( so i'll just do it as fast as i can. i was originally aiming for 1:01:00, but i've revised the goal to anything under 1:10:00. i know that's achievable.
i read an article today about the three men aboard the space station right now. "Bowersox said NASA has been 'real good' about giving them some time off to grieve. Treadmill workouts have helped, he added. 'One of the things we noticed that really helps is exercise,' Bowersox said. 'It's incredible how it seems to sort of even out your nervous system and just put you in a better mood no matter what's going on around you on board.'" some things are universal, i guess. my run last night helped me sort out a lot of things too.
time for an early lunch, then back to work.
work is calmer today, but i don't know that my brain fully recovered over the weekend. i've run so many sims at this point that they all sort of blur together. the ones that stop here, the ones that stop there, the ones for this, the ones for that. it's one big mush.
the good news is that soon it will all be automated. wahoo. anyway, i've got to go.
(9:43 p.m.)
i know, i know. i wrote crap today. the words just haven't been flowing, with everything else on my mind.
i worked till 6:30 today...as in, i was just working, and looked at the clock and went "how did it get to be 6:30 already??" i was frustrated, my brain was having trouble wrapping itself around things, and i was getting short with gavin and rich for no good reason. {sigh}
dave barry's blog. i love dave barry. my dad and i used to read his columns out loud to each other and laugh hysterically while my mom stood in background shaking her head. good stuff.
today is my mom's birthday. i hope she has a good one. on a totally not-so-unrelated note, flower stores should deliver on sunday. otherwise, people with sunday birthdays get stiffed.
anyway. happy birthday to my rock awesome mom.
it's been a typical sunday, which means this: woke up at noon, ate some food, watched a lot of mindless tv, talked to my parents, chatted online, and tried to clean. the only difference is that this sunday, i actually did clean, instead of just trying. i did the dishes, most of my laundry (including sheets and towels), and vacuumed the entire apartment, even the stairwell.
i bought this skirt yesterday at eddie bauer when becca and irwin took me along to the galleria. it's just an old gray cotton skirt, knee-length, sweatshirt material. it even has one of those reach-through pockets on the front, you know, the kind you can reach in on say, the right side and stick your hand out the left side. it was on the clearance rack for $15, and i figured "well, it'll be good for wearing to the pool and stuff this summer."
it is so comfortable. it is all i have worn since i got home last night. well, and a t-shirt of course. but god, it's comfortable. i don't mean to gush about a stupid skirt, but i am in love with my silly $15 purchase. i like that.
other than that, it's been an up-and-down day. one conversation hurt my feelings, while another one brought an unexpected compliment. i started thinking about things that i haven't thought about in a while, but at least i know that i have great friends.
59 hours. that's how many i worked this week. 59, which equals 14 + 12 + 10 + 10 + 13. i took 14 of them as credit hours, becuase on thursday when we had to verify our timecards, i was hoping i'd only work 8 hours on friday. ah well. this proves the idiocy of having to fill out a timecard in advance. i mean, doesn't that defeat the purpose of a timecard?
anyway.
i had the best sleep of my life last night. seriously, an earthquake wouldn't have awakened me. i was dead to the world, and i hope i can repeat the process tonight, because i did get up at a "reasonable" hour this morning...10:30, so that sarah could drop off some candles i bought from her a few weeks ago. she is insane. at 10:30, she had already been out doing errands for an hour and a half.
well, it's 1:30, i should really do something productive.
hola. je suis tres tres fatiguee. what the hell.
it's friday, but we can't go out to lunch as usual. no time. jen is bringing wendy's for us. mmm. i should have ordered a frosty. ah well.
yes, i realize the quality of my diary entries has suffered horribly this week. there are two reasons for this. one, i'm short on time. two, i'm short on brain power. the speed with which my brain can comprehend things, and in return think up new things to say, has slowed to a crawl, i think. i'm hoping it recovers this weekend, so that i can come back on monday refreshed and ready to go.
when this is all over, and the accident report is finished, and we are flying shuttles again...one day when my brain is back at normal speed, i will sit down and calculate how many simulations i've run this week. i'll have to write down the final number and frame it or something. i dunno. something.
i'm so hungry. i hope jen gets back soon. she rocks for making sure that we have eaten this week. oh, and gavin for the day he got us quizno's.
irwin sent becca to work today with microsoft career fair toys. they are these weird yo-yo things, colored rubber balls with "hair" and a bungee. i don't really know what you're supposed to do with them, but we've gotten creative and started flinging them around the office. irwin, you are evil for doing this to us.
damn excel is slow. i only have time to update because it takes excel for-freaking-ever to process data, and i can't work on any of my other spreadsheets while it's processing one. irwin, maybe you can look into this when you get back to seattle.
ooh. i think it might be done.
(8:25 p.m.)
about to leave work, just waiting to make sure gavin's maps come out right and i don't need to re-run any crossranges for him. we need to get these maps out tonight to the people in louisiana and others. we were supposed to go to the movies at 8:05, but fortunately beeca, irwin, and jen were able to switch the tickets to the 10:00 show, which should hopefully leave me enough time for some food. while i'm waiting to make sure we're done for the night, i took a little quiz. san francisco. ahh, the memories...
Congratulations, you're San Francisco, the city of change.
What US city are you? Take the quiz.
another day, another billion SORT runs. ok, maybe a billion is a bit of an exaggeration, but it sure doesn't feel like it. the tally now goes: 14 hours, 12 hours, 10 hours, 10 hours. i don't know what tomorrow will bring.
i got in early this morning as arranged with gavin and rich last night; we had to start running updated footprints. things are going well. to put it politely...oh hell, screw politely...SORT IS MY BITCH! i am the SORT slavedriver. i even drew a picture of me in this role on the whiteboard, next to my "sims" list. it's a stick figure with brown hair, red horns, and a whip. kneel before me SORT, i am your master.
ok. so i'm getting a little punchy. assuming i'm here for only 8 hours tomorrow, that makes a 54 hour week. you know, i've read things about businessmen and such who work 80 hour weeks. it seems impossible to me.
this evening we are having to clean up our desks because the floor waxers are coming. we've successfully put them off for three nights now, but they are really eager to wax the floor, apparently, so they are coming tonight at 5:30. it's amazing how much becca's and my office has changed in the past half hour--what was once strewn with papers, timelines, footprints, trajectory, etc is now shockingly clean and organized. it's almost as if nothing ever happened. almost.
i have got to go running. every part of my body is tense, and needs relief. it's been since tuesday before last... tonight i assume we are all going to happy hour as one big ascent/descent family, and then...i must go running.
tired.
i am about to leave work. in the past three days, i have worked 36 hours. i never expected to experience this in a job as a staff engineer; i never expected that there would be days when all my waking hours are spent at work, and the only time i am home is to eat dinner, sleep, eat breakfast, and go back to work. i'm not complaining. but i am exhausted. my back hurts, my eyes hurt, my hands hurt from running unix scripts all day and typing new ones, if you can believe that hands can hurt from typing.
the good news is that tomorrow and friday, and all the days after, should return to "normal" hours. we have decided to go ahead with the ascent/descent analysis happy hour tomorrow night, an event we planned last week before all this chaos.
i am going home. i want to run, but don't feel like i have the energy. we shall see.
we are making progress at work. good progress.
(8:42 p.m.)
i just posted some pictures from the columbia memorial service at work yesterday. view them here.
i apologize for the lack of updates. as you can imagine, it has been a very long and exhausting (but productive and healing) first two days back at work since the columbia accident on saturday. just to avoid retyping, i will paste an edited version of an email i sent earlier to friends:
Hello all,
I've had calls and emails from many of you wondering how I'm doing and how work is going. As many of you know, I work in the Descent Analysis Group, which as you can probably tell from the name, means that we are swamped with work as the investigation into the Columbia STS-107 accident gets underway.
I was at work yesterday from 7:30 until 9:20 with no break, and today from 7:30 until 7:45 breaking only for the memorial service. I had never seen a president in person before today, and certainly didn't want to see one under these conditions.
The memorial service was very nice. The head of the astronaut office spoke and shared his recollections, serious and humorous, of each of the 7 crew members, and the NASA Administrator spoke as well. President Bush's words were polite and appropriate, and though it is unfortunate that it took an occasion such as this to bring him to JSC for the first time, his presence was much appreciated. Having recovered from a very emotional Saturday and Sunday, I was doing ok until the end of the ceremony, but the missing man flyover and a glance at my coworkers brought me to tears. I saw one of my coworkers who was on console Saturday morning wiping tears from his eyes, and it was difficult for me to see a normally happy, nice, extremely professional guy like him break down.
It has been hard for all of us in my division, because we work so closely with the shuttle, and many of us work closely with the crew. I had not met any of the members of this particular crew, but the news reports that call NASA a "family" are not simply making up the term. We are a sort of family and we share the bond of feeling very strongly about our work, and a loss like this is hard. As I've told some people, for me, this is more difficult than September 11. Though 9/11 was horrible on a much larger scale, it was easy to detatch myself from New York and Washington. The loss of the Columbia is much more personal. On Saturday and Sunday, it was hard for me to comprehend that you were all going on with your normal weekend routines while my whole world had just been turned upside down. On Friday night I went out to the movies with Becca and our friend Jen, who had been training on console during the mission. I asked her, almost as an afterthought, how the weather in Florida looked for landing, and everything looked great. I never expected to be woken up 8 hours later with the horrible news.
I watched the launch back on the 16th with other people in my branch, and I remember distinctly how we all breathed the Challenger-induced sigh of relief when the solid rocket boosters separated. Talking to friends later, many said that they'd never seen a launch go more smoothly and issue-free. Obviously concern emerged after launch imagery was analyzed about the external tank foam, but on the day-of-launch, things went beautifully. Launches are always fraught with excitement but also with anxiety, and now landings will be no different. It is shocking to know that things can go so well for 16 days only to end so tragically, and so close to home.
My group has a lot of expertise that should prove useful to the investigation. It appears that things will calm down in terms of getting back to a normal 8-hour day soon, but my group will likely be working on this accident for weeks or months. It's not what I would have asked to work on, but I am glad that I'm in a position to do meaningful work that will play an important role in this investigation. Trying to figure out what went wrong turns out to be pretty therapeutic.
Talk to you all soon,
Sarah
i've never seen the front gate so crowded at 7:30 on a monday morning. if i didn't know better, i'd think there was a party going on.
i still can't cope with this. last night i did manage to turn off the tv and not turn it back on, or check the web, or hear any news, and that helped a bit. but i wasn't as tired as saturday, and i tossed and turned for a lot longer before i fell asleep.
ok. got interrupted and have to go. more later.
i can't stop watching the damn tv. they don't know anything new, of course, but i can't turn it off. i think it's the noise. i just need the noise. or maybe some part of me is waiting for the "breaking news" that this is all just a dream.
last night we had tickets to see the harlem globetrotters, so we went ahead to the compaq center for the show. they held a moment of silence, which was nice. afterward, i headed over to chris and edgar's apartment. yesterday was edgar's birthday, and they had already been planning a party. yesterday's events only strengthened our desire to be together, i think. we ate cake and ice cream, we drank some beer, we played a massive 20-person game of cranium and laughed. most of all, we didn't talk about work, and for those couple hours, i forgot about the awfulness of the rest of the day.
i came home and couldn't sleep. i turned on the damn tv again. cnn showed video of a patch lying in the grass, and then of a helmet, sitting in the middle of a field. just a helmet. god, a helmet. the image haunted me for another hour before i finally fell asleep out of exhaustion around 2 a.m. i was worried i would have nightmares, but i guess i was too tired.
i am sort of dreading going to work tomorrow. well, not sort of, i am dreading work tomorrow. i haven't driven by site yet, though i can see the flag at half-staff from my living room window. i told ron last night as he drove me home that i don't think it's really sunk in yet. going to work means i have to acknowledge it. going to work means i have to walk the halls and look at the faces of people just as or more devastated than i am.
but i'll go to work, despite my fears. not because it's my job, but because i want to. we'll get through this.
i am in disbelief, pacing back and forth across my living room. this will be a quick update, just for the purpose of sharing what i know both as a nasa employee and a person.
no, i have not been called in to work. yes, i work in the descent analysis group, but creating a debris footprint is basically a one-person job. i called my mentor, who is the resident expert on debris footprints, and he said he would call me if he needed me. yes, i will probably end up running debris footprints, but not right now.
no, there is really not even a chance that it was a terrorist act. you cannot shoot down something at 200,000 feet and 12,000 miles per hour.
no, i don't know what happened. i have educated guesses as to why the shuttle broke up, and my guesses are better than many of the newspeople's guesses, but they are still just that--guesses.
no, i don't know what will happen to nasa, or what this means for the future of the space program. honestly, i am scared. the shuttle fleet will obviously be grounded indefinitely, which puts the space station in a bad situation as well.
thanks for the support of those of you who have emailed and called. please extend your support of me personally to include nasa as an agency. space travel has never been and will never be without risks, and the loss of the shuttle and crew is a tragedy. nasa will need much support in the coming days. thanks.
