December 2004 Archives
Mom, Dad and I had a great time at the Tire Bowl today, even though Carolina lost to Boston College by a score or 37-24. I took some great pictures that will be posted over the next few days at my photoblog, and I loved being part of a sea of Carolina blue. I also finally got to see a game at the stadium here in Charlotte, even if it wasn't a Panthers game; I'd never been in the almost 10 years it's been there. I liked the stadium a lot.
Tomorrow I'm heading to Atlanta for a quick visit, just two nights. I'll be back in Charlotte for dinner on Sunday, and then after a final day here I'll be back in Houston Monday night. I can't believe my Christmas vacation has passed so quickly! I just want to stay on holiday forever.
Anyway. This will be short, as I've got to go pack a small bag and get to bed. I'd originally thought of driving to Atlanta tonight, but changed my mind. Instead, I'm hitting the road at 7 a.m. tomorrow! My sister's Corolla and my iPod will carry me down I-85 once again.
I've been thinking a lot about the earthquake and tsunami disaster over the past few days. Trying to figure out what to say about it. 80,000+ people dead. Hundreds of thousands of people homeless. Millions of lives and livelihoods forever changed or destroyed. It's hard for me to wrap my brain around, and I realized that I haven't been able to come up with anything to say for exactly that reason -- I just can't comprehend the enormity of the disaster.
The stories about the celebrities that survived sort of offend me. What am I supposed to say -- hooray, a supermodel lived, so it's not as bad that 80,000 others died? Somebody from the UN called the US stingy, so the Secretary of State made a statement arguing that we're not stingy -- are we seriously going to worry about petty arguments when thousands, if not millions, of people suddenly have inadequate medical care, no home, no food, and no clean water? An already poor area of the world was just completely flattened. Let's concentrate on what's important -- helping them.
Sigh. Stuff like this makes me think about how unfair it all seems -- how can we be so rich while others are so poor? While southeast Asia tries to pick up the pieces, my mom and I have spent the better part of the past two days shopping. So strange. So surreal.
For anyone like me (and Jen) who is a bit overwhelmed by the thought of where to send money, try Amazon, which is where I chose to donate. One hundred percent of the money sent there goes to the American Red Cross, which is sending many different kinds of assistance to Asia. They've already gathered almost $3 million from 50,000+ Amazon users.
Yesterday I made a necklace and earrings for myself at Beadlush, and found bike shoes that actually fit, unlike the ones I got on Christmas morning. (You'd think that a size 43 for the brand I was able to try on in Houston would be the same as a size 43 for the brand I told Mom to order. Of course it wasn't. I needed a 44. A 44. I hope my monster feet haven't decided to grow even more.)
Last night I saw my high school friends again, minus Cayce and Dave but plus Jes and Don. It was great to see Jes and hear her stories about med school. And Don totally cracks me up. But the biggest news is that as of the 26th, Andrew and Sari are finally engaged! And when I say finally, I mean it -- it took Andrew seven and a half years of dating to finally ask. The funniest part is that Sari was surprised; she hadn't known it was coming, even after all those years. The ring is absolutely beautiful, with an emerald set in platinum and two small diamonds on either side. I'm so excited for them, and it also puts another wedding on my calendar for sometime in 2005. ;) They haven't decided whether it will be in Charlotte or D.C. (where they both live now). But it will be fun.
Today I got to see David's apartment, then he joined Mom and me for lunch at the Cheesecake Factory. Mmm, it was delish. He headed to work while Mom and I shopped some more. I got a Carolina t-shirt to wear to the Tire Bowl tomorrow, a cool picture frame, and a new Life is Good shirt since my old one is too big. The Christmas money I got is quickly being spent!
I've been watching Monday Night Football with my dad. We want Philadelphia to win, because if they do, and the Panthers win next week, then they go to the playoffs despite their 1-7 start to the season. My family has become big Panthers fans. I've never been to a game, since their first season in Charlotte was my freshman year of college. But I get to go to the stadium for the first time on Thursday; Mom bought three tickets to the Continental Tire Bowl and gave them to Dad for Christmas. The three of us are going to see Carolina battle Boston College.
Yesterday we all went to Chapel Hill for the day for the now-traditional day-after-Christmas lunch with my Aunt Nancy and cousin Casey. Dad wasn't able to come because of problems at work, but the rest of us had a nice time and Aunt Nancy fixed a fabulous meal as usual.
Today I did my longest marathon training run. WHEW, glad that's done. The marathon is in 20 days -- January 16. Today I ran four slightly different laps from the house, 5.8, 6.3, 5.3, and 4.6 miles for a total of 22 miles taking me just over 4:15. That's pretty slow, but I did take a break at the house in between each lap long enough to gulp some water and goo. The hills that I enjoyed on last week's shorter runs really started to do a number on me during my third and fourth laps and my legs, knees, and feet are pretty sore tonight.
All in all, it was a decent run and I accomplished what I needed to -- staying on my feet and moving forward for 4+ hours. At the end of the run I was very tired, but not totally spent, and I felt I could have done another 4.2 miles if necessary -- which is exactly what I'll do in 20 days. So I feel ready for the marathon. If things go well, I expect to finish right around the 5-hour mark. Not bad for someone who was definitely not meant to be a runner! :)
I'm happy to have stuck with the training, and happy that I'll be able to accomplish the goal of running 26.2. But I've also decided that I don't really think marathoning is my thing. It's just so far, and I don't like the discomfort the long runs cause. I'm happy to be doing one, but I don't think I'll run another one anytime soon. The half marathon distance is so much friendlier. Of course, now that I've said that, just wait, next year I'll probably be doing the full thing again. I'm stupid like that.
I had all sorts of grand plans for Christmas break, mainly involving making my Peru scrapbook, but it doesn't look like it will happen. I've been so busy and I only have a week left of vacation! And going to Atlanta takes away a few days of it. Mom and I have lots of plans for the next two days -- making necklaces, getting measurements taken for my bridesmaid dress, going to the Cheesecake Factory, going to the Tire Bowl... Whew! I do love being home.
Merry Christmas!
We have had a lovely day here in Charlotte, though it is seriously cold. Like 35 degrees. As the high. Living in Houston has stripped me of all ability to deal with anything below 50.
In any case, Santa found us last night, and left lots of great gifts under the tree. I got a warm fuzzy GT blanket from Katie, a light/lantern and camping towel from Brian, a Photoshop book I'd asked for from David, money from both Grandmothers (which I plan to use part of to buy a new camera lens and a DVD), and clipless pedals and the shoes to go with them (for my bike) from Mom and Dad. I also got a few other little things -- a new ornament, lotion, a set of DVDs about the Apollo 8 mission, and a book. All in all, it has been a great Christmas.
I think everyone enjoyed the gifts I got them as well. A basic DVD player and a framed photo for Katie, Return of the King and geocaching gear (to go with the GPS receiver I knew he was getting) for David, an assortment of camping stuff for Brian, a necklace (made by me!) for Mom, a plant and a picture for Grandmother, and image-stabilized binoculars for Dad. Dad was so surprised to see that we'd all chipped in to get him the binoculars that he's only been talking about, oh, I dunno, since April. I love surprising people with exactly what they want but never thought they'd get! (Or, in Dad's case, what they would never actually gather the resolve to buy themselves.)
Oh, I also got Night Sky Monopoly, which kept Katie and Brian and me busy for a few hours this afternoon. I won one game; Brian won the other. Katie and Mom and I had a nice 3.5-mile walk all over the neighborhood, and my face almost froze off. Seriously. Have I mentioned that it's, like, majorly cold outside??
We had leftovers for dinner and then Katie, Mom and I headed out into the frigidity again to see Phantom of the Opera. Despite a few slight differences from the stage version, and the change in singers (after listening to the original so many times, anyone other than Michael Crawford as the Phantom sounds strange), I enjoyed it a lot. There are just so many different ways you can frame a scene on film that you can't do on stage, and it really makes a difference. The "Past the Point of No Return" scene was mesmerizing.
I didn't write yesterday because there was so much going on. I had brunch (that turned into lunch) with the old high school group -- Cayce, Amanda and Andrew along with Dave (Cayce's husband) and Sari (Andrew's longtime girlfriend). It was great to see them all, and hopefully I'll catch Jes and Don this coming week while they're in town. After that it was a quick trip to Walmart to pick up some photos, then home for a great run in the c-c-cold (7.3 miles at 10:26 pace!) followed by a great Christmas Eve meal. Brian was reading at the late church service, so we went at 11:00.
When I was in junior high, I babysat for two boys who are now a senior and freshman (?) in high school. Their parents both play for the Charlotte Symphony, tuba (him) and trumpet (her), and the boys are exceptionally musically talented as well. All four of them were playing as a brass quartet last night at church and they just sounded fabulous. I couldn't believe that the two boys up there, both of whom now tower over me, were the same two cute little boys that I babysat for so many years ago. I remember changing the younger one's diaper -- it made me feel so old! They're bigger, but I'd still recognize them if I passed them on the street. I only got a chance to speak to their parents, not to JD and Tucker. But I saw JD looking back at me as he went to put away his instrument. Tucker probably wouldn't remember me, but John David did. It was neat to see them.
Merry Christmas to all out there in internet-land, and to all a good night!
George started a blog! Yippee!
I've been in Charlotte for two days, and I've already seen two awesome/crazy things while driving. Yesterday on the way to the mall, my mom was behind an old clunker of a car, belching smoke as it burned oil and proceeded down the road at about 25 miles per hour. As she pulled into the next lane and passed it, I glanced in the window to see an old man in a toboggan hat eating corn on the cob on a stick. Yes, corn on the cob. On a stick. While driving.
I laughed so hard. I tried to get a picture, but he moved into another lane and was turning. Too bad.
Today on our way back from a little last-minute shopping, Katie and I were passed by a yellow car with a "The Cheat" sticker on the back window. (If you don't know who The Cheat is, visit Homestar Runner and watch a few of the Strong Bad emails or The Cheat's intro.) Better yet, their license plate said "THECHEAT" as well. I was able to get a picture, and this, people, is why I always carry my camera with me. You just never know when you'll need to take a picture.
So let's see. Today I slept until 11:00. Bliss. Then Katie and I went to this place called Beadlush at Mom's request; it's a bead store and she wanted us to make her necklaces for Christmas. It was so cool, and so much fun! I've already decided that I'm going back after the holiday to make something for myself. I can also get around to making Becca's lanyard (for her work badge) that I promised her, and ooh, I can make one for myself too. If any other work girls are reading this and want one, let me know. Maybe I'll just go ahead and do it as Christmas presents for the girls. I don't usually do many friend Christmas presents, but making the necklace today for Mom was just so much fun. I seriously don't do enough creative things; every time I end up at a store like that, or a make-your-own-pottery place, etc, I feel so craft-deprived.
Grandmother arrived this afternoon so Mom and I drove up to Huntersville to pick her up. We had family dinner, all seven of us. Wow. And we didn't even argue! Double wow. :)
Katie and I went on another run today. We did the exact same 4.5 mile route as yesterday, but did it almost two minutes faster! Go us. We still talked a lot, but were huffing and puffing at the end. Tomorrow I'm gonna do a 6-miler and then take Saturday and Sunday off before the biiiiiig loooooooong run I have planned for Monday. Monday will be my longest training run of all, twenty days before the marathon. I plan to run for 4 hours, which should be close to 21 miles (my goal time for the marathon is 5 hours). I forgot to bring my Fuelbelt with me from Houston so I'm either going to have to run a 4-5 mile lap multiple times and stop in the house to get water, or stash water bottles along a pre-planned route.
If Santa's Deer don't make you laugh, nothing will.
I am home, and home is lovely. Charlotte is lovely. I forget how pretty this city can be, especially at this time of year when the trees are covered in lights. Mom, Dad, and Katie met me at the airport last night. I was so excited to be in Charlotte and to see my family that I was smiling like a loon as I speed-walked up the concourse and practically jumped down the escalator to the baggage claim. I spotted them just before they spotted me. I thought about sneaking up on them, but I couldn't wait any longer and started waving. HOORAY for being home and seeing my family. Brian was out last night but came back home today. I haven't seen David yet, now that he has his own apartment in Charlotte and doesn't live at the house over the holidays. Mom says he's coming over for dinner tomorrow night.
I had lunch today at Maggiano's with my family (Katie and Mom), the Easts (Mrs, Caroline, and Catherine), the Mickles (Mrs and Jennifer) and the Diehls (Mrs and Bekah); it was a mother-daughter thing. The food was yummy and we had a nice time.
Afterwards, Mom and Katie and I wandered the mall. Mom had a few specific things to do and buy, but Katie and I succeeded in getting her off track several times with side trips into different stores. Southpark has changed so much in the past couple years. There's a new wing now that Nordstrom's is there, and the mall itself has become so frou-frou; I can't afford to shop in at least half of the stores out there! I don't even recognize half the mall, so it felt a little weird, like I was in some other city.
Katie and I went for a nice run when we got home. I think we went just over 4 miles in 49:00. Slow! But we were talking the entire time, and if you're able to carry on a conversation, you know you're not pushing too hard! :) Oh, and there are hills here. Stupid hills. There's one nice thing about running in Houston -- lack of hills! Then again, without uphills there are no downhills, and I do love running downhill. That's how it goes, I guess.
After our run, we went with Mom and Dad to a different mall for...more shopping! I picked up a present for my cousin Laura, and Dad looked for boots. He is the most methodical, pickiest shopper I know, so of course we left with no boots for Dad. He's funny though. He has a beard at the moment that scratched my face when I hugged him after I got off the plane last night. I think it makes him look old, so I encouraged him to shave. :)
Tomorrow I have a few more Christmas presents to take care of, and Grandmother arrives. Friday morning I'm getting together with a few old high school friends. Saturday is Christmas, and Sunday we'll be going up to Chapel Hill for the day. It looks like I may head to Atlanta for a few days over New Year's, since I'm basically helpless to resist Kent's full-on assault in trying to get me to visit. The boy is relentless. Seriously.
Katie IMed me this morning while I was still at home and said she and Caroline and Jennifer (her other two bridesmaids) found a dress! It's the one pictured here except it has straps and is blue with blue trim (the 6th color up from the bottom in the lefthand column). Oooh, pretty. I'll be ordering mine next week while I'm home.
I'm flying home today and I'm so excited. It was really hard to work yesterday, and even harder to come in today. However, yesterday afternoon at about 4:30, I had a breakthrough with the code I've been arguing with on and off since September. I hadn't looked at it in a month and was trying to get back into it yesterday, just to be productive because Melanie was on the FADS terminal and I couldn't work on contingency abort stuff. So I made a small change in the sim and sent it running again and wasn't even really paying attention, because I just knew it would crash. My poor little simmed spacecraft would be pulverized on the surface of Mars.
Except...it ran. I happened to glance up at the screen and it was actually printing out the bank reversals (a good sign that things are going as planned)! Because I have never gotten it to perform the reversals before, I was quite surprised, and actually gasped. Melanie and Becca turned around. "It worked!" I said incredulously. "It's not supposed to work! I mean, it is supposed to work, but it never works. And it just worked!"
It was all very exciting, and now that I finally have it working and have a hundred things to do with it, I'm going home. It'll be waiting when I get back.
Yesterday we had a quick lunch and stopped by Space Center Houston to see the Liberty Bell 7, the second Mercury capsule that sank to the bottom of the Atlantic in 1961 after the hatch "mysteriously" blew. It was pretty cool to see a spacecraft, especially one that sat on the bottom of the ocean for 38 years. It's in surprisingly good shape after being restored over the past five years.
Also, NASAWatch posted the website of a guy who built a Block I Apollo Guidance Computer in his basement. We totally must find a way to do this. Yes, the fact that I want to build one totally makes me a dork. Between me, Becca, Gavin, Jen, Jason, and others, I think we could actually get a group together that would want to do it. Seriously. We could use Gavin and Jen's rec room. Totally. Like, I'm serious.
I just realized this post has been pretty much nothing except dorky engineering stuff. Hmm. So last night was the branch Christmas party. We returned to Joe's Crab Shack since they're one of the few restaurants in the area that has a private party room, and fun was had by all. The monkey with a NASA t-shirt that I brought for the gift exchange was popular, and got stolen a few times before Jen ended up with it. At one point I had a bottle of Bailey's and was quite happy, but Gavin stole it (but then someone stole it from him, haHA). In the end, I got a bag of Starbucks coffee, which is still pretty cool. It's whole beans so I'll have to get it ground somewhere, but we'll have good coffee for a week at work when we all get back from the holidays!
I got a surprise Christmas present from Gavin and Jen this morning -- a "How to Draw Peanuts" book. Now I can draw Snoopy and Woodstock (see the evidence on the Flickr pictures at right) and the rest of the gang. Fun! On Saturday night, we were talking about Peanuts because the music was playing at Carrabba's. I realized that I hadn't watched "A Charlie Brown Christmas" yet this year, so I went right home and put it in the DVD player. Now it really feels like Christmas. :)
On Saturday afternoon, Nick and Cari and I made the mistake of going to the mall. (Well, actually, Nick probably enjoyed it because he loves the mall more than anyone I have ever known.) It was insane -- traffic everywhere, backups galore, crowds, etc. I was reminded why I now do 90% of my Christmas shopping online. The Internet is a beautiful thing.
My Christmas project for this year while I'm home is to make my scrapbook of the Peru trip. We finally got Karen's pictures from Peru, and yesterday I went through the combined 1000+ pictures that we have (from me, Jen/Gavin, Becca, Karen, Cari, and Nancy) to pick out the ones I wanted to use in my scrapbook. Becca posted these two of Karen's shots, but I feel like they need to be here as well. Let's call them, "the making of a group picture."
First, the before shot. Everyone is standing around getting prepared. Karen is setting up the camera, so you can't see her. Gavin's on the very edge of the frame at the right. Jen, who had been sick all week, is thinking "ugh, I still don't feel great, but at least I'm at Machu Picchu." Becca, Cari, Emily and I are all paying extremely close attention to whatever Pauld is saying because he is incredibly cute and funny and has an accent and we all totally want him. And Nancy is thinking "Pauld isn't really too young for me, is he?"
And here's the after shot. We are all publicly thinking "hooray, we're at the sun gate above Machu Picchu" and I am privately thinking "Pauld is so cute!" Meanwhile Pauld is thinking "I could so totally have any of these girls. Except the married one. Her husband's looking a little protective. Nah, I am very cute and Peruvian, I can probably woo her too." Except he's thinking that in Spanish. :)
We need to go back to Peru.
Saw Ocean's Twelve yesterday afternoon. I'd been prepared for it be very bad after hearing some of the reviews, but it was ok except for the dumb gimmick towards the end. Not as good as Ocean's Eleven, but entertaining enough. I also watched a French movie I rented from Blockbuster that I heard about a while ago -- L'Auberge Espagnole (The Spanish Apartment). It's not a movie I'd recommend to most of my friends, but I personally enjoyed it.
I still have so many errands to run and things to pack before I go home tomorrow, and I have zero time. Our branch Christmas party is tonight, which leaves me with even less than zero time. I'll be up late tonight, I can tell already.
It was the middle of January when I went to visit Nick while he was living in France. It was cold and dark, and even though his tiny apartment was well-heated, I'd come in from outside shivering. He would immediately set about preparing vanilla tea. There wasn't anything special about it. Plain vanilla tea. But every time we came in from outside, he would ask if I wanted tea, and every time, my answer was "ooooh, yes please!" When I got back to Houston, one of the first things I did was buy a box of vanilla teabags from the grocery store. Though I still occasionally buy a new box, especially during the winter, it has never tasted the same as it did in France.
It's funny how certain things become so entwined with certain places and events. It seems to happen most often with foods and smells, perhaps because my habits, likes, and dislikes seem to change when I am travelling. An experience strikes me while I am far from home and I know, sadly, that I will never be able to remember the exact, exquisite feeling once I have returned to Houston and rejoined my everyday life. So I look for the little things, the ones that will send me daydreaming back on my travels, if only for a moment.
To me, orchids are now synonymous with the thrill of meeting someone new and hiking the Inca Trail. A good curry makes me smile with thoughts of the crazy singing potter in Scotland. I pass a gelato -- oh, mmm, gelato -- stand and whoosh, I'm hopping off a water taxi in Venice. Nescafe puts me back on the ferry across the Aegean to Santorini.
And vanilla tea will always be that week in France, coming in from the chill of a Provence winter.
We did play golf yesterday, in the cold and occasional drizzle. It was fun for about 14 holes, and then I think we were all ready to get back inside, dry out, and warm up. Buzz, Jen, Becca and I actually played a pretty decent round, especially considering the changes from the normal way of play and the sogginess of the course. Once again, Jen carried the team off the tee, but I had a pretty good run with the 3 iron for a while that advanced us down a few fairways. Buzz was much improved from last time, and Becca's the only one of us who can putt halfway decently, so everyone had something to contribute.
We finished something like 30 over par (really, not bad for us!) and would have saved another 5-10 strokes if we'd had the two yards of string that we usually do to put in balls that land inches from the cup and the course hadn't been so waterlogged that balls just splashed down in giant puddles instead of bouncing and rolling an additional 10-15 yards. When you're as bad as we are, you need those balls to roll!
The tournament was fun, and I think everyone enjoyed celebrating Ron's retirement...even if it was in cold, nasty weather and we couldn't feel our wet feet. Below is a picture of the "30 and under" (or "mostly sucky golfers") crowd that played, from left to right, Gavin, Buzz, Josh, Laurie, Marc (in front), George (in back), Ansley, Becca, me, Jen (behind cart), and Matt. Rich took the picture 'cause he's 32. Ha. ;)
The rest of the pictures are here.
I actually don't have many plans for the weekend, which seems odd since Christmas is only a week away. I suppose I could do some serious Christmas shopping, since I haven't done any of it yet, but I may just wait until I get home next week. I don't really know what I'm getting anybody anyway. I'm very behind this year.
The BBC posted an interesting article today about the inability of the human eye to keep track, simultaneously, of all the moving objects involved in making an offsides call in soccer. "The relative position of four players [two defenders and two attackers] and the ball cannot be assessed simultaneously by a referee, and unavoidable errors will be made in the attempt."
This afternoon is supposed to be the golf tournament in honor of our retiring division chief, but the cloudy skies and forecasted rain is putting it in jeopardy. Everybody around me seems to want the tournament cancelled, but I hope it's not. Sure, it'd be better in the long run for me to work this afternoon, because I don't really have the hours to take off, however...at this point I've been counting on the golf tournament for weeks and lack any motivation to actually work this afternoon. So we might as well play!
I dug the lovely sweater that I bought in Peru out of my closet to wear today. Bad idea. It's only 9:30 and I've already spent at least twenty minutes daydreaming about all the cool things I was doing the last time I wore this sweater. Hiking trails, camping at 12,000 feet in the shadow of awesome mountains...
George came into my office a little while ago and saw me doing the blog thing and wondered, with some incredulity, "what do you write every day?" I thought for a moment and replied, "I don't know. Stuff." Sadly, that pretty much describes the content of 99% of blogs, including this one. Hmm.
Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, this is the best website in the history of websites. I have so just ordered a t-shirt.
I just discovered a Houston Chronicle op-ed from today that similarly conveys my worries about the search for a new NASA administrator.
Sometimes in the mornings while eating my cereal, I turn on the Today show. Twice in the past month I've watched Katie Couric interview actors, and twice I've felt the need to yell at the screen, "SHUT UP KATIE COURIC!" She is so annoying. A month ago she interviewed Hugh Grant, and it was the most awkward interview I've ever seen. She asked inane questions and giggled a lot while Hugh Grant sat there trying to answer her stupid queries and looking extremely uncomfortable. This morning she interviewed Alan Alda about his role in The Aviator and barely let the poor man get a word in edgewise between interrupting his sentences, sentences that I would have liked to have actually heard, with stuff like "Oh, speaking of The Aviator, I interviewed Cate Blanchett yesterday, she was just so articulate and so wonderful, don't you think so? Or did you get to work with her, I mean, you don't have any scenes together..." and "Did you know anything about Howard Hughes before doing this movie, no? Did you know he invented a bra, giggle giggle?"
Shut up Katie Couric! Jesus.
Anyway. I had an excellent run last night thanks mostly to the 50 degree weather. I've come to the conclusion that 50-60 degrees is really ideal running weather. Of course, it only actually reaches 50-60 degrees for maybe 4 months of the year in Houston, which explains why this is a sucky running city for me. If I'd moved straight here from Georgia Tech instead of to the beautiful weather of northern California, I doubt I'd have ever started running at all. The moral, then, is thank god for northern California.
Carter told me about his dad's/Dr. Green's blog a few weeks ago but I've been lazy about posting a link. However, his latest entry about the wonders of TiVo, and the last sentence, "I'm putting a Tivo sticker on the window of my VUE" made me laugh, and thus his blog deserves a link. The Greens are such a blog-saavy family! (Even if one of them has turned into a blog slacker since he moved.) If my own dad turns up with a blog, I'll know things have gotten out of hand. :)
Last night I made the mistake of bringing up potential future NASA administrators (specifically, the Air Force Lt. General who used to head Missile Defense) with someone who apparently thinks it would be awesome if we (NASA) were more closely linked to the military. Yeah, that conversation was fun (she says sarcastically). If someone thinks flying military missions would be more fun than flying ISS and science missions, I can't help but wonder why they're working for NASA and not the Air Force or Navy. Hell, there's a reason that NASA is not part of the DoD, people. It's the country's civilian space agency. We're supposed to be exploring, not launching spy satellites. Going to Mars, not acting as the DoD's lackey. I don't have a problem with the DoD coming to NASA if they need data from our satellites or assistance with launches, I mean, intergovernmental cooperation is a good thing. Yes, NASA will always be linked to the military. The Army launched the country's first satellite, some military research groups were incorporated into NASA when it was formed, their test pilots become our space shuttle pilots, we share tracking resources, we flew DoD missions in the early 1980s, etc etc. But there's a reason NASA was created completely separately from the DoD. We cooperate with them, but are an independent agency.
And to that end, I think that naming a very recently retired (only since July) military man whose previous job was managing a very controversial national security/defense program sends a very mixed message about what the administration thinks NASA should be doing, and sets a very bad precedent for future NASA leadership.
Finished.
Oooh oooh -- very exciting news! Becca and I both got picked to be mentors for the Reduced Gravity Program for the World Year of Physics 2005. I get to mentor a team of three physics teachers, help them get ready to fly on the KC-135 at the end of April, and...I get to fly on the Vomit Comet with them! WOOHOO!
12/16/04 Update: Ok, so it won't actually be a KC-135 airplane, which has been retired. It'll be a C-9 instead. But still a Vomit Comet!
Two more things:
Last night I finally got around to posting a bunch of photos from this fall, including Betsy and Edgar's wedding, Katie and Joel's visit, and the boat parade on Saturday night. You can find them in the Fall 2004 gallery.
Also, I just reread the Dooce entry about vacuuming fleas off of a dog, and I am still cracking up about it. "The only thing a dog can really catch outdoors in Utah is heartworm and a testimony of Jesus Christ." Oh my god. So funny.
On Thursday, our division is abandoning the office for a golf tournament in honor of our retiring division chief. George, Matt, Rich and Gavin are one foursome, and Becca, Jen, Buzz and I are another; there are apparently 29 foursomes in all and the eight of us are certainly the worst golfers of the bunch. Seriously. We are really bad, and we know this.
So I would write about how our assistant division chief came into our office this morning and told us, in a very non-direct way, that we suck at golf and he's worried that we will be too slow on Thursday and hold everyone else up (which is definitely a possibility), but Becca has already described the conversation pretty well. It was obvious that he wanted us to be aware that we should try to play fast, but he didn't want to come right out and say it. It was funny.
In other news, Sean O'Keefe is resigning as NASA Administrator as explained in his hand-written letter to the President. I have mixed feelings about his leaving. When he was first named Administrator three years ago, we were all worried because he was coming from the Office of Management and Budget, and come on, a budget guy in charge of NASA? It seemed obvious that he was only sent to get costs under control, which didn't bode well for having any sort of future vision. But I ended up liking him. He seems to have the political saavy for the job, while recognizing that he might need to defer to others on very technical matters. It's unfortunate that his term will likely be remembered primarily for the STS-107 accident, because I think he's done a good job, and I'm extremely worried about who might be selected to replace him.
The leading candidate, according to the news anyway, is Lt. Gen. Kadish who formerly headed the Missile Defense Program. UGH. I can hardly think of a worse candidate for the job. I feel strongly that NASA, as the country's civilian space agency, should not have a former general who headed Missile Defense (and headed it badly) in charge. At first I thought it was the military thing that bothered me, but after talking at dinner last night I realized that a lot of the good candidates are former military men as well. The worrisome part is taking someone who ran Missile Defense and putting him in charge of a program that should in no way be defense-oriented. I'm hoping for Charlie Bolden, a former astronaut, although I don't know what his chances are.
I'm planning to go for a run tonight, and it's going to be cold out. Yes, in Houston. It's supposed to dip below freezing tonight, rather amazingly.
Dooce is probably my favorite blog-written-by-somebody-I-don't-know-but-wish-I-did, and today's entry just had me laughing out loud in my empty apartment. Seriously funny.
I had a pretty quiet weekend, with nothing to get up early for or keep me up too late. Lovely. I played soccer Friday night and we won (yay!), and played again last night and we lost (boo). Last night's game was particularly frustrating. We lost 4-2, but really should have tied 2-2 if our goalie didn't suck. We played them well; they just got two lucky breaks from our keeper's inability to actually catch the ball and keep it from rolling through her legs. It's a lot more frustrating to lose when you know you could and probably should have won.
Saturday night I went to the boat parade in Kemah. There were somewhere around 100 boats, all decked out in Christmas lights and other decorations. They motored down the lake to the bridge, where they turned around and came back, so we got to see them all multiple times. It was really cool -- I don't know why I haven't watched it in past years. I took a lot of pictures, but only a dozen or so really turned out well. The slow shutter speed didn't mesh too well with the fact that the boats were moving. Go figure. ;)
We watched from the marina where Rich's friends Phil and Renee live on their very pretty 42-foot sailboat. That's twice in the past year I've visited someone who lives on a boat, and both times it's made me want to do the same -- drop everything and live on something that floats. I doubt I would actually like it for more than a few weeks, but there is something appealing about the minimalist lifestyle. If nothing else, it would force me to get rid of all my crap! And they're not as small as you'd think. We had 10 people on the boat on Saturday night after the parade watching a movie, and it wasn't even uncomfortable!
Yesterday I went for a run over in Nassau Bay, and the weather was wreaking havoc on my poor abused body. It was almost 80 degrees out, and a bit humid. In December. It was actually a lovely day, and would have been appreciated at almost any other time of year, but it was not the type of day that should occur in December. My planned 8-10 miles turned into only about 5.5. Sigh. My knee is hurting as well, and I've only run 8.5 miles since the 30K a week ago. This weekend I really need to do a 15-miler. And the week after that, while I'm home, I plan to do 20-22. Then another 12-13-miler, then an 8-miler or so. (All of those with at least a couple shorter runs on weekdays, of course.) Then...marathon day on January 16. Here's hoping my knee stops hurting.
First I've heard of it -- Spielberg is making a movie of War of the Worlds. Tom Cruise, Dakota Fanning, and Tim Robbins star. I can't tell how close it is to the book from this teaser trailer, but either way, I hope it will be good.
And I remember hearing about a new Charlie and the Chocolate Factory with Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka, but the trailer makes it look...worrisome.
This morning seven of us "young women" in the division got to chat with Cathy Osgood, a woman who worked for NASA starting back in the late 50s. She actually did all the talking, but it was really interesting to hear her background, and how she got into the NASA world. One of the most interesting things to me was how two-sided her career path was. For example, she got a degree in Mathematics, but said that the only good thing that came out of her college years was meeting her husband. She got a job as an engineer after working a few years as a "Math Aid" (the women who did calculations and plots in the pre-computer era), but when the Space Task Group moved from Langley to Houston in the early 60s, she left the decision of whether to move with the group entirely up to her husband.
She was a female engineer in the 1950s and 60s (a rather ground-breaking thing at the time) and yet I also got the impression that she deferred a lot of things to her husband or the other men around her. I just found the contradiction interesting. She was fun to listen to though, and my favorite quote was definitely when she referred to her husband and how she'd bounce ideas off him about engineering and trajectory problems:
"He was like my Google, but more user-friendly."
Another night, another something on TV to keep me up past midnight. Last night it was a soccer game, but not just any soccer game. It was a US vs. Mexico women's match, and the final game of Mia Hamm, Julie Foudy, and Joy Fawcett's storied careers. They won 5-0, and Mia walked off the field with tears in her eyes. I'll miss watching them play for the women's national team; they had a really incredible run, and I'm especially glad I got to see them play back in October when they came through Houston on their farewell tour.
I went jogging with Rich and Phil again last night. We went a little faster than last week, but not too much, which turned out to be good because even after three days of rest since the 30K, my legs were really sluggish and heavy. My knees still ache a bit too. I'm ready for the marathon to get here, so I can tackle it, finish it, and go back to the slightly less painful kind of running. :)
Today is the holiday luncheon at work. It's my third Christmas (oh my god, third??) as a full-timer, but this is the first year I'll be at the luncheon. The past two years they've had it much later, and I was always already gone. It will be nice to be around for it, even if I've heard that the "door prizes" are crappy. The food should be good, anyway.
So I've spent about 4 hours over the past two days making animations of our division chief doing silly things to put in a presentation Becca is giving tomorrow. See, he's retiring, and tomorrow is his last DM Issues meeting, so a request was sent out to "spice things up" in his honor. I created dancing Ron graphics, a sinking Apollo capsule, and lots of other fun things. All those Flash and Photoshop classes JSC has sent me to is paying off! ;)
But now it's back to "real" work. I have a couple things in my Mars work that I'd like to get done before I go home for Christmas, so hopefully I can motivate myself to really buckle down and get some stuff done.
I'm looking forward to a quiet night at home. After the weekend whirlwind and a busy past two nights, it will be nice to sit around. Not to mention that the place is a mess, so I need to do some cleaning...
I finally dug my Christmas music out of iTunes. It doesn't really feel like Christmas, what with it being 70 degrees outside, but the music helps. People have already started asking me if I've finished my shopping yet, but I haven't even started. I'm always a big holiday shopping slacker. I generally only buy presents for my family and a few close friends, so most of the time I just wait to shop until I get home. Of course if I do that this year it means I'll have to do all my shopping between the 22nd and 24th, which may drive me a little crazy. We'll see.
Last night we went out for dinner and drinks at Cafe Adobe with Sloan, our co-op. Her last day is Friday, and Cafe Adobe was her choice. This was the second time I'd been there; last time I had a fried stuffed avocado, this time I went with pollo rico (chicken with some kind of teriyaki sauce). It was yummy. The peach margaritas were also yummy, though I have serious doubts that there was any alcohol in them whatsoever. I drank two and didn't feel a thing, while a single Mely's margarita is plenty to make me feel all sorts of relaxed.
Nothing planned for tonight, thank goodness. I need an evening at home. Maybe I'll watch a movie.
I am exhausted. It feels like the weekend never even happened; I blinked, and it was Monday morning again. Crap. In summary:
Soccer game Friday night. We lost, but only 3-1, so not horrible for once. I played ok. I came home and went to bed. Zzzzz.
Got up Saturday morning at 7. Got dressed, put air in bike tires, put bike in back of car, drove to Nassau Bay. Ran the Reindeer Run 5K. Was planning to take it easy, but then remembered that last year I'd set my 5K personal record at that very race (29:18), and then it was hard to "take it easy." So I ran pretty hard, but couldn't judge my pace because there were no mile markers. Surprised myself by finishing in 30:34. Sub-10:00 miles, yay! I haven't totally lost my ability to run sub-10:00 miles! Even better part -- bizarrely, there were only 8 people in my age group, and five of them were slower than me. I finished 3rd in my age group. Got a trophy. A trophy! I haven't gotten a trophy since I was 10. So cool! So excited! Don't know where all the 20-29 year old women were, but glad they weren't at the race.
A trophy! So excited!
After the race I went biking for an hour with Jason and Ignacio. Jason's thinking about buying a road bike, so Nacho and I are doing our best to convince him to buy one instead of another gun. Bikes, Jason, not guns. Went home, showered, picked up Jason, admired his injuries from crashing Nacho's bike because he couldn't get his feet out of the pedals (those clippy shoes) and drove to Sugarland. Registered for 30K race because I'd forgotten to register online. Dumb.
Drove from Sugarland to Utah, a.k.a. Tomball, a.k.a. allllll the way on the other side of Houston. Watched Nick dance in the Nutcracker. Nick was good as the Snow King, but don't understand why he thinks the Nutcracker is a stupid part. You get to wear a big head, and be the title character! Anyway. Mouse kids were very cute. Guest performers from American Ballet Theater in NYC were freaking amazing. Had a quick dinner with Nick and 20 other friends at Chili's, then began the marathon drive home, with pit stop at Academy. Dropped off Jason. Went home. Went to bed at 9:30.
Got up at 4:45 a.m. Yes, 4:45. (Why do I run? At 4:45 a.m., I don't remember.) Buzz and Ron picked me up, we drove to Sugarland. Got chips, hit the port-a-potty, dropped off sweatshirt back at the car. At 7:00 a.m., I start running. At 8:00, I am still running. At 9:00, still running. At 10:00, still running.
After 3 hours, 32 minutes, 6 seconds and 18.6 miles, I stop running. I finished the 30K! HOOOOOOOOO-RAY! I am another step closer to finishing the marathon on January 16! The race overall went well. Did three packets of goo, and found it rather tasty, and not like snot. Amazing what tastes good when you have been running for multiple hours. Had thought I would finish slightly faster, but my legs were heavy from the start. Probably shouldn't run fast 5Ks the day before a long run. Needless to say, no trophy at the 30K. ;)
Came home, took one of the most satisfying showers of my life. Hungry, hungry. Eat, eat. Watched NCAA women's soccer championship on TV, then went to Bike Barn with Jason and Ignacio. Found the bike shoes and pedals I want for Christmas, and talked Nacho into buying some bike shorts. Went home. Was just starting to doze off on the couch when Nacho knocked on the door, very excited about his bike shorts and how they cushion his bum. Can't believe he has been riding so long without a comfy bum. Also can't believe the boy has a $2,500 bike and didn't have bike shorts. A bike that nice deserves all the accessories.
Went to dinner at Texas Roadhouse, then downtown mega-early (thanks, Jason) for Singin' in the Rain at the Hobby Center. I love Singin' in the Rain. Home afterwards, soooooo very sleepy. Bed.
Wake up this morning, still very tired, get Starbucks, drive to USA for training meeting at 9:00. Yusef isn't at his desk. Sigh. Suspect that he cancelled training for the day and I didn't know because I hadn't checked my email yet. Drive back to work. It has started to pour down rain. My legs get all wet. Grr.
But tonight -- stuffed avocado and margaritas at Cafe Adobe. Yay!
It's turned out to be a busy week. Which is good, because it makes me feel a bit better about my job. Though my training session for this afternoon just got cancelled. I know I said yesterday that I had some thoughts to share about the future of space travel and all, but now I don't really feel like explaining. Whatever. TGIF.
My white paper was done on time, but is now two days late in being officially delivered because of paperwork. I have to have four signatures, and by the end of it all, my signature, as the author of the stupid paper, doesn't even go on the damn thing. Ugh. I'm just frustrated. Most of the time I feel useless at work, and now I've got this paper where I actually feel like someone cares about the work I did, and...yeah. Well, enough complaining.
I went out on my balcony last night and tried some long night exposures with my camera. I haven't downloaded them yet but I'm curious to see how they look on the normal computer screen and not just the camera LCD. The moon and clouds were really cool.
We had softball last night; it was our final game of the season. We'd been postponed so many times because of rain and such. I went 1-for-2 with a walk, a pop-up, and a solid hit into right field, and I scored a run. We won 6-3, so that was a nice end to the season.
I was still at work at 6:30 last night when Rich called and said I needed to come to BW3s because Georgia Tech was playing Michigan on the big screen, and kicking butt. (He went to Michigan.) So that's how I ended up eating wings and drinking beer with Rich, Roger, and Ray. It was a little strange at first; I hang out with Rich regularly, but not the others. But it was fun. I thought I might see Katie on TV at the game, but no such luck. Tech won 99-68.
The new Strong Bad email is one of the funniest I've seen in a while. God I love that site.
My white paper is almost done. I finally got all the data incorporated this morning and am now cleaning up all the writing and grammar and getting the references straightened out. The paper is probably a bit more than Goddard is expecting, and maybe in retrospect it would have been easier to just start from scratch rather than try to update a paper format that was done four years ago. But it's going to turn out ok. I like writing papers. I should really try to do it a bit more. I feel like I'm pretty good at the whole process, anyway.
It was finally cold enough this morning -- 40 degrees -- to pull out my wool coat. It is December, after all.
