Daily: February 2007 Archives
Hail. HAIL. A freak thunderstorm carrying golf ball sized pieces of ice. That's why I won't be helping launch the space shuttle on March 15. That's why I'll probably have to wait until at least the end of April before I get to work my first mission.
Yes, a thunderstorm in Florida yesterday dumped a bunch of hail right on top of the space shuttle stack that was sitting on the launch pad getting ready to go. There are now more than 7000 divots in the external tank, and 20+ on the orbiter's wing. It will have to be rolled back to the VAB. If they can fix it quick, we might be able to launch by my birthday in late March. If not -- late April at the earliest.
Stupid, stupid hail.
My knee is feeling fine again today after yesterday's post-biking pain. Whew. After the Sunday biking low point, I did a good long swim last night to remind myself that this Half Ironman is doable. I did 2250 yards straight, no breaks, in 45 minutes.
I came back from vacation and what did I get as a "welcome back to work" gift? A really hard ascent sim. Ah well. I'm not complaining, because it means I'm one sim closer to the real launch! Only 17 days away...
The rest of the skiing trip was nice. The whole group went to Breckenridge on Thursday, and then Jose and I went to Breckenridge again, alone, on Friday while the others went back to Vail. We did some really nice greens and a couple easy blues and ended the trip on a more positive note, but I have to admit that I think Vail really took something out of us. Things weren't as enjoyable after that. It just felt like work.
On Friday, for our last night in Colorado, Jose and Cari and I stayed in, got Thai takeout from across the street, and watched The Departed. (Just in time for the Academy Awards, eh?) Jose had already seen it and said it was one of the best movies ever. I don't know about best ever, but it was very good.
Anyway, the best part of trip was the snowmobiling. The worst part was United Airlines. Both of our flights, to Denver and from Denver, were overbooked. As previously mentioned, Jose almost didn't make it onto the flight out. And then on the way back, both he and I were given "confirmation" cards instead of boarding passes and told to go to the gate, where the lady told us the flight was overbooked and that she'd try to get us on. Bah. THEN we got back to Houston to find that our bags hadn't made it onto our plane, so we ended up waiting for two hours for the next flight from Denver to arrive with our bags. (To be fair, we cut it extremely close with our airport arrival time -- another story entirely -- but I've cut flights just as close before and never had my bag not show up.) They gave us $100 vouchers for waiting for the bags (instead of having them delivered), which is nice, but considering the fact that I don't feel like flying United again anytime soon, it will probably go unused. United sucks.
Because we only had the condo from Saturday through Saturday, I found myself with an extra day at the end of vacation to adjust to being back home before having to come to work this morning. It was a very strange feeling, since it's basically never happened before; our travel plans usually have us returning to town mere hours before having to be back at the office.
I celebrated by sleeping until 11:00, and then I "celebrated" by taking a 43.5 mile bike ride, and then I celebrated by watching the Oscars at Becca's and drinking daquiris in honor of the 3rd anniversary of her 25th birthday (that would be her 28th). You'll notice that only one of those activities necessitated the use of sarcastic quotes with the word celebration.
I did my longest bike ride so far yesterday, 43.5 miles in just under 3 hours for an average of something like 15.8 mph. The first half of the bike ride averaged more like 16.5 mph. The last half of the bike ride averaged more like annoyance, fatigue, pain, and general suckage. Though I'm feeling a bit more positive today, last night I was having serious doubts about my decision to do this Half Ironman.
Of the three triathlon sports, biking is probably my least favorite. And yet it occupies the most time and distance!
I think I've nailed a big part of my problem yesterday though -- in the 24 hours preceeding my ride, I had only eaten about 400 calories. Hopefully that explains the absolutely dead feeling in my legs as I struggled past mile 30 and on to the end. When I finally got back home, I could barely walk up the stairs to my apartment.
This morning, I woke up to a fair amount of soreness on the outside of my right knee. This worries me, because I felt some twinges there towards the end of my ride yesterday. It may be worth taking my bike to the store to have them double-check the fitting. I've never had this problem before, but maybe something has changed...
Hello from Avon, Colorado! It is cold. COLD. Cold. In my life I have had very limited experience dealing with temperatures below freezing, and it shows. I am cold.
It was not a good day for travel. Jose's name is on the watch list, so he can never print out his boarding pass ahead of time. Jen and Gavin and I all had boarding passes, but Jose was given some kind of standby ticket and told he'd have to get his seat assignment at the gate. Well, as it turned out, United oversold our flight to Denver by an absurd amount -- something like 40 seats. With Gavin and Jen already on the plane, and after much hassle, Jose got a seat and finally we flew away.
The weather was gorgeously sunny today (though, as previously mentioned, cold) and the drive was beautiful. We had more than enough time to enjoy the mountain views because traffic on I-70 from Denver all the way to Vail moved at an average of about 35 mph. Things picked up after the Eisenhower tunnel, but the expected two-hour drive turned into almost four.
Finally we arrived at the lodge, but the front desk could only find the reservation for one of our two condos, not both. More stressing, but thankfully it was resolved quickly -- somehow they found Gavin's name and we made it in.
Jose and I picked up our skis, we hit the grocery store (only to discover later that our condo has no stove or burner), and had dinner in Vail Village. Tomorrow we'll be hitting the slopes of Beaver Creek, which should be fun because they have lots of green runs. I hope the feeling of being on skis comes back to me quickly and I don't have to spend all day on the bunny hill!
Happy Birthday Cari!
Last night was happy hour at BJ's in honor of me finally certifying as ARD Support, paperwork and everything -- despite the fact that my cert sim was almost three months ago. It was a lot of fun and we had a good diverse crowd. Marc (my mentor) and I headed over there at 4:30 and everyone trickled in...a couple "bosses," a few of my fellow backroom flight controllers, and other coworkers. One even used it as an excuse to bring all three of his absolutely adorable children so that he didn't have to cook dinner himself. A good time was had by all. Appropriately, yesterday was also the day that Atlantis rolled out to the launchpad. March 15 is the big day -- first launch of 2007, and my first mission as a flight controller. Very exciting.
Because of that, I didn't run but never fear -- yesterday was my day off so today I will be running.
It's been a long week of getting up too early, and I'm glad the Friday is finally here. Of course, I have to get up early again tomorrow, but that's more acceptable because we'll be heading to the airport for a week in Colorado! Snow! Skiing! Cold. But Colorado! My current plan (always subject to change) is to ski 2 days at Breckenridge and 2 days at Vail/Beaver Creek. Throw in some snowshoeing with pregnant non-skiing Jen, and possibly some snowmobiling, and definitely some hot tubbing, and hey, even some treadmill running and stationary biking (gotta train somehow), and I'm pumped for VACATION! I'll post photos to Flickr, and I'll be blogging as well -- I have to take my computer to do my weekly typography assignment. Also because I am insanely attached to my computer. ;)
In other news, I may have done something stupid this morning, inspired by June -- I signed up for the New York Marathon on November 4. Well, to be exact, I signed up for the lottery for the NYM. But if my name gets picked, it's non-refundable and non-transferrable, so if that happens I'll be running!
The funny thing about flight control is that even once you're certified, you still find yourself learning things in practically every sim. Take this morning, for instance -- I learned that if the correct mass calibration numbers aren't loaded into the shuttle simulator every single time, we see a huge trend in our monitoring software because the shuttle is about 13,000 pounds lighter than it should be, and is therefore accelerating even more like a bat out of hell than it usually does. Interesting.
Valentine's Day was nice. I went home with exactly enough time to do my bike and run workout, but discovered a flat rear tire. It's been a while since I changed one, and it took me way too long (like 20 minutes). After that, and setting up the trainer, I'd run out of time to do both bike and run, so I just biked -- 55 minutes on the trainer while watching Tivoed stuff.
Jose came over early (early!) and so he had to sit around while I showered. We exchanged V-Day cards (I made his; it was cheesy but hey, homemade) and went to dinner at La Madeleine. Hey -- it's a French restaurant, that's romantic, right? Never mind that you order by going through a line... :)
Not sure if I'll get my run in tonight because we're having a happy hour...which is in celebration of me being officially certified. It'd be bad form to skip my own happy hour! If I don't run tonight, I'll run tomorrow instead.
Another sim, another early morning. There are three morning sims this week -- yesterday, today, and Thursday -- which means three mornings of getting here at 7 a.m. On the plus side, Bini was sitting hot seat today and will do it again on Thursday, so I got to sleep in by an extra half hour. So really, one day at 7 a.m. and two at 7:30. Still, that's early for me. It's gonna be a rough, sleepy week.
Things will be looking up on Saturday though, as I head to Colorado for the annual ski trip! I got my "lift tickets" in the mail yesterday. They're not tickets, but really just a credit card style thing with your info loaded onto it; I immediately stuck it in my wallet for fear of forgetting to pack it and leaving it Houston.
I've got class again tonight, and we'll be working on the beginning of our big, semester-long assignment: designing a typeface (font). My biggest problem so far is actually deciding what kind of font I want to make!
Should I do something fairly traditional, like the first photo? Or, after seeing a picture of a bagel shop, I thought of making a mosiac-style type like the second photo. Or, I could always just make my own handwriting (print, at least) into a typeface...
Or, I could do something else entirely. When we were first given this assignment, I worried that I'd never be able to come up with anything to do. Now, I'm worried that there are just so many possibilities that it's too overwhelming. If anyone has any cool ideas, by all means let me know.
On Saturday, Jose and I were wandering around Borders, something that has become a normal weekend event for us. At one point, I looked up from the magazine I was perusing and realized that we'd been in the store for almost an hour, so I got up to go find Jose and see what he had found.
I walked on tip-toes so I could scan the aisles in the middle, where the shelves are short enough that heads pop over the top, but I saw no sign of Jose's head. I then walked down the side of the store to check each of the alcoves lined with tall shelves. In the middle of each alcove are benches and chairs, and I walked past them all, every single one was occupied.
I finally found Jose in the very last alcove. He was sitting alone on the end of the bench, reading the book about the Buddha that he'd picked up for the day. He was the only one in the whole row; the rest of the bench was wide and empty, very much in contrast to all the other rows I'd passed.
I didn't think anything of it at first, and sat down next to him. I continued to page through my magazine, and didn't really look up until a few minutes later. "SEX" read the spine of the books on the shelf in front of me. I looked at the adjacent shelves. The other books were calling out with all sorts of taglines -- have better sex, improve your life, win friends and influence people.
I laughed. "You sat next to all the sex books, Jose; you're in the self-help section. How did you ever end up over here?"
He responded without even looking up: "Yeah, I always sit here. It's the only section that no one else will sit in."
That made me laugh.
I am really sore today from the bike riding and bike crashing. Really sore.
I am NO-GO for the Surfside Half Marathon.
I spend an inordinate amount of time worrying about what other people will think of the decisions that I make, and I finally decided that was stupid. I'm feeling better, but not fantastic. The race involves a drive, and cold weather, and wind.
Running would be one of my sillier decisions, and it won't be worth running 13.1 tomorrow if it knocks me out for another week. Running tomorrow isn't worth the risk of jeopardizing another week of training. And missing one half marathon isn't going to ruin my Half Ironman training. Pony posted something recently along the lines of "don't run today, so that you can run tomorrow," and I finally realized that applies to me, tomorrow.
I kept thinking I had obligations to run, obligations to people that knew I was signed up, obligations despite the fact that no one could have predicted I'd get sick this week.
But I don't have to answer to anyone. In the end, I only have to answer to myself.
Good luck to those of you who are healthy and running!
Happy Birthday Mom! :)
I'm supposed to run the Surfside Half Marathon tomorrow. After being sick for most of the week, I think it's going to have to be a race-day morning decision. The funny part is that I'm actually less worried about running the miles and more worried about lack of sleep. I know I can just take things easy and do run/walk intervals and relax, but the problem is that the race is in Surfside, which means getting up quite early to drive down there. Race starts at 7:00, which means I need to get there by 6:30, which means leaving Clear Lake by 5:15.
Today has been up and down (and up and down). I woke up feeling, well, ok. So I came to work, where I had a 2-hour meeting. By the end, I was feeling not-so-ok. Then Jen gave me some Tylenol and we had lunch and I am feeling ok again. I don't have a lot of energy. So: race-morning decision. A part of me is saying I should stay here, sleep in, and do a very easy 6-7 miler tomorrow afternoon. The other part is saying I should at least try getting to Surfside.
I am always indecisive about stuff like this. Stay? Go? I don't know.
I came into work last night for the late ascent sim. It was Bini's first in the "hot seat" so, as her mentor, I was backseating her. She did an outstanding job for it being her first sim; way better than my first sim. Very cool.
I'm still sick, but feeling a bit better than yesterday. I'm hoping to make it to tonight's sim, where I'm supposed to backseat Bini as she does her first sim. I was worried that I wouldn't sleep well last night, since I had no Nyquil to knock me out, but I guess I was tired enough; I only woke up twice. Jose is taking good care of me, and went to the grocery store last night to get me some milk and assorted snacks. I don't feel much like eating, but my stomach growls anyway -- I'm hungry but have no appetite. Weird. At least my nose has stopped running -- yesterday I was giving new meaning to the term "like a faucet."
With a couple unexpected days at home, I quickly came up with a list of things that I could get done with my "free time." Unfortunately, I don't feel like doing any of it. Yesterday I laid on the couch all day and watched TV. There is nothing good on TV during the day.
There is an alligator out on the side of the bayou, the first time I've seen one since October. Weird thing is, this one isn't the alligator that I've seen before. This one is about half the size of my alligator. So there's proof -- I have multiple alligator neighbors. Great.
I'm sick. Yesterday, sore throat, this morning, full-on cold with sore throat, runny nose, etc. Apparently Jen got sick yesterday, and Gavin quickly followed, and since I watched the Superbowl at their house on Sunday night I'm totally blaming them.
Actually, I've heard a lot of people complaining about colds lately. So maybe I was due. I haven't been sick, well, since I started dating Jose -- a fact he noted last night when I commented that I thought I might be getting a cold.
I really started feeling bad during class last night. It was heightened by the fact that the assignment we had due -- the one I stayed up until 12:30 the night before working on -- got shifted to next week. We didn't even present them, because half of the class hadn't done the assignment yet. See, the professor cancelled class last week because he was sick, and usually at the end of each class, he gives us an overview of the next assignment and shows us some past examples. We didn't get that because we didn't have class. This apparently confounded some people to the point where they couldn't even do the assignment at all (despite the fact that it's all written down on the class website).
I was pretty frustrated. Even if you gloss over the fact that they found it acceptable to not even attempt to do the assignment on time, there's this: most of these people want to work as designers. They're not grad students like me, and they're taking the classes as their main degree, so they don't have another full-time job like me. As a working designer, you can expect to be constantly faced with challenges where your client only tells you bits and pieces of what they want -- if you can't deal with it in school, how will you deal with it in the real world?
Anyway. After class I had zero desire to run because I was tired and frustrated and my throat hurt, but I didn't want to skip a workout so I decided to switch Tuesday and Thursday. I rode 45 minutes on my trainer instead, equivalent to a 10-12 mile ride. I'm supposed to ride 15 today, and I must say that it's absolutely beautiful outside, but I don't want to push things too much, especially since I do still plan to run the Surfside Half Marathon on Saturday. I'll see how I feel this afternoon.
Mike Rowe from Dirty Jobs was on the Daily Show last night. He cracks me up, and has an amazing ability to remember the details of all the crazy jobs that he's done. Dirty Jobs might just be my favorite show on TV right now; if you haven't watched it, you really should give it a try.
Every couple years, someone in Clear Lake goes crazy. This time, it happened to be an astronaut. It's a weird world, and I'll leave it at that.
I'm really tired today. I was exhausted all yesterday, despite having gotten 9+ hours of sleep on Sunday night. Add that with getting to bed late last night and having to get up early this morning for a sim, and I can't stop yawning. I have class this afternoon, followed by a run (at some nice slow pace), and then with any luck I'll be in bed. I got a reprieve on tomorrow's 117 activity -- they don't need the ARD Support after all -- which is great because it means I don't have to get up at 5 am. Sigh of relief.
I did nothing last night except swim and do homework. At the pool, I did 1250 yards in just under half an hour -- 300 warmup, 16x50 with 10 seconds rest, and 150 cooldown. For the last 150, I practiced breathing on both sides. It's something I've got to get better at. As for the homework, I spent 4+ hours straight making a type identification poster. I'll post it (and my other assignments so far this semester) some other time.
I found out today that my friend Chris was at the Super Bowl. As in, had tickets. At face value. Back of the first level, Colts endzone. He's such a bum. ;)
Argh! I can't get officially officially certified yet because there's another big piece of paperwork (involving security stuff) that still has to get done. One question involved listing all foreign travel, ever. My list looked pretty cool once I put it together:
05-06/2001 - London, England, UK; Stratford-upon-Avon, England, UK; Paris, France; Munich, Germany; Fussen, Germany; Montreaux, Switzerland; Venice, Italy; Rome, Italy; Florence, Italy; Nice, France; Barcelona, Spain; Amsterdam, Netherlands.
07/2002 - Reynosa, Mexico.
09/2002 - Cranfield, England, UK; Edinburgh, Scotland, UK; Inverness, Scotland, UK; Stromness, Orkney Islands, Scotland, UK; Stirling, Scotland, UK.
01/2003 - Avignon, France.
10/2003 - Athens, Greece; Santorini, Greece; Kalambaka, Greece.
09/2004 - Lima, Peru; Cusco, Peru; Machu Picchu, Peru.
02/2006 - Buenos Aires, Argentina; El Calafate, Argentina; El Chalten, Argentina; Punta Arenas, Chile; Santiago, Chile.
I have been lucky enough to take some really cool trips, that's for sure.
I ran last night in the cool weather -- about 50 degrees. I didn't really feel much like running, but once I got out there I felt better. I did 5.15 miles in 53:36 with splits of 10:47, 10:22, 10:26, 10:23, 10:08, and 1:30. A few minutes into the run, my Shuffle cued up The Crystal Method's 45-minute long song that I bought off iTunes to check out the Nike Plus stuff. I wasn't sure that it would be good running music, at least for me, since I usually like singing that I can bop along to, and this was 45 minutes of mostly electronic, techno-ish music. But it surprised me -- I let the whole song play, and just zoned out, and next thing I knew I was done. I'm going to run again tonight since I won't be running the 6K tomorrow.
Jose finally found out what time his friend is getting married in Corpus on Saturday, and it's 2:00. So I won't be able to make the Buffalo Wallow 6K. Sad. I'm not bothered about losing my money (after all, it was only $10), but I'm bummed not to be able to run one of the very few off-road races in Houston and to see all my running buds for the first time since the marathon. C'est la vie, there will be other races, and the wedding will be fun. I like going to weddings.
As I drove to work this morning, I thought "man, January has been so freaking rainy, what a crappy month." Then I realized it's February. Weather's still crappy (enough with the rain already), and it's been exactly 4 years since the Columbia accident. My paperwork is being shuffled and organized and signed as I type, making me a certified space shuttle flight controller on a day that reminds me that people's lives depend on me doing my job and doing it right. It is a sobering thought to realize that I have such responsibility. All I can do is work my hardest to be prepared for any situation. And I plan to do just that.
I did my first ride on my new bike trainer last night! You can check out my Flickr stream to see a cameraphone picture of how cramped my living room is with the bike positioned just so in front of the TV. I didn't take the time to rewire the speed sensor yet, so I just rode for 50 minutes, then headed to the workout room at my apartment complex to run because it was c-c-cold outside. Both treadmills were taken, so I did a 28-minute program on the EFX machine. I don't think that was quite as good as running, since the EFX motion is still a little like cycling, but oh well.
