Daily: May 2007 Archives

It's not the heat that really gets to you. It's the humidity. It's the fact that the sweat that's dripping down your nose and your forehead and even your shins won't evaporate. And what good is sweating when it won't evaporate?

Last night wasn't that bad when I put it in perspective, and think about how bad it will be in August. But it was the warmest, most humid weather that I've attempted to run in this year, and it was 5:30 p.m. no less.

I've been a big slacker since the Half Ironman. Oh, I've run plenty of races and done a couple triathlons and even had a couple of my best bike outings ever and gotten close to a 30:00 5K again. But during the week I've been a big slacker. I can feel the fitness slowing slipping away. I'm going to try to hang with June at the 5K this weekend, but I'm not sure I can, especially if it's humid. Time to pick up the pieces if possible.

I did 3 miles last night and pushed pretty hard. I finished, gasping, in 32:20. It was nasty humid. My body hasn't adjusted to that yet.

Rendezvous According to Sarah

I totally rocked my rendezvous qual this morning. I walked in and drew the rendezvous profile on a sheet of paper and the rocked the simulator with my powers of memory recall. I am awesome.

The Astros are not awesome. For a moment, I thought they might win it on a Carlos Lee hit. I could mentally picture the ball flying between two infielders for a 2-RBI game winning base hit. But I could also mentally picture him hitting into a game-ending double play. Which is what he did. And thus the Astros lost their 9th straight game. It is hard to watch.

We have tickets to the Astros game tonight, and I'm scared. They've been playing so abysmally lately that I haven't even been able to watch on TV. Halfway through the game, I find myself needing to change the channel. Eight games. They've now lost eight games straight. The only glimmer of hope is that they're playing the Reds tonight, and they are usually pretty good against the Reds.

It was a good weekend, highlighted by baby Carina of course. Friday seems like a million years ago. I took Jose out to dinner that night to celebrate his success at his Cert Qual sim that day. Saturday morning was the triathlon, Saturday afternoon was a trip to see Pirates of the Caribbean (the verdict: eh, not that great), Saturday night was fish night topped with Jen's water breaking and them heading to the hospital. Sunday was errands day and waiting impatiently to find out if Jen had had the baby yet! Monday was a rainy, rainy, rainy Memorial Day BBQ at Debbie's. Whew. What a weekend.

I have two things on my agenda today: writing up an evaluation for my trainee from her sim last week, and studying for my rendezvous qual class tomorrow. I have to perform the rendezvous in the shuttle simulator -- without the help of the flight data file that has all the procedures in it! I have to know all the procedures from memory. It's a lot to remember.

I signed up for the Heights 5K this Saturday. I'm planning to hang with June for as long as I can as she goes for sub-30:00. I'm hoping she can drag me with her to a sub-30:00 but realistically I'm not sure if I'm quite there yet. A lot will depend on how hot it is. We'll see.

When Jen and Gavin's kid is older, I can't wait to tell them that their mom's water broke while she was watching me play Guitar Hero.

Jen's having the baby!

Today was the first of two days of evaluation sims. These sims are always uber-stressful because people are watching you and taking notes on your every move. Fortunately for me, neither day involves an evaluation of me. Ha!

This morning was Bini's midpoint. Bini works in my old group and is my first official trainee, since she is training to be an ARD Support, the position that I certified for six months ago. The midpoint is an "easier" evaluation in the sense that you can't fail. It's not designed to be the final test of whether you can function as a console operator even when the world is coming apart around you. Instead, it's simply a hard sim designed to challenge you beyond what you've seen thus far in your training, expose your weaknesses, and give your trainer a good idea of how you're progressing.

I found out that it's much more fun to be the evaluator than the evaluatee (yes, I know, that's probably not a word). I also found out that I shouldn't make fun of Marc, the guy who trained me, for the novel-length "narrative summary" he'd hand me a few days after each of my evaluations. It turns out that it takes a lot of writing to cover everything thoroughly, and being thorough is very helpful to your trainee. I filled the front and back of a sheet of paper with my handwriting scribbles -- for each individual run. Four runs is four sheets of paper. When I organize all my thoughts and type it out, it will also be novel-length.

After the sim, I told Bini that even though I'd said it wasn't a pass/fail evaluation, she passed. And she did. She did great. She has exactly the strengths and weaknesses that I would expect for someone who is halfway through their training. In fact, I think she may have done better than I expected. Excellent.

Tomorrow is Jose's Rendezvous Support cert qual. It's the "pre-final" before your final certification sim. It's usually the hardest sim that you see in all of your training, even harder than the final, since it's really designed to make sure that you're ready for a final. Tomorrow there are five evaluations on the schedule in so many disciplines that it will be amazing if the fake shuttle manages to dock in one piece. Evaluations mean one thing: trouble. Tomorrow there will be lots of trouble. It's a Data Processing Systems final front room cert, so there will be major problems with the computers. There are backroom evaluations for guidance, communications, and propulsion, so there will be problems with all of those systems. And the piece de resistance -- all of those systems affect rendezvous. So all of those systems affect Jose.

I'm watching so that when my turn comes, I can tell myself that "it can't possibly be as bad as his cert qual!"

Jose and I went to Babin's in Kemah last night to celebrate his birthday. When you walk into the restaurant, you are greeted in the entryway by the sight of a big refrigerated case that usually has a couple whole fish resting on a bed of ice. I suppose it's a way of showing that the fish they serve really is freshly caught, as directly above the case is a chalkboard that lists what fish are available on that particular day.

I have a fear of fish. They taste good, yes. But they pretty much gross me out while in their natural, slimy, scaly, stinky, all-around-fishy form. There were two rather large fish in the case last night. They had gray skin with a bit of a gold sheen, and big dead creepy eyes. They looked like they were frowning. Ew, ew, ew. We quickly walked past them and into the restaurant.

Dinner was great. We sat outside and even though it was windy, it was still a nice evening. We both ordered golden tile, a fish that we'd never had because it's not always available. The waiter said it was good, and it was.

It wasn't until we were leaving that we realized that the creepy big dead fish in the ice case were golden tilefish. Ew, ew, ew. I just ate that fish. I don't want to know what it looks like!

Last night I dreamed about fish. I was in Jose's apartment and there was a small fish that was bouncing around the room, half-swimming in air. I was extremely disturbed by this, and Jose was nowhere to be found. I was on my own to deal with the bouncing, air-swimming fish. Then it bounced towards me and I couldn't get out of the way and it bit me! It bit my wrist, and it had real teeth, not fish teeth! It didn't go limp or start flapping, it just latched onto my wrist and stayed there, rigid. It was extremely freaked out and ran around the room until I was finally able to peel this fish off my wrist.

GROSS.

Finally I woke up and escaped the bouncing, air-swimming, biting fish.

I hate fish.

Happy Birthday Jose!

I could say some schmoopy things to go along with that, but I won't. It's my boy's birthday and I am doing my best to make it a good one. He already got his present -- an Astros jersey that I gave him on Saturday so he could wear it to the game that night. He says having a jersey makes him want to go to even more games. Exactly. All part of my evil plan...

It's been a weird day. I had a training class that was scheduled from 11-1, which of course is the worst possible time block for a training class. The only person willing to wait until 1:00 to eat lunch in honor of Jose's birthday was Nick (and Heather, who met us there), which turned out to be just fine. Because we ate lunch so late, we didn't get back until almost 3:00. The day's almost over and it feels like I just got here.

My training class was fun, but my brain was just not firing on all cylinders today. Take, for example, my stunning display of coordinate system logic as I tried to figure out which way to push the stick to do a +Z burn. (That's firing the jets on top of the orbiter that fire up, thus pushing you in the +Z direction, which is in the direction the belly of the vehicle is facing.)

In trying to figure out which way to push the stick, I decided that since I knew that +X was pushing in (forward) and +Y was pushing right, I'd use the right hand rule to figure out where +Z was.

I did it once and the answer was to pull the stick out. Hmm. That's not right. In is +X, so out must be -X, not +Z. Oh, I realized, I'd inadvertently pointed +X in the up direction instead of into the console.

I did it again and the answer was to push the stick up. "Think again," my instructor told me. But I used the right hand rule, I thought, it has to be up.

Then I remembered why the right hand rule is so aptly named. It's because it only works when you use your RIGHT HAND.

I'd been sitting there doing the right hand rule with my left hand.

Some days I think I'd be better off at home. My brain obviously never got to work today.

Yesterday I wrote about how I've been such a flake this week, and then I did it one more time. Just as Jen, Jason and I got onto the highway yesterday on our way to the baseball game, I realized that I'd left my ticket at home.

Flake!

I bought the cheapest ticket they had ($7) and sat in my seat anyway. And then spent about $952 on a chicken tender basket that made my stomach hurt.

On the plus side, the Astros won. It's nice to see the sunny side of .500 again.

My group meets every Monday to discuss current issues, upcoming missions, sims, and whatnot. Two days ago, the conversation went like this:

Sean: "There's another testing sim -- an undock -- coming up on Friday. We need someone to work RPS."

Steve: "Well, Jose is our default RPS at the moment."

Sean: "It'll be just like a normal sim, but since it's a test, it can't count for certs or anything like that."

Steve thinks for a moment and turns to me.

Steve: "Are you ready to work sims?"

Sarah: nods vigorously

Steve: "Ok, why don't you work the undock on Friday."

Sarah: "Really? Awesome!"

So suddenly, I have my first rendezvous sim. It's an undock and fly-around, which is easier than a rendezvous and dock. And because it's a test, there shouldn't be too many crazy problems. Perfect for my first sim. Now I am very nervous, because as much as I have been wanting to sim, I didn't think it would happen anytime soon. And realistically, I won't get a second sim until after STS-117. But still -- very exciting!

The shuttle is rolling out to the launch pad today after three months of repairs to the external tank. You might think that I knew this ahead of time, since I work at JSC and am assigned to this launch. But no, I found out via a cnn.com article. Figures.

Last night I hit the pool for 1500 yards. After 1100, I decided to throw in a 300 yard time trial so I can update my predicted time for the upcoming Combat Tri. I have no idea what I wrote down when I registered, but probably around 6:00, which is too slow. Last night I did the swim in 5:20, so that's what I'm hoping to update to. Combat is a pool swim, which you might think is nice because the water's clean and clear -- but I prefer open water for triathlons. In a pool swim, everyone has to predict their finish time and you are lined up accordingly. Very few people ever predict their time exactly right, and since you start in 10-second intervals, you always find yourself either needing to pass someone, or with someone trying to pass you. And passing in a pool is not easy

My workout went well, but I was pretty frustrated with some of the other swimmers. I know everyone has equal right to use the pool but when it's crowded, I suggest the following rules, based on my observation that there are far more casual swimmers than there are in-training swimmers like me:

1) If you are going to do very slow laps of elementary backstroke, share a lane.
2) If you are going to talk to your friend in the next lane every time you finish a lap, share a lane.
3) If you are going to do the old lady kickboard thing, share a lane.
4) If you are going to do butterfly, just don't, unless you really know how.

The pool only has 6 lanes. One of those lanes is half-blocked at one end by the stairs to get out of the pool. And that's the lane I ended up sharing with another girl as the rest of the pool dwellers elementary backstroked, talked, and kickboarded their way -- slowly -- down the pool and back. Thankfully the girl I was sharing with swam at pretty much the same pace as me, and it wasn't a problem. Halfway through my workout, one of the kickboarders finally left and I got a lane to myself.

As I cooled down, I decided to retrieve the pair of goggles that I'd seen sitting at the bottom of the deep end each time I swam down the pool. I took a deep breath, swam down 12 feet, got the goggles, and DANG IT I forgot how much your ears hurt if you haven't been down to the bottom of the deep end in a while. My ears hurt for 10 minutes! Ow.

When I was a kid, my siblings and I used to play a game called "Thunder People" during the big thunderstorms. I don't know who came up with it, but the sole point was to run around the house carrying a blanket, and when you saw lightning you had to dive on the floor and crouch under the blanket before the thunder came. If you didn't make it, you were "dead." I know, not much of a game, but we certainly had fun playing it. Our house is laid out such that you can run in one full circle and never turn around -- from the kitchen, down the hall, around the corner into the living room, into the den, and back to the kitchen. I remember running circles and circles and collapsing, giggling, onto the floor to flee the thunder and stay alive.

I remember Thunder People every time there's a big storm like there was last night. I was supposed to play softball at 9:00, but by 8:30 there was a fantastic lightning show going on outside that only got better and better. For more than an hour, the lightning never hit the ground -- it just streaked from cloud to cloud. Sometimes it looked like a spider web. Sometimes the bolt wasn't visible, and it looked like a ball of light was moving above the clouds, illuminating them in circles from behind. Sometimes the lightning would burst overhead like a firework, tendrils of light zigzagging out in all directions.

Jose and I sat on my balcony for an hour, watching the light show. "Whoooooa," we'd say as the lightning bolts cascaded from west to north across the sky. "Did you see that one?" we'd ask as the clouds flickered and glowed from within. Eventually the lightning started heading for the ground, the wind picked up, and the rain finally came. It came down heavily, and Jose and I ran around like kids, peeking out into the parking lot to see the rain swirling around.

It was the coolest storm that I can remember.

Afterwards, in no way related to lightning but still very good, we made strawberry shortcakes. I added blueberries to mine. They were yummy. Life is good.

The Department of Homeland Security is causing all sorts of headaches at work lately. New requirements, etc. 'Nuff said.

Last night I met the BAFT group over at Clear Lake High for my first speedwork session of the year, and let me just say that it kicked. my. butt. After a 1-mile warmup, we did 10x30-30. That's 30 seconds fast, 30 seconds recovery, ten times in a row. I lost count, but I think they worked in an 11th repeat, whether intentionally or not. By the end, I was so whipped that I could barely continue to the 1-mile cooldown! The sweat was pouring off my face. But I made it. In total I did 3.15 miles (which means 1.15 miles of 30-30s) in under 34 minutes. Good workout. We followed the run with stretching and core work, at which point I realized that my core sucks. I couldn't do the whole workout. Baby steps...I'll have to build up to it.

When I got home from running, I decided that having lasagna for dinner sounded good, so I turned on the oven. I had a bunch of stuff sitting on top of the burners, and I started moving that stuff to get it away from the heating oven. One of these items was a ziploc bag full of dried milk (for use in breadmaking). As I picked up the bag, dried milk started falling everywhere! The bag had a hole in it. A melted hole. I don't know if it happened in the minute of pre-heating last night or not, but there was a melted hole. The kitchen started to fill with the smell of burning dried milk.

I turned off the oven and cleaned up the stuff that had spilled all over the counter. And only then did I open the oven and realize that the milk had spilled onto the burner that just happens to have the oven exhaust hole in the middle of it. And that my oven was filled with dried milk.

And that it had started to burn, hence the smell.

So I got out my vacuum cleaner and started to vacuum up all the dried milk.

And then my vacuum cleaner broke.

GRR.

CNN has an article today asking: where have all the TV viewers gone? Ratings are down, and for the moment they're chalking it up to the changing ways that people are watching TV. Tivos and such. But I can't help but think that a lot of people are just doing other things, or watching other shows on cable. Network TV is total crap these days. The only network TV that I watch -- and I don't mean regularly, I mean just every once in a while -- is Scrubs, Letterman, and Conan.

Last night I had the TV on for at least 4 hours. (Not watching it the whole time, as I tend to have it on in the background while I'm doing other things, but it was still on.) What was it turned to? The Astros game, followed by Daily Show and Colbert Report, followed by Letterman. On the weekends when I do have time to chill out and relax, you'll mainly find me watching Discovery Channel or something else on cable.

So the scheduling conflict disappeared and I no longer have to do the work for my old group. Since I'd told them I wouldn't have time to do anything until tomorrow anyway due to committments for my current job, I never even got started. I'm glad that the people who took over the project from me can now learn the process themselves.

So Clemens went back to the Yankees. I can't say I'm surprised. Or even upset. Actually, I feel pretty indifferent. Clemens wouldn't have fixed the Astros problems; he just would have been a distraction. And the will-he-won't-he saga is getting old. So have fun in New York, Roger. I hope you miss the postseason. Because I always hope the Yankees miss the postseason.

The rest of my weekend after Saturday's run-bike extravaganza was blissful. No committments. Whatever I wanted. Jose and I watched the Astros game, saw the underwhelming Spiderman 3, watched the Rockets game, and met Jen, Gavin, and Becca later that night for ice cream. Sunday was all about sleeping in for the first time in too long. Yesterday afternoon we hit Lowe's and bought a bunch of plants to start our experiment in patio gardening (I'm taking bets on how long it will be until I've killed my tomatoes). Last night I played a very frustrating soccer game, but at least it was good exercise.

Amazingly little on tap for this week. It's a nice change.

I left my old group at work 6 months ago. In the year or so before leaving, I did a lot of things and none of them very well -- except one. There was one project that was mine, I was involved, I felt like it was important, I knew it was important. I developed procedures, helped plan and execute sims, educated a lot of people on something that previously no one had known we needed to be concerned about, and generated a lot of actual flight-specific data that was used during the landings of STS-114, STS-121, and STS-115. Two months after I left the group, I did it again for STS-116 because of scheduling conflicts among the people that had taken over for me. This wasn't a huge deal at the time, because though I left the group, I'm still in the same division and I was still in a transitional phase.

Almost five months after that, however, I find myself doing it again for another sim, again because of scheduling conflicts on the part of the person now supporting the task. I know that I could've said "no, I can't." It would've meant that someone would've had to come in over the weekend, or someone else would have had to start from ground zero and figure everything out. Still, I could've said no. But I didn't.

It's frustrating.

On one hand, it is not my job anymore and I shouldn't have to keep supporting it. It's not fair to me because I have other things to do now. It's not fair to the customer because they need to know that they can't keep relying on me. It's not fair to the person who has theoretically taken over from me because that person needs to learn how to do things for themself without falling back on me, knowing that even though I'm not in the group anymore, I'm just down the hall.

But on the other hand... The work associated with this project was one of of the few things in my old group that I really liked doing, so it's hard to say no. The project was my baby -- one of the few really helpful, important, and positive things I did in my old group -- and so I'm also sensitive to how I see it being treated now that I'm gone. My perception is that it's getting brushed under the rug, that the person who took over doesn't want to do it and doesn't care about it and is looking for ways to pass it off, and that the agency we're cooperating with is getting poorer treatment. I worked hard to help build those relationships and get everyone to the point they are today, working together and communicating well and getting the data they need to take the actions necessary. I don't want to see all that get flushed down the toilet.

So I'm creating another data package and supporting another sim, six months after I left my old group. And I don't know how I feel about that.

What would you do?

On The Run hooked me up with some new Brooks Adrenalines on Tuesday (the fartlek was their first run) and I had to laugh when Vera pulled them out of the box to double check that they were the correct size. It's my third pair in 12 months and they're already on their third color scheme. The next time I buy shoes, I'll get my 6th stamp on my shoe card, which means my 7th pair of shoes is free! That is quite a deal when you remember that each pair costs $85. Yet another reason I love On The Run.

Jen, Jose and I went to the Astros game last night. Jose must be good luck, as they've won both times he's seen them -- and those two games also happen to be their two wins of late. It wasn't very crowded, despite the fact that Oswalt was starting and pitched fabulously as always. Fickle fans, or just a weeknight?

I'm observing an undock sim that goes until 10:00 tonight, and I was in at 10:30 this morning for a training session. Almost 12 hour day for me...