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Gently, gently...
Dec. 5th, 2000 09:35 pmOnly three shifts left to work on this flight, but who's counting?
Me and Mike (the fellow who works the shift with me) have worked out a good arrangement for splitting the actual console time into two chunks of 4.5 hours. The way it basically works is that one of us is in the FCR, while the other is in the so-called "back room." The console interpreter helps the "RIO" (Russian Interface Officer) and "Flight" (Flight Director, who is the boss) talk to the Russians. On the Russian side, the corresponding job titles are pronounced "Pay-Air-Pay" (which stands for pomoshchnik rukovoditelyu poljeta, or "assistant flight director") and the "Ess-Air-Pay" (the smennyi rukovoditel poljeta, or the "shift flight director").
Meanwhile, the back room interpreter is doing two things. First, listening to the exchanges being interpreted on console (this is a quality check to help catch misunderstandings), and second, translating routine message traffic (faxes, mostly, even though most of them travel as e-mail) back and forth.
I was pretty tired yesterday morning when I got off work, but agreed to go with Galina to the Pearland house to do a little work around the place.
Oh, my aching muscles!
I spent the first part of the time there covering a hole in the kitchen floor that measures 33 inches by 25-1/2 inches, and which is not exactly rectangular. In the middle of that, the hardware store truck arrives with the wood that was supposed to be delivered yesterday (the guy we contracted to do the kitchen was a little miffed that the stuff wasn't there, and had disappeared to work on another job until next week...not that I blame him). Since there is only one guy in the truck, I help him unload all of the wood that's going to go into the kitchen.
Finally, after doing a workmanlike job with the hole in the kitchen floor, I join my wife and stuff a couple of million (it seems) leaves of various kinds into bags and pile said bags on the street.
With all that done, we returned home, where we ran into our plumber, who gave us some good news for a change. Meanwhile, he lets slip that the folks from the gas company will have to come out to the Pearland house to inspect the gas piping before reinstalling the meter. I start to think that maybe covering the hole (just over a bunch of gas piping) may not have been a good idea. No biggie, though. If I have to, I think I can take up the flooring I laid down...just need to find that low-yield thermonuclear device I squirreled away for just such a need some time back....because that floor is down to stay! We'll see.
In the meantime, I picked up an enya CD at a garage sale the other day, and noticed that the "playing" surface was pretty marred, but I've seen a lot of similar surfaces (thanks to my kids), and knew that absent some really impressive level of damage, the CD would play. Well, it turns out that some of the black spots I saw on the CD are actually missing portions of the silvered layer that contains the information. The plastic surface seems okay, but there are actual holes in the recording! (Anyone know how this happens?) At any rate, the CD was cheap, so it's no great loss.
Anyway...time to get ready for work. Talk to you later.
Cheers...
Me and Mike (the fellow who works the shift with me) have worked out a good arrangement for splitting the actual console time into two chunks of 4.5 hours. The way it basically works is that one of us is in the FCR, while the other is in the so-called "back room." The console interpreter helps the "RIO" (Russian Interface Officer) and "Flight" (Flight Director, who is the boss) talk to the Russians. On the Russian side, the corresponding job titles are pronounced "Pay-Air-Pay" (which stands for pomoshchnik rukovoditelyu poljeta, or "assistant flight director") and the "Ess-Air-Pay" (the smennyi rukovoditel poljeta, or the "shift flight director").
Meanwhile, the back room interpreter is doing two things. First, listening to the exchanges being interpreted on console (this is a quality check to help catch misunderstandings), and second, translating routine message traffic (faxes, mostly, even though most of them travel as e-mail) back and forth.
I was pretty tired yesterday morning when I got off work, but agreed to go with Galina to the Pearland house to do a little work around the place.
Oh, my aching muscles!
I spent the first part of the time there covering a hole in the kitchen floor that measures 33 inches by 25-1/2 inches, and which is not exactly rectangular. In the middle of that, the hardware store truck arrives with the wood that was supposed to be delivered yesterday (the guy we contracted to do the kitchen was a little miffed that the stuff wasn't there, and had disappeared to work on another job until next week...not that I blame him). Since there is only one guy in the truck, I help him unload all of the wood that's going to go into the kitchen.
Finally, after doing a workmanlike job with the hole in the kitchen floor, I join my wife and stuff a couple of million (it seems) leaves of various kinds into bags and pile said bags on the street.
With all that done, we returned home, where we ran into our plumber, who gave us some good news for a change. Meanwhile, he lets slip that the folks from the gas company will have to come out to the Pearland house to inspect the gas piping before reinstalling the meter. I start to think that maybe covering the hole (just over a bunch of gas piping) may not have been a good idea. No biggie, though. If I have to, I think I can take up the flooring I laid down...just need to find that low-yield thermonuclear device I squirreled away for just such a need some time back....because that floor is down to stay! We'll see.
In the meantime, I picked up an enya CD at a garage sale the other day, and noticed that the "playing" surface was pretty marred, but I've seen a lot of similar surfaces (thanks to my kids), and knew that absent some really impressive level of damage, the CD would play. Well, it turns out that some of the black spots I saw on the CD are actually missing portions of the silvered layer that contains the information. The plastic surface seems okay, but there are actual holes in the recording! (Anyone know how this happens?) At any rate, the CD was cheap, so it's no great loss.
Anyway...time to get ready for work. Talk to you later.
Cheers...
