Seriously, the day - my first real "day off" in December - went by faster than a cold spell in July. We have 47 boxes packed, mostly with books. We've also spent time over at the Pearland house, putting a bit of polish on the place (actually, taking a lot of latex paint off the floor!).
The ground controller ("gee-cee") pulled some strings and had some copies made of the videoconference between the ISS crew and the folks in the MCC that I was part of on Christmas day. Here's a frame from that comm pass:

I am the one sitting directly above the final "s" in the word "Christmas" in the bottom window. In the upper window, the ISS crew (comprising Yuri Gidzenko, the pilot, at the top, Sergei Krikalev, the flight engineer, on the right side of the frame, and Bill Shepherd, the crew commander) looks on.
There were actually more people at the MCC than are shown in the bottom window; it's just that the screen shot was taken from near the end of the session. A number of people at the MCC had already been introduced, and as the camera's field of view is rather small, they moved down and out of the way to allow folks behind them to step forward and be recognized.
Only after my and Leonid S's names were called out by the flight director did it occur to anyone to bring the window showing the MCC folks to the top (prior to that, my head was covered by the window showing the station crew).
I'm not at all sure you can see the headset on my head, but it's there, as I was simultaneously interpreting the FD's comments into Russian for any folks at the Moscow MCC who might be wondering just what the heck we were up to in Houston. After all, the work must go on.
And it will continue to go on tomorrow, as I return to the translation of the execute package. Time to start sleep-shifting, too, as my New Year's shift starts at 11 pm on the 31st, and goes to 8 am on January 1.
Cheers...
The ground controller ("gee-cee") pulled some strings and had some copies made of the videoconference between the ISS crew and the folks in the MCC that I was part of on Christmas day. Here's a frame from that comm pass:

I am the one sitting directly above the final "s" in the word "Christmas" in the bottom window. In the upper window, the ISS crew (comprising Yuri Gidzenko, the pilot, at the top, Sergei Krikalev, the flight engineer, on the right side of the frame, and Bill Shepherd, the crew commander) looks on.
There were actually more people at the MCC than are shown in the bottom window; it's just that the screen shot was taken from near the end of the session. A number of people at the MCC had already been introduced, and as the camera's field of view is rather small, they moved down and out of the way to allow folks behind them to step forward and be recognized.
Only after my and Leonid S's names were called out by the flight director did it occur to anyone to bring the window showing the MCC folks to the top (prior to that, my head was covered by the window showing the station crew).
I'm not at all sure you can see the headset on my head, but it's there, as I was simultaneously interpreting the FD's comments into Russian for any folks at the Moscow MCC who might be wondering just what the heck we were up to in Houston. After all, the work must go on.
And it will continue to go on tomorrow, as I return to the translation of the execute package. Time to start sleep-shifting, too, as my New Year's shift starts at 11 pm on the 31st, and goes to 8 am on January 1.
Cheers...