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The neverending sim...
Mar. 1st, 2001 11:59 pmI don't know how or why, but today's sim seemed to go on forever, and then, when it was done...it lasted a whole 'nuther hour.
Actually, I do know why it seemed to go so slowly.
I think it's because somebody decided to turn off the overhead lights, which basically turned the place into a pretty dark Space Station Training Facility. Though I'd taken some melatonin the night before to assure quick sleepfulness and a restful night, the truth was that I was still a bit sleepy when I arrived for the sim at 5 am, and then when the lights were turned out (at around 7 am), I proceeded to alternate between interpretation (awake state) and an overwhelming desire to sleep (zombie state).
Heck, I've deliberately trained my body to want to sleep whenever it gets dark around me (the reason I put aluminum foil on the windows). It's how I deal with these crazy schedules that require me to fall asleep in the middle of the afternoon, so I can wake up and go in to work at 10 pm for eight hours.
As far as fighting sleep during the sim, nothing helped. Not coffee, not splashing cold water on my face, not slapping myself on the jaw. Nothing.
But at least nobody had to wake me up during the course of the day, thank God.
It was a pretty exciting sim, meaning that a lot of things happened that, um, weren't expected either by the crew or the control team, and it's really awesome to hear some of the training instructors think out loud when a malfunction is announced. The failure of some minor, insignificant part A causes B to fail, which causes C to fail, which prevents D from operating correctly, which causes E to overreact, which causes F to go offline, which results in a loss of communications, or something equally drastic.
A good rule of thumb is that exciting sims result in extensive debriefs at the end of the exercise, which accounts for the extra hour I spent at the SSTF. For their part, the Russians I supported seemed pretty happy with the session.
Anyway, after responding to a message left on my cell phone yesterday, it would appear that I've picked up a new client out on the left coast, up near Seattle. I just spent the better part of ... who am I kidding ... I just spent all of my time since coming home working on an assignment for this client. The work involved translation of a PowerPoint presentation (boo...hiss) with a number of OLE objects embedded in it (aaarrrrggghhh!!!!). At least the content was not overly technical.
Probably the largest share of my effort was devoted to an attempt to deal with some of those embedded objects. Attempts to 'Ungroup' some objects gave up a warning to the effect that doing so would cause me to lose data. My workaround was to create a separate Word document that keyed the Russian in those objects to their English equivalents.
The work is on its way to the client as I write this. I hope he won't have much trouble figuring out my approach to skinning this particular species of feline. I'm going to have to take a fresh look at what I did during lunch tomorrow, when I'll be supporting the Execute Package for a change.
Off to bed...no melatonin tonight, in case it contributed to my fatigued state during the day today.
Cheers...
Actually, I do know why it seemed to go so slowly.
I think it's because somebody decided to turn off the overhead lights, which basically turned the place into a pretty dark Space Station Training Facility. Though I'd taken some melatonin the night before to assure quick sleepfulness and a restful night, the truth was that I was still a bit sleepy when I arrived for the sim at 5 am, and then when the lights were turned out (at around 7 am), I proceeded to alternate between interpretation (awake state) and an overwhelming desire to sleep (zombie state).
Heck, I've deliberately trained my body to want to sleep whenever it gets dark around me (the reason I put aluminum foil on the windows). It's how I deal with these crazy schedules that require me to fall asleep in the middle of the afternoon, so I can wake up and go in to work at 10 pm for eight hours.
As far as fighting sleep during the sim, nothing helped. Not coffee, not splashing cold water on my face, not slapping myself on the jaw. Nothing.
But at least nobody had to wake me up during the course of the day, thank God.
It was a pretty exciting sim, meaning that a lot of things happened that, um, weren't expected either by the crew or the control team, and it's really awesome to hear some of the training instructors think out loud when a malfunction is announced. The failure of some minor, insignificant part A causes B to fail, which causes C to fail, which prevents D from operating correctly, which causes E to overreact, which causes F to go offline, which results in a loss of communications, or something equally drastic.
A good rule of thumb is that exciting sims result in extensive debriefs at the end of the exercise, which accounts for the extra hour I spent at the SSTF. For their part, the Russians I supported seemed pretty happy with the session.
Anyway, after responding to a message left on my cell phone yesterday, it would appear that I've picked up a new client out on the left coast, up near Seattle. I just spent the better part of ... who am I kidding ... I just spent all of my time since coming home working on an assignment for this client. The work involved translation of a PowerPoint presentation (boo...hiss) with a number of OLE objects embedded in it (aaarrrrggghhh!!!!). At least the content was not overly technical.
Probably the largest share of my effort was devoted to an attempt to deal with some of those embedded objects. Attempts to 'Ungroup' some objects gave up a warning to the effect that doing so would cause me to lose data. My workaround was to create a separate Word document that keyed the Russian in those objects to their English equivalents.
The work is on its way to the client as I write this. I hope he won't have much trouble figuring out my approach to skinning this particular species of feline. I'm going to have to take a fresh look at what I did during lunch tomorrow, when I'll be supporting the Execute Package for a change.
Off to bed...no melatonin tonight, in case it contributed to my fatigued state during the day today.
Cheers...
