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Getting ready...
Aug. 7th, 2001 06:20 amYesterday morning, I felt like a million bucks and was ready to do battle with giants. In other words, I wouldn't have minded taking off in the Ford and heading down to Houston. By nightfall, I was one tired pup, aching to find surcease with my head buried in a pillow.
I worked at the store most of the morning, getting home around 11:45 am. There, I continued work to make sure I would have everything in order by the time I left this morning. I also put the finishing touches on the Cyrillic phonetic keyboard layout DLL for Windows 2000, after a correspondent confirmed that copying the animal to the right system directory and then editing the Registry would do the trick.
The eSlate still continues to have problems, but they all seem recoverable (knock wood). Opening MyComputer is about a 50-50 proposition. If it fails to open completely, the machine must be cold-booted. I don't know what the cure may be, except either to (a) install something "newer" - e.g., Windows Me, or (b) go back to Linux.
I went back to the store in the afternoon to spell Drew, and ended up there pretty much through the end of the day. By the time he got back, every notary in the area had skedaddled, so Galina and I will have to notarize his emancipation statement this morning.
A thunderstorm passed through a few minutes after 5 pm, knocking out power to the area. And not just for the 30 seconds or so that's customary around here, but for several hours. We sat out in front of the store for a bit before calling it a day.
Home, Drew had the grill out on the porch, out of the wind, and was cooking a complete meal on the thing (one of the consequences of having an electric stove). It was a delicious meal.
Drew and Shannon are dog-sitting a white albino Shepherd named Chloe, while its owner looks for a job in Ft. Collins. Chloe is a friendly dog, and interacts well with Ming. Between the two, Chloe is the kind of dog I imagine as playing a role in the story of Romulus and Remus, who were - legend says - raised by wolves and eventually founded Rome. Ming, on the other hand, would be ideal for any role that required, say, licking a cat's ears. But I digress...
I think I have everything I need to depart for Texas... except the assurance that there's actually going to be a job to do once I get there. Yesterday's space.com reported that there was some controversy surrounding an injector in one of the solid rocket boosters. The injector - which is about the size of a fountain-pen cartridge - came from a lot where another item was found to have cracks, which leads engineers to speculate that the one inside the SRB may also have cracks. There was supposed to be a meeting about this yesterday, but I haven't heard any final news (not that I am in line to receive any, necessarily). If they do decide to postpone the flight, it'll be for 8 to 10 days, according to the story.
My contacts at NASA have failed to shed any additional light. The countdown started yesterday, apparently on schedule, at around 3 pm local time, but that doesn't really mean much until it comes time to fill the external tanks. That operation costs a cool $500 thousand, and even more if the tanks have to be emptied for some reason, so when the decision to tank must be made, a "go" means that - barring some last-minute thing - folks are pretty confident of a launch.
Which reminds me, I have to check my cell for messages before I leave... :^)
My next post will probably be from Houston. See ya...
Cheers...
[Update: I just checked the space.com site and the injector question is a non-issue. Houston, here I come... :^)]
I worked at the store most of the morning, getting home around 11:45 am. There, I continued work to make sure I would have everything in order by the time I left this morning. I also put the finishing touches on the Cyrillic phonetic keyboard layout DLL for Windows 2000, after a correspondent confirmed that copying the animal to the right system directory and then editing the Registry would do the trick.
The eSlate still continues to have problems, but they all seem recoverable (knock wood). Opening MyComputer is about a 50-50 proposition. If it fails to open completely, the machine must be cold-booted. I don't know what the cure may be, except either to (a) install something "newer" - e.g., Windows Me, or (b) go back to Linux.
I went back to the store in the afternoon to spell Drew, and ended up there pretty much through the end of the day. By the time he got back, every notary in the area had skedaddled, so Galina and I will have to notarize his emancipation statement this morning.
A thunderstorm passed through a few minutes after 5 pm, knocking out power to the area. And not just for the 30 seconds or so that's customary around here, but for several hours. We sat out in front of the store for a bit before calling it a day.
Home, Drew had the grill out on the porch, out of the wind, and was cooking a complete meal on the thing (one of the consequences of having an electric stove). It was a delicious meal.
Drew and Shannon are dog-sitting a white albino Shepherd named Chloe, while its owner looks for a job in Ft. Collins. Chloe is a friendly dog, and interacts well with Ming. Between the two, Chloe is the kind of dog I imagine as playing a role in the story of Romulus and Remus, who were - legend says - raised by wolves and eventually founded Rome. Ming, on the other hand, would be ideal for any role that required, say, licking a cat's ears. But I digress...
I think I have everything I need to depart for Texas... except the assurance that there's actually going to be a job to do once I get there. Yesterday's space.com reported that there was some controversy surrounding an injector in one of the solid rocket boosters. The injector - which is about the size of a fountain-pen cartridge - came from a lot where another item was found to have cracks, which leads engineers to speculate that the one inside the SRB may also have cracks. There was supposed to be a meeting about this yesterday, but I haven't heard any final news (not that I am in line to receive any, necessarily). If they do decide to postpone the flight, it'll be for 8 to 10 days, according to the story.
My contacts at NASA have failed to shed any additional light. The countdown started yesterday, apparently on schedule, at around 3 pm local time, but that doesn't really mean much until it comes time to fill the external tanks. That operation costs a cool $500 thousand, and even more if the tanks have to be emptied for some reason, so when the decision to tank must be made, a "go" means that - barring some last-minute thing - folks are pretty confident of a launch.
Which reminds me, I have to check my cell for messages before I leave... :^)
My next post will probably be from Houston. See ya...
Cheers...
[Update: I just checked the space.com site and the injector question is a non-issue. Houston, here I come... :^)]
