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Back in the saddle, again...
Sep. 3rd, 2001 03:19 amArriving in Houston late Saturday night, it turned out that not only was a goodly portion of Houston very wet, but the phone at the house no longer worked, so I was left with no way to check e-mail or post to LJ. All very survivable, apparently.
Saturday was pretty stressful, as we came up with a hare-brained scheme to score customer service points by moving FedEx packages left at the store after Friday's pick up to Durango on Saturday, so they could be delivered on Tuesday (virtually nobody - 'cept us simo terps - works on Labor Day). I mean, I had to be delivered to the airport anyway, so why not take the packages along?
Heck, we may advertise the service - "We'll take your FedEx package to Durango on Saturday morning!" - and charge a small handling fee, natch.
Anyway, the stress started when I realized I had only 15 minutes to actually pack for the trip, since the FedEx office in Durango was going to close soon. So far, I haven't noticed if I've forgotten anything (e.g., power supplies, disks, dictionaries), which is good news.
We did our business with FedEx and then - stress relieved - had a lunch at a place called Oscar's in Durango. The town was up to its eyeballs in motorcyclists, there for the annual "Iron Horse" rally that was centered in the small town of Ignacio. I have never seen so many Harleys in my life.
Anyway, after lunch, Galina dropped me off at the airport, where I checked in and settled down to wait for my plane. The stress came back again when it turned out that the United Airlines shuttle I was to fly was delayed coming out of Denver. And further delayed. When it finally arrived - about forty minutes late - experience told me my chances of making my connection in Denver were in question. Indeed, when we arrived in Denver, my connection (which was shown as departing "on time") seemed to be the only plane on the departure schedule that was boarding at a completely different terminal, so I was feeling pretty low, convinced that the Fates were out to get me.
Fortunately, I ran into a gent driving one of those electric carts who - upon hearing my tale of woe - drove me to the escalator that led to the train that took me to the other terminal, all in quick time. If I had been forced to walk, getting from my arrival gate to that escalator would have taken a long time. In any event, thanks to his efforts, I made my connection with a few minutes to spare.
Throughout the wait and both flights, I read one of the paperbacks I bought at the library, Under the Yoke, by S.M. Stirling. It's another of the "alternative history" sci-fi genre, where some facet of history is changed and the author then runs with the theme of what might have happened subsequently. In this tale, the Tories quitting the U.S. after the Revolutionary War ended up in South Africa (instead of Canada, which is what happened in "our" timeline). The eventual result was a social structure that went from "white" and "black" to "master" and "serf."
Once in Houston, I was picked up by the Budget Rent-A-Car shuttle and dropped off at their site, near the so-called "Fast Break" lane. The idea of this service is that, having preregistered with all of the usual data (including credit card info), instead of standing in line to get a car, you hop off the shuttle, pick one of several cars parked in a designated area, load your luggage into it and drive off (stopping, naturally, at an exit gate where they check you out). The process was so swift and painless, that I called back Sunday morning to make sure they actually had me listed as the driver of the vehicle (the young thing at the exit gate didn't even ask to see my driver license). I'm legal, said the Budgeteer I spoke with.
Anyway, I got to the house pretty late, after having negotiated some wet roads. Telegraph Road just north of the Beltway was not entirely flooded, but most of the cars were traveling along the road as close to the center of the thoroughfare as possible. A few hundred yards short of the house, I turned into the 24/7 K-Mart and did some shopping.
They've got a new deal there, self-checkout. Compared to having to wait in what is typically a small number of lines given the number of people wanting to check out, I thought it was a neat deal. It seemed as if the system was keyed to sensing products being placed in a bag. If the system didn't sense that happening, it would not allow you to scan the next item, and would politely insist that the product you'd just scanned be bagged. It is also interesting to note that bagging one's purchases is not an intuitively obvious process.
The house was empty... no Lee, no Jessica, no pets. I brought some animals into the house with me, inadvertently, having stepped onto an invisible mound of fire ants. They made their presence felt quickly and fortunately, I only got stung two or three times while getting them off my leg.
Sunday was intended to be a full day of translation, but I ended up going to the Hong Kong market for some more shopping and then to the local flea market that's a few hundred yards south of the Beltway on Telephone Road.
It'd been a while since I'd been at this market, which is one of those huge affairs with a lot of permanent dealers ensconced in semi-permanent digs, along with a number of individuals who set up shop on rough-built tables out under the sun.
Or, in yesterday's case, under the clouds that dropped monsoon rains on the festivities.
At any rate, the buyers and sellers at this market now seem to be largely Spanish-speakers, as opposed to a year or two ago, when there was more variety. I felt as if I were in a foreign country as I walked along, looking for some good chorizo. It was actually fun, but the rain and the need to get back and down to work ruined it a bit for me.
Back at the house, MS Word reminded me - once again - of the wisdom of saving one's work every few minutes or so. I lost about an hour's worth of work when the program decided to crash, and that helped sour my mood for the rest of the afternoon. In all, I got about 1600 words done.
Lee came by around 3:30 pm and we chatted. She's ticked at her "friends" because they seem to be (and are, in my humble opinion) taking advantage of her. However, I at this point in our relationship, I can only impel (to a certain degree) and not compel, so she's going to have to ultimately work this furball out for herself.
I got about 3 hours of sleep between 5:30 pm and 8:30 pm, which should stand me in good stead at least until a couple of hours from now. I had "slept in" the previous morning to about 9 am, so I'm not running a terrible sleep deficit, but I need to get to the point where I can confidently go to sleep at around 3 pm and then get up at 10 pm.
Currently, I'm in the simultaneous booth at the MCC, working with Mike T. Fortunately, today is a quiet day on orbit (Labor Day... heck, even the astronauts have a day off, but I'm just whining), so there's not much pressure.
One pleasant surprise is finding my kisser on a couple of photos that were taken candidly at various times during the 7A.1 flight. (Sorry if they're bulky, though they should each load in 10 seconds or less at 56 kbps.)
The above photo shows me standing at the RIO console, looking over at the flight director as I'm reporting something to him (actually, I think we may have been discussing the history of the term "chit," which has a fine military pedigree and is the informal name for what NASA otherwise calls a "mission action request"). The photo below shows me looking at something on one of my console screens. The young woman behind me in the photo is the RIO, my boss during the flight. I don't recall being photographed either time, BTW.
Saturday was pretty stressful, as we came up with a hare-brained scheme to score customer service points by moving FedEx packages left at the store after Friday's pick up to Durango on Saturday, so they could be delivered on Tuesday (virtually nobody - 'cept us simo terps - works on Labor Day). I mean, I had to be delivered to the airport anyway, so why not take the packages along?
Heck, we may advertise the service - "We'll take your FedEx package to Durango on Saturday morning!" - and charge a small handling fee, natch.
Anyway, the stress started when I realized I had only 15 minutes to actually pack for the trip, since the FedEx office in Durango was going to close soon. So far, I haven't noticed if I've forgotten anything (e.g., power supplies, disks, dictionaries), which is good news.
We did our business with FedEx and then - stress relieved - had a lunch at a place called Oscar's in Durango. The town was up to its eyeballs in motorcyclists, there for the annual "Iron Horse" rally that was centered in the small town of Ignacio. I have never seen so many Harleys in my life.
Anyway, after lunch, Galina dropped me off at the airport, where I checked in and settled down to wait for my plane. The stress came back again when it turned out that the United Airlines shuttle I was to fly was delayed coming out of Denver. And further delayed. When it finally arrived - about forty minutes late - experience told me my chances of making my connection in Denver were in question. Indeed, when we arrived in Denver, my connection (which was shown as departing "on time") seemed to be the only plane on the departure schedule that was boarding at a completely different terminal, so I was feeling pretty low, convinced that the Fates were out to get me.
Fortunately, I ran into a gent driving one of those electric carts who - upon hearing my tale of woe - drove me to the escalator that led to the train that took me to the other terminal, all in quick time. If I had been forced to walk, getting from my arrival gate to that escalator would have taken a long time. In any event, thanks to his efforts, I made my connection with a few minutes to spare.
Throughout the wait and both flights, I read one of the paperbacks I bought at the library, Under the Yoke, by S.M. Stirling. It's another of the "alternative history" sci-fi genre, where some facet of history is changed and the author then runs with the theme of what might have happened subsequently. In this tale, the Tories quitting the U.S. after the Revolutionary War ended up in South Africa (instead of Canada, which is what happened in "our" timeline). The eventual result was a social structure that went from "white" and "black" to "master" and "serf."
Once in Houston, I was picked up by the Budget Rent-A-Car shuttle and dropped off at their site, near the so-called "Fast Break" lane. The idea of this service is that, having preregistered with all of the usual data (including credit card info), instead of standing in line to get a car, you hop off the shuttle, pick one of several cars parked in a designated area, load your luggage into it and drive off (stopping, naturally, at an exit gate where they check you out). The process was so swift and painless, that I called back Sunday morning to make sure they actually had me listed as the driver of the vehicle (the young thing at the exit gate didn't even ask to see my driver license). I'm legal, said the Budgeteer I spoke with.
Anyway, I got to the house pretty late, after having negotiated some wet roads. Telegraph Road just north of the Beltway was not entirely flooded, but most of the cars were traveling along the road as close to the center of the thoroughfare as possible. A few hundred yards short of the house, I turned into the 24/7 K-Mart and did some shopping.
They've got a new deal there, self-checkout. Compared to having to wait in what is typically a small number of lines given the number of people wanting to check out, I thought it was a neat deal. It seemed as if the system was keyed to sensing products being placed in a bag. If the system didn't sense that happening, it would not allow you to scan the next item, and would politely insist that the product you'd just scanned be bagged. It is also interesting to note that bagging one's purchases is not an intuitively obvious process.
The house was empty... no Lee, no Jessica, no pets. I brought some animals into the house with me, inadvertently, having stepped onto an invisible mound of fire ants. They made their presence felt quickly and fortunately, I only got stung two or three times while getting them off my leg.
Sunday was intended to be a full day of translation, but I ended up going to the Hong Kong market for some more shopping and then to the local flea market that's a few hundred yards south of the Beltway on Telephone Road.
It'd been a while since I'd been at this market, which is one of those huge affairs with a lot of permanent dealers ensconced in semi-permanent digs, along with a number of individuals who set up shop on rough-built tables out under the sun.
Or, in yesterday's case, under the clouds that dropped monsoon rains on the festivities.
At any rate, the buyers and sellers at this market now seem to be largely Spanish-speakers, as opposed to a year or two ago, when there was more variety. I felt as if I were in a foreign country as I walked along, looking for some good chorizo. It was actually fun, but the rain and the need to get back and down to work ruined it a bit for me.
Back at the house, MS Word reminded me - once again - of the wisdom of saving one's work every few minutes or so. I lost about an hour's worth of work when the program decided to crash, and that helped sour my mood for the rest of the afternoon. In all, I got about 1600 words done.
Lee came by around 3:30 pm and we chatted. She's ticked at her "friends" because they seem to be (and are, in my humble opinion) taking advantage of her. However, I at this point in our relationship, I can only impel (to a certain degree) and not compel, so she's going to have to ultimately work this furball out for herself.
I got about 3 hours of sleep between 5:30 pm and 8:30 pm, which should stand me in good stead at least until a couple of hours from now. I had "slept in" the previous morning to about 9 am, so I'm not running a terrible sleep deficit, but I need to get to the point where I can confidently go to sleep at around 3 pm and then get up at 10 pm.
Currently, I'm in the simultaneous booth at the MCC, working with Mike T. Fortunately, today is a quiet day on orbit (Labor Day... heck, even the astronauts have a day off, but I'm just whining), so there's not much pressure.
One pleasant surprise is finding my kisser on a couple of photos that were taken candidly at various times during the 7A.1 flight. (Sorry if they're bulky, though they should each load in 10 seconds or less at 56 kbps.)
The above photo shows me standing at the RIO console, looking over at the flight director as I'm reporting something to him (actually, I think we may have been discussing the history of the term "chit," which has a fine military pedigree and is the informal name for what NASA otherwise calls a "mission action request"). The photo below shows me looking at something on one of my console screens. The young woman behind me in the photo is the RIO, my boss during the flight. I don't recall being photographed either time, BTW.
