It's (too) early!

I am reminded of a relatively recent Army recruiting commercial that highlighted the (presumably) character-building advantages of having accomplished more by some gawdawfully early hour than normal people accomplish in an entire day.

I feel a little like that right now -- having started work at 4:45 am -- except for the accomplishment part. In all, so far today I've provided "fire brigade" support (i.e., on an "as needed" basis) for a perfectly plain-vanilla operation (charging spacecraft batteries). I then took advantage of the early hour to call home, and found the lines clear.

* * *The show last night was certainly not the kind of polished, professional stuff you'd expect out of Broadway or Hollywood, but that was perfectly okay with pretty much everyone in the audience, including me. (Come to think of it, a lot of what we get out of Broadway and Hollywood is not the kind of polished, professional stuff you'd expect out of those places, either, but I digress...)

The program kicked off with some numbers by a band made up of officers stationed here at the Baikonur cosmodrome. There then followed a series of dance numbers by members of two or three youth ensembles, interspersed with songs by solo singers. The band then returned to the stage to cap off the show.

I took a handful of photos, most of which came out fuzzy, mostly because I learned a long time ago that using one's flash to override the exposure time tends to exhaust the camera battery and tick off other members of the audience. (It sure doesn't illuminate the subject, if said subject is more than about 6 feet away from your camera. This has to do with the nature of the intensity of light; consult your favorite physics text for a more complete explanation, as I appear to have digressed...) Furthermore, I was enjoying the show too much to concentrate on photography. I did, however, manage to salvage the following image from among those I took:



The audience was not just members of our campaign team. There are several apartment buildings in our complex and people who live there attended as well. Also, since there were children milling about -- and since there are no children living out here -- I can only conclude that folks from Baikonur city came out to see the show as well.

The whole experience got me to thinking about the significance of amateur performance and the meaning of amateur enthusiasm. My thought process isn't complete, and I feel an essay coming on... but not now.

At any rate, after the show, the Astrium folks had a little get-together over at the Kometa hotel, and invited the interpreters. The Baikonur facility manager and the campaign program manager (from the Russian side) were there, which made it a working evening for Olga, who was drafted to sit at a table with the Russians and the lead Astrium fellow, Serge G. Among other toasts was one offered by Serge, on the theme of how wonderful and helpful it was to have a French-speaking interpreter around when you needed one. At the conclusion of the toast, glasses were raised in my direction as well, which was gratifying.

Though I was prepared to take my turn in the hot seat and relieve Olga, Sergey Z. asked Raphael to do so, I presume because I'd been slated for an oh-dark-thirty wakeup (I mean, I'm the other French-speaking interpreter, and few things can accentuate any lingering insecurities more...)

A couple of the Pinkerton guards found their way to the soireé (probably Ulrich's doing). We raised a glass to the late President Reagan and recalled the 60th anniversary of the landing at Normandy. I was moved to recite John McCrae's poem In Flanders Fields, as I thought it appropriate (even though it had been written during an earlier conflict).

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

I got back to the Fili around 11 pm, having taken the long route home from the Kometa. Along the way, I could not help but notice how cold it was (and recalling how cold it had been during the previous day) and nearly got run over by a beetle crossing the road.

Time to get back to work.

Cheers...

Miscellaneous thoughts and observations...

If I get to do this gig again, I have to make sure to bring along the following:

• sun block;
• mosquito repellant;
• fanny pack big enough to contain one set of clean room garments.

* * *One of the interesting things the observant visitor to Russia will notice is that everyone shakes hands and exchanges an oral greeting (even if mumbled) with colleagues upon first meeting them during the day. This habit is shared by the French, but not generally by Americans. After a long stint in-country, I find myself having acquired the habit, and offer my hand to people I know once I get back home. While nobody has ever actually refused to shake hands, there have been awkward moments as, I imagine, folks try to figure out what I'm doing, and why.

Another interesting practice is the habit of wishing people some variant of "enjoy your meal," either in or on one's way to the dining hall. Russians say приятного аппетита, which is about the equivalent of the French bon appetit. Interestingly, there does not seem to be any equivalent pithy phrase in English, although my "enjoy your meal" probably does the trick. The expression is used either at the table, as a meal is begun, or as one departs the table while others are eating. Less frequently, I've heard it used (mostly by Russians) when the speaker knows you're on your way to eat, even if it's said to you in a hallway or on the bus.

* * *After overseeing the start of the battery charge cycle this morning, Serge C. offered me some coffee made in the French manner. He warned me that it would be strong and informed me, cordially, that the French term for "coffee, American style" is jus de chaussettes. Literally, the expression means "the juice from one's socks," or, more charitably (in AE), plain old "dishwater," according to a paperback Harrap's slang dictionary I found in the Astrium office. For the record, the coffee from the French pot is no stronger than that from the pot that's routinely made in the interpreter office.

The schedule for today has me here for just under another hour (I get off at 8 pm). Tomorrow, I am scheduled to be at the полтинник in the morning and then I'm to remain on call between 11 pm and 9 am Wednesday morning. I may make it my business to volunteer my presence in Hall 111 tomorrow in the evening, when the fully assembled launch vehicle will be transferred to the railcar in preparation for movement to the fueling station for the Breeze-M upper stage.

That operation will take two days: one day for loading fuel and another day for loading oxidizer. After that, the launch vehicle will be rolled out to the pad and erected, in preparation for about 4 days of checks. The main rocket (stages one through three) will be loaded with propellant a few hours before launch.

I found out today I'll be doing the broadcast voice for this launch, too, the same way I did for the AMC-9 campaign last year. I've got to investigate the possibility of doing a phone post of that work, but we'll get to that when we get to it.

* * *I've taken advantage of some "fire brigade" time after most of the crew has gone back to the hotel to download my LJ in XML format. FWIW, the whole hog, since I started keeping this journal in June 2000, eats 5.5 MB on my hard drive. If we assume half that volume is overhead, that still leaves over 2.5 MB of text, which at 6 characters per word (the traditional measure of a "word," from the days of typewriters and Morse code), works out to over 400,000 words, which is moderately surprising, at first glance.

* * *There'll be a table tennis tournament under way at the Proton Club by the time I get back from the полтинник; however, my chess partner made a point of stopping by earlier to see if we could arrange for a game tonight, which we did.

I think I shall meditate between now and quitting time (unless, naturally, duty calls).

Cheers...