On the run...

Just a quick note, as net access has been slow and people are getting ready to go home for the day.

The trip yesterday to the market was kind of old news for me. The angle of the sun favored those who were under awnings, and consequently, there were few opportunities to take good photos. One exception was a young man who was apparently obeying his mother's injunction to "Stay here while I go buy grapes," because he planted himself in the middle of the thoroughfare with three bags of items already bought, squatted down, and buried his head in a newspaper.



As I walked around, I noticed a lot of people - besides the boy - in that peculiar (for Americans) squatting position that about half the world seems to adopt as a position of rest. Life is slow, even in a space port town.

Just down the street from the open-air market is the main train station. Most of the people who work at the various facilities the Russian government leases from Kazakhstan commute via rail line to and from work from this station. Off to the right of the terminus, an old (ca. 1950s, if my eyesight didn't fail me as we drove past), restored steam locomotive sits in all its mechanical glory, in front of a coal car from "Cosmotrans," which apparently runs the trains around here.

Gotta go catch the van!

Cheers...

Mundane matters...

A portion of the team left today. The rest of us will leave on the 22nd or 23rd. I've learned that one can, apparently, remain in Russia without a прописка (residence registration) for up to 90 days instead of the 3 days that has been the norm in the past.

I am seriously considering the possibility of not leaving for the two weeks its going to take to repair the satellite, but have to clear it with family members. Not leaving will, I think, garner brownie points with my client (since a second transatlantic ticket will not be required), and as far as work is concerned, there may be an opportunity to participate in the upcoming Shuttle mission, but from the MCC in Moscow (I'd have to make some calls, of course, to set this up).

I was moving kind of slow this afternoon, the result of doing a 400+ calorie workout on the treadmill late in the morning. During that workout I jogged for a total of 4 minutes, broken up into two 2-minute sessions. I also joined the volleyball crowd this evening for about an hour and broke a good sweat. If nothing else, I am getting a bellyful of exercise during this campaign. And that can't be bad.

Cheers...