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Long day...
Aug. 12th, 2005 07:44 pmThe day got off to a reasonably early start as I joined the "early" team at 9:30 am in a van headed for Yubileiniy airport to greet the incoming Antonov cargo plane. It wasn't long after we got to the airport, where it was breezy and cool, before someone called "Tally ho!" on a small speck in the distance, which was our plane.
The pilot set the aircraft down as gently as could be and taxied the plane to a position not far from the consist waiting to receive the satellite in its container, along with some containers of ground support equipment.
After the usual fussing to get the ramp set up properly in front of the aircraft's nose, the container was hauled out and slung under a crane, which gingerly lifted the container off the ramp and transferred the whole deal onto a waiting flatcar.
The whole operation took about 6 hours. In the interim, I ended up doing a lot of interpretation, including a session where I accompanied the senior managers from ILS on a visit to the building that houses the control tower and security office. There, we were shown a display of various flags and mementos in the office and chatted with some of the senior staff. It just so happened that today was also Air Force day in Russia, which gave the pilots in the crowd something to talk about. It turns out the airport manager - who wasn't in attendance - is a former fighter pilot who has spent time in just about every kind of MiG imaginable.
In the course of various conversations, I also found out that Baikonur is - for cell phone purposes - in Moscow. This theoretically means I ought to be able to add some minutes to my GSM cell (the one with the Moscow number) and use it locally for calls and anywhere for SMS. Now, I only have to wait for an opportunity to buy a card with prepaid minutes.
* * * The squirrely behavior of the cursor on my VAIO is getting worse, and it turns out that not only is there no way to control the mouse pad in the unit's Windows configuration (it's there, you just can't turn it off), but the BIOS display that is called up when you press the Magic Button™ during bootup doesn't offer disabling the mouse as an option.
I suppose I could just go into the control panel and uninstall the driver for the mouse pad, but that seems a rather extreme step. Were I to forget to take along an external mouse, for example, I'd end up with a fairly unusable machine if the built-in mouse pad were not working.
* * * There's a launch scheduled for tomorrow, early in the morning. Most folks are planning to attend, even though it means crawling out of bed shortly after 3 am. Moi, I shall decide whether to go or not later. Maybe, say, around 3 am.
Cheers...
The pilot set the aircraft down as gently as could be and taxied the plane to a position not far from the consist waiting to receive the satellite in its container, along with some containers of ground support equipment.
After the usual fussing to get the ramp set up properly in front of the aircraft's nose, the container was hauled out and slung under a crane, which gingerly lifted the container off the ramp and transferred the whole deal onto a waiting flatcar.
The whole operation took about 6 hours. In the interim, I ended up doing a lot of interpretation, including a session where I accompanied the senior managers from ILS on a visit to the building that houses the control tower and security office. There, we were shown a display of various flags and mementos in the office and chatted with some of the senior staff. It just so happened that today was also Air Force day in Russia, which gave the pilots in the crowd something to talk about. It turns out the airport manager - who wasn't in attendance - is a former fighter pilot who has spent time in just about every kind of MiG imaginable.
In the course of various conversations, I also found out that Baikonur is - for cell phone purposes - in Moscow. This theoretically means I ought to be able to add some minutes to my GSM cell (the one with the Moscow number) and use it locally for calls and anywhere for SMS. Now, I only have to wait for an opportunity to buy a card with prepaid minutes.
I suppose I could just go into the control panel and uninstall the driver for the mouse pad, but that seems a rather extreme step. Were I to forget to take along an external mouse, for example, I'd end up with a fairly unusable machine if the built-in mouse pad were not working.
Cheers...
