Books read so far...

Not much to speak of:

Cradle and All, James Patterson. Strange book about virgin births. Excellent mind games. Interesting writing style.

Blind Side, Catherine Coulter. An interesting story of a persistent kidnapping scheme.

The Bourne Identity, Robert Ludlum. Much better than the movie, although the movie is entertaining in its own right.

Broken Prey, John Sandford. A Lucas Davenport book. Entertaining. I think I've read a previous Davenport book, as well as The Hanged Man's Story (or a title along those lines). The guy knows his computers. Also, this book has Sandford's (I assume) list of 100 All-Time Greatest Rock 'n Roll songs.

The Rule of Four, Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason. An interesting read, with some passages I found particularly thought-provoking. I was sort of expecting a "DaVinci Code" kind of a book, but this book was in some ways better - an emphasis on interpersonal relationships instead of a wild speculation that pursues a world-changing end - and in some ways worse, but on its own (de)merits, so to speak.

The color of yesterday's truck was an, um, red blue herring, as it contained fuel. Today is oxidizer load. I'm back at the Fili and on call, waiting for news, though I've been instructed to ask for some if we don't hear anything in a little while.

On to other things.

Cheers...

A pretty busy day, all told...

Normally, propellant loading duty is (and should always be) pretty quiet work, which is not to say there was any excitement during today's operation. There wasn't.

But there also didn't seem to be all that much quietness, either. Apart from about 90 minutes where there wasn't somewhere to be or something to do, it was a running-around kind of day for me, involving a lot of radio traffic and relaying of information.

I had planned to catch up on my personal projects, which have been left unattended for the past couple of days, and put something of a dent in the balance remaining for me to do, but there's still a day or two of effort left, which is not a big deal, as there is more than enough time remaining in the campaign to take care of it.

The rollout to the pad is tomorrow morning, and I'll be on the train carrying the rocket. It'll be a three-hour trip to the pad, after which the gang will assemble to watch the stack put up on its tail. There will follow three days of work at the pad, making sure everything is just right, and then another long day on launch morning.

However, I shall take it one day at a time, starting with a reasonable night's sleep.

Cheers...