Getting ready for the final frenzy...

Last night was pretty much the last opportunity our crew had to get together and socialize, so we did. The VIP charter arrives sometime this morning, if memory serves, although I start working at 7 pm tonight at the meeting of the State Commission that rules on a go/no-go for launch vehicle prop load (culminating, several hours later, in launch), where I will doubtless be providing chacoutage (i.e., "whisper simultaneous") to our management.

Then it'll be a couple of hours of down time, after which I take my accustomed place on the top floor of the Polyot Hotel for the launch narration.

As the guy with the "radio voice," there is always a temptation to come up with some kind of parody of the fairly routine kinds of calls that are made during the ascent. I was playing around with some possible "patronize your local merchants" announcements tailored around our experience in Baikonur. Here's the two best "spots":

 the Luna Club, the "happening" nightclub where you can burn off that extra karma while humiliating yourself in public. At the Luna, our motto is "spend the early morning hours with us and nothing worse will happen to you for the rest of the day."

 Igor, the nutseller, located in the central market. Remember, there are no strange nuts out there, just nuts you haven't bought yet. From him.

And while in the mood for humor, did you hear the one about the polar bear, giraffe, and penguin who walk into a bar? The bartender said, "What is this, some kind of joke?"

* * *Anyway, after the narration, I'm slated to next appear for work at noon tomorrow, to support the equipment "backhaul," which is shorter than "operation to load and dispatch stuff going home," but still a word that grates on my ears. That's scheduled to start around noon and go until about 6 pm, whereupon I will have an hour to shower and get changed for an appearance at the farewell/celebratory banquet.

Sunday, I am the on-call interpreter, at least until we leave for the airport, which ought to occur around 1 pm - maybe a little earlier - so as to be wheels-up at 4 pm, headed for Moscow.

I had begun to lose hope that the taxi driver who drove me from the airport to my sister-in-law's when I arrived in early July and who found my wallet would ever get back in touch with me. My spirits fell further when yesterday, I tried to call the company whose receipt I got for the trip, only to find there was no such company registered with the Russian government (aside from the name, the corporte stamp carried a registration number that didn't result in any hits when I went to the appropriate online site). There might be a lot of that going around, I don't know, but as I said, my hopes were well and truly beginning to fade of recovering my wallet.

Anyway, the driver finally did drop me another email this morning, with his cell phone number, so things are looking up in that department. A call to the Amex office in Moscow came up short yesterday, as the person in charge of (I think) helping people with credit card problems did not answer her phone - or was serving other customers - the several times I called. I'd like to know if they can furnish me with a replacement card, as I no longer have the necessary funds the hotel would want me to deposit with them in lieu of a credit card, as happened on the inbound leg.

I need to snap out of it and turn to on the last 900 some-odd words of the outside item I picked up, and then do a review. Not having to be anywhere until 7 pm does sound like I have all the time in the world, but I think it's best to get things like this out of the way. Despite the schedule, all of the interpreters are really "on call" at all times.

Cheers...

Nap time...

The outside work is finished and invoiced, so that is one load off my mind. Between that job and the one I finished just before leaving on this campaign, I'm not too badly off considering the cash flow hit such campaigns entail. The only problem appears to be that I cannot find the outgoing email wherein I sent the invoice for the job I turned in at the beginning of July.

I've just resent it and asked that, if I truly did forget to send it the first time, for my client to expedite payment instead of letting the invoice age for 30 days.

Speaking of finances, I need to try to call Amex in Moscow again, and then home to CapitalOne and try to make a payment to an, um, nonexistent account. Hopefully, all of that will go smoothly.

Then it's to the mattresses for a couple-three hours of shuteye, I hope.

Cheers...

For those with an interest...

The launch of Eutelsat's HotBird-8 communications satellite aboard our
Proton launch vehicle will take place at 3:48 am local time, which is
3:48 pm Mountain Time today (2:48 pm in California; 4:48 pm in Texas,
...you get the idea).

Interested parties can catch the webcast.

Me, I gotta go catch a few winks, as I am to report to my "studio" at
around 1:30 local time.

Cheers...