Rocket scientist humor...

Getting off the elevator on the second floor of the MCC, I was greeted by the following leaflet, scotch-taped to the window covering the floor directory, and already obsolete (STS-117 had lifted off four hours before):

For those who, like me, haven't seen the movie (or any of the television shows) yet haven't had the time to hit the Internet Movie Database, the plot of Friday Night Lights revolves around how one activity (football) gives a troubled community something to live for. Instead of football, however, folks at NASA - at least the ones I deal with - live to fly humans in space, and when you consider the perennial problems that NASA faces, well... to me the humor seems subtle and wry.

Right now, both the Station and Shuttle control rooms are fully staffed and humming. There are always things to check on during a mission.

Cheers...

It's like I never left...

Yesterday's shift came to a suitable close. It was a good thing I had borrowed Natalie's car for the night, because the Russians asked if I'd be kind enough to drive them home; had I been driving our Ford (with all rear seats removed, as we've been helping Natalie move), I'd have had to say no.

I hit the sack soon after returning home, but not before going up into the attic to empty the plastic tub that's under the leak in the air conditioning system (technically, the leak is coming from the first joint of the air duct coming out of the unit). With the high temperatures and humidity these past few days (and this weekend), it was becoming pretty clear to me that the tub I was using was not up to the job (not wide enough, and not deep enough).

The fix, according to the A/C guy that Galina had come by, is to replace something that costs close to $2600. While I'm sure we'll eventually lay out the lucre for the repair, in the interim, I wanted to spend not more than $50 to figure out a way to keep the drip from dropping onto our ceiling down below.

I slept on it.

Upon rising, Galina and I had words about acquiring a new dog, and the status quo basically is that if I go and get one, it'll be against her wishes. Like an idiot, I went to the local PetSmart to find an aquarium pump for my "project," and ran into another set of cute dogs waiting to be adopted. I got the pump, some tubing, and left.

Upon returning to the house, I arranged the hardware (the pump, thank goodness, is designed to switch off when the water level is too low, and turn on again when it rises above a certain point) and tested the system by first pouring 3 gallons of water into the new, improved (and cut down) tub I put in to replace the old one.

My simplified Rube Goldberg getup works, although it seems to only hold its own against a system operating in the full heat of day. I'll have to keep an eye on it over the next few days.

I grabbed another couple of hours of sleep in the evening, getting up in time to watch pieces of Ruffian, a made-for-TV movie about a racehorse. I tend to avoid such stories, as much of their drama and pathos tends to be based on the fact that bad things are going to happen to the animal, and the range of bad things that can occur tend to be limited to disease and injury (and not how to rescue the world or deal with a significant other).

Ah, well... it's time to settle down and get some work done.

Cheers...