So I've recently been inspired to get off my ass and make a few things in my life better that I've been wanting to work on for a while now.

First off, I've signed up for SparkPeople.com in an effort to finally lose some weight and get in better shape. So far, I've lost 9 pounds in my first five or so weeks. Even though I still have a long way to go, the fact that I'm finally doing something about it and seeing results is making me feel enormously better about myself. featherjean's signed up for it, too, to help her maintain her weight, so having backup is great. (I'm spacefiend over there as well, in case anyone wanted to know.)

I've also emailed Golden Retriever Rescue of Houston (GRRH) about volunteering. Hopefully I'll be able to start getting involved in at least some things for them. The correspondence with them has given me inspiration to start paying more attention to something else too ...

... namely my savings. I'm trying to save for a house or a townhouse, so I can have my own space and get a dog of my own. GRRH is so hard up for foster homes that they'd actually have allowed me to foster in an apartment if my complex allowed large dogs, which they don't. Hearing that I could have a golden in an apartment was enough to make me rededicate myself to tracking my finances better. I've already saved quite a bit in my first year of work, and if I really try to save money, instead of just putting away what happens to be left over, I might be able to have enough for my own place a lot sooner than the three or four years I was thinking it would take.

In other news, I'm still planning to post the Iron Man pics pointing out where I've been on the plane like I talked about.

And now, gotta run - meeting.

Tropical Storm Eduard is headed pretty much right for us. featherjean and I are settled into my apartment - she and Abby are visiting, since her apartment faces the water and mine faces another building. JSC closed at noon today and won't be open at all tomorrow, so the contractor companies have closed as well. So our day tomorrow will consist of watching the weather and entertaining ourselves however we can with no electronic appliances on. I'll post at some later point once the storm's blown through!

So it's been a very dreadfully long and exhausting and hot day (I ended up resorting to an old band trick of putting ice cubes in my hat, so they melted on my head). But there was one good part of it. I got to go on the C-17 used to film that scene in Iron Man while my test was loading! *hearts*

besyd, if you can share some pics from that scene of the movie, I can point out where I was on the plane! (Really, I wandered over as much of it as I could when I wasn't actually doing work. And apparently, RDJ signed the bulkhead, which I totally didn't spot, and now really want to go find if I get a chance to go onboard tomorrow.)

Happy Birthday, astrum_presul! Sorry I didn't post this earlier - first chance at my computer all day. Hope you had a great day and enjoy your present! (More will follow, but I thought you might enjoy this today!)

(PS: Tell me if this is the right size for your computer. featherjean and I had to guess. If it's not, I'll redo it till it matches.)

( Your Present )

Enjoy!

So I had plans today to do useful things. Left work at 1030, thanks to a psychotically long meeting yesterday, and figured I'd take my afternoon as a chance to do all the little things that need to be done prior to a three-week trip.

Well, I at least managed to do the time-critical one - getting my car inspected and cleaned. Inspection and registration are both due this month, and since I'll be gone most of the month, I really needed to get that done today.

I was, however, supposed to do a lot of other apartment-type things - dishes, laundry, general picking up so that I don't have to come home to too much clutter. I completely failed at that. I had to force myself to take the time to eat lunch. Because I was reading Apollo 13.

It's completely not my fault, BTW. It was the book! It just kind of grabs me and won't let me stop! I only started it at breakfast this morning, and at least I hadn't gotten far enough into it then that I couldn't put it down to get to work. My eyes are all kinds of dried out and aching from sitting for the last three or so hours and reading nonstop. I didn't want to stop reading long enough to throw a salad together as part of my lunch - never mind the fact that that takes all of two minutes, it was stopping and I didn't wanna. (I did, after several minutes of standing in the kitchen telling myself "just one more sentence, really.")

That movie and that book (the book was written by Jim Lovell, the mission commander) are what turned me into a space history buff in the first place. I'd just finished 5th grade when the movie came out, and my parents took me to see it. After seeing the movie I bought the book (its current condition shows just how well-loved that book became, since it's covered in scotch tape and about to come apart at the seams), then turned around and started buying every other space book I could get my hands on, or checking them out of the library, or begging for them for Christmas. (For Christmas several years later, my favorite present was a stack of books including the complete Apollo 13 mission report and a history of commercial aviation. I was a geek.)

This is the first time in several years that I've actually gone back and read the book, and it's really neat now to read it with more knowledge and with the perspective of actually working in the space program myself. It's just such a good book.

It really is fun to get back into all the history-buff stuff now. Among other things, it's a nice reminder, given recent occurrences at work, of just why I'm doing what I'm doing, and what we're all working towards.

So after watching In The Shadow of the Moon with my folks the other weekend and buying and watching several episodes of From the Earth to the Moon last week/this weekend, I broke out my copy of Gene Kranz' book Failure Is Not An Option yesterday. (For those of you who aren't space history nuts, Gene Kranz was a flight director during Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo. He's best-known as the lead flight director for the near-disaster on Apollo 13, a crew whose lives were saved by the expertise of the engineers on the ground.)

The combination of the book and the documentaries really does show how incredibly far NASA came during the years between Kennedy's historic speech promising a man on the moon before the decade was out (in 1961) and the end of the Apollo program in the mid-70s. The early Mercury days literally started with effectively nothing - they had to make everything up as they went along, from procedures to flight rules to mission control positions. They sent controllers to distant sites and ships around the world to provide coverage (since they were only four years beyond the first ever satellite, there was obviously no satellite communications like can be used today to run everything from a central control). Communications between the control centers used Teletype machines. They used runners to pass messages between the controllers and their backroom support engineers.

There was so much that we in the space program today take for granted that they had to learn from scratch back then. No one knew how microgravity would affect the astronauts - would they still be able to concentrate, to do their jobs? Would long-duration spaceflight (and Gemini 7 set a long-duration record of 2 weeks that I think stood until Skylab, so we're not talking months here) be permanently harmful to the crews?

Or, as another example, take spacewalks. Today, any of us who have worked in EVA hardware and many people who have simply seen spacewalk coverage on TV are familiar with the handholds and footholds used by the crews for spacewalks. The handles and controls on tools are specially designed to accomodate pressurized gloves, which are extremely clumsy. With all of this technology in place, space shuttle crews can perform extremely complex EVAs lasting as long as eight hours. But the need for these tools and techniques was not recognized in early Gemini - how could it be? The Mercury and Gemini capsules didn't even allow the crews to leave their seats, so they hadn't had any experience of maneuvering inside a spacecraft in freefall, much less outside. They discovered the hazards of spacewalking by exhausting several Gemini astronauts as they attempted to work for no more than 20-30 minutes in freefall with inadequate hand and footholds, then turned around, solved the problem, and enabled Buzz Aldrin to perform the first truly successful spacewalk on Gemini 12, using handholds and footholds that bear distinct resemblance to those used today by shuttle and station crews.

Just trying to think of them designing spacecraft (particularly the immensely complex Apollo command and lunar modules) with 1960s computing power boggles the mind a little. They needed rooms of computers to do calculations that my graphing calculator could do today. They designed lunar trajectories on computers that needed a weekend to come up with a single answer. In Kranz' book, the memory of the onboard computer on the lunar module was defined in the number of words it could hold. It had something like 35,000 words of permanent memory, and 2,000 words of erasable memory. That wouldn't even hold a book, and they landed that thing on the moon 6 times and used it to save the lives of the Apollo 13 crew. (Plus? By comparison to both Mercury and Gemini, the two Apollo spacecraft were extremely sophisticated.)

I could go on and on, but I do need to go get some actual work done with my morning. I just think it's vitally important to remember, whenever we think about NASA today, how incredibly far the space program's early pioneers came in such an amazingly short time.

So on Sunday, I made backgrounds. Today, I made icons. Finally have a few minutes to post them before my parents get here, so enjoy! (Take if you want them, but give credit and tell me. Laptop background is 1280x800, the other two are 1280x1024, which will work for 1024x768.)


( Backgrounds proving why Tony Stark is hot - not dialup friendly AT ALL. Worksafe, though reactions may not be. )

Ack. I am cold, and wet, and not at ALL happy about it. *shivers some more* The week-long test we have going on right now has been paused due to lightning in the area. Lightning that happens to come hand-in-hand with SHEETS OF RAIN. IN WHICH I HAD TO MAKE MY WAY BACK TO MY BUILDING FROM THE LAB. AND IT WAS COLD. AND WET. AND I AM DISPLEASED.

*shivers again*

Oh, and I worked Saturday. Volunteered for that, though, in order to take off early on Friday.

Man, I don't like being cold and wet! My pants are soaked, my shirt is damp, I left my magic box at home cause I'd expected to be in the lab all day and I couldn't bring it in there, and it's only 11 and I have to be here till 320 or so, unless the weather blows over and we can restart testing.

*runs off to check radar* The weather actually does look like it might be moving off, though. So maybe we'll be able to restart after lunch? Although there's still scattered storms called for all afternoon and storms Tuesday and Wednesday. Not good.

Think I'll go get some hot tea. Knew those teabags I brought here months ago would finally come in handy.

My new TV got here on schedule yesterday! Turns out I didn't need a new DVR, and I managed to get my 52 pounds worth of television out of the office, into the car (which was a chore and a half, since two-door coupes are not made for bigass TVs), out of the car, into my (2nd floor) apartment, unpacked and set up all by myself. It is AMAZING. Sadly, the standard channels are mediocre, but they still benefit from being on a bigger screen, and the HD channels are GORGEOUS. I definitely watched HD Theater, National Geographic, hockey, and Supernatural all in HD yesterday. *heartheartheart*

In other news, it is currently 905, and I can leave in under 2 hours! Hooray for taking the afternoon off! It was raining this morning, so featherjean and I couldn't walk, so I decided to use what would have been walking time to get to work even earlier than I'd planned, so I can leave at 11 instead of 1130. Leave, hit the grocery store real quick, head home, and kick back with my TV! (Well, and do chores. My place is a pit.)

*eyes clock* As much as I love leaving early, some early departure days really do take forever. Fortunately, I had stuff to do this morning, and therefore haven't really been at my computer much till now, so hopefully I can amuse myself adequately till 11 rolls around.

My New Shiny TV? Out for delivery!!!! Heeeeee. Which hopefully means it should definitely be delivered some time today, and hopefully to the office as my sign on my door dictates. *crosses fingers* My DVR is in my trunk, so I'm hoping to leave work around 330, swap my DVR for an HD-DVR, and go home and get my TV!!! EEEEE!!!

(Clearly, I've moved past the "WTF am I doing spending this much money?!!" phase and onto the "SHIIIIINNNNNYYYYYY" phase. Heh.)

Went to assorted electronics stores with featherjean yesterday to both aid in her hunt for a hard drive enclosure and eyeball prices for new DVD players. (My old TV has a built-in, and my little bedroom TV has never had one, so I need a new one for the new TV.) Found and ended up purchasing an RCA upconverting DVD player at Target. The DVD player cost as much as the HDMI cable, but it was cheaper than anything I'd seen anywhere except Newegg (where I'd of course have to order it and wait), and RCA tends to be a decent brand. Maybe not top of the line, but hey - as my father pointed out, at some far future point I might want a Blu-Ray player anyway (maybe that's next year's refund) and so there's no point in getting something real high-end if I may not use it for too long.

Isn't today over yet??? I've only been here 15 minutes and all I want to do is go home and wait for my television. This is what I get for ordering it Monday so it will come in Thursday - I actually have to work a full day (ish) today! Or, technically, I could leave early today and work later tomorrow (as is I'm only planning on working 4 hours, so I'll leave at lunchtime) but we have Meeting of Doom that probably won't be done till 3 anyway. *sigh* Want. My. SHINY.

So my new shiny TV has shipped! It's due Thursday! Even earlier than I'd hoped! At this point, assuming the tracking information on Thursday shows it's been delivered, I figure I'll leave work at 4 or so on Thursday so I have time to stop on my way home, get the HD DVR, then pick up my TV which will probably be delivered to the office. (I'll just probably have to get help juggling it, since it's listed as being 52 pounds, but I might be able to manage.) Then I can get it in and set up, then can have Thursday evening to watch HOCKEY IN HD. GAH!! I'm still planning on going home early on Friday - how early just depends on how early I leave on Thursday - so I'll have some time Friday afternoon to revel in it, too!

**

In other news, I've lately started actually going to church again, because I've been singing in the Lifeteen choir of a church near work. I've missed singing so much - it's fantastic getting back into it, and the group's really nice. I've determined that it's a lot easier now to get involved in a new group than when I very briefly tried to start singing at the Catholic Center at Tech. Back then, I was very recently cut off from my old choir - I've literally never attended another Catholic church on a full-time basis - and still kind of homesick about being away from home, since that was my first semester at school. Now, I've been cut off from choir except for my very few trips home, so that choir doesn't feel like home anymore. Makes it easier on me to get involved with a new choir without feeling completely homesick or sad about how they're not the same. Also does help that I'm now 24 and very used to being out on my own, instead of 18 and still very new at it.

The one thing about it that is harder to get used to is not knowing anyone. At my old church, lots of people know me and/or my parents, so there was always someone coming up and saying hi, chatting after Mass, that sort of thing. Here, I don't know anyone outside of choir, so there's none of that. It's a little sad, but I'm getting used to it. At least when my parents come for Memorial Day, they'll be there!

**

In other news, Deadliest Catch comes back tonight! *hearts* I got completely addicted to that show when I was cooping alone two years ago, and the addiction definitely hasn't faded. Although I am sad that Comcast doesn't have Discovery HD down here, so I won't get to enjoy it in its full high-definition glory, I'm hoping it will still be nice and shiny on my new snazzy TV. And whether shiny or not, it's Deadliest Catch! It never fails to be awesome!

**

And now, I should probably go find work to do. I'll try to post more - I've gotten impossibly lax about it.

So, I'm giving serious thought to getting an HDTV. And by "serious thought," I mean "I'm on the verge of ordering it from newegg today before I leave work." I am flailing slightly at the thought of spending $900, but it's looks to be a good TV - the Sharp Aquos shown here - 32", which is a good size for my little place, and I don't even think the HD-DVR will be more than a few extra bucks a month compared to my current DVR.

*flails a little more* Maybe I'll go call my father real quick - he approves of the TV, I'm just freaked out enough to want a little confirmation before I go order it in hopes of it getting here Friday, when I can take the afternoon off work to be around when it's delivered.

ETA: Holy crap, I just went ahead and ordered it. ACK. It's 3-day shipping, so if it ships out by tomorrow, I'll hopefully get it Friday, when I'm planning on leaving work early anyway, so I'll have time to go change my DVR for an HD DVR and spend the afternoon playing with it. ACK.

First off, this weekend was FANTASTIC. It was wonderful that astrum_presul got to visit, and we got to do so much fun stuff! It was very very sad that it had to end yesterday.

Unfortunately, I managed to get sick over the weekend. Nasty enough cold that I stopped in at work after taking astrum_presul to the airport, checked my email, and went home immediately. Was still out of it enough that while I changed the time on my alarm, I managed to fail at actually turning it on and therefore woke up this morning at 7:23. About when I normally walk out the door. However, I managed to get out the door in 15 minutes and still made it to work on time, but the end result is that I didn't have time to eat breakfast at home, and have absolutely no real desire to eat breakfast here. My throat hurts too bad to want to force anything past it, even though I've learned from experience that if I skip breakfast, I'll be shaking and starting to go a little gray around the edges inside of 2-3 hours after getting up. So I really should force myself to at least nibble the bar sitting next to me.

Bah. I hate having a fantastic weekend followed by sickness. But, hopefully I can get a lot of sleep this weekend and sleep it off before I leave for Yuma Monday.

There was a guy with his head in the ceiling.

It's a little odd to walk to the end of the aisle and see a guy on a ladder with his head in the ceiling of your cube farm.

And then I came back down the hall, and the guy was gone, ladder and all, ceiling tile back in place, etc.

And that was my Random post of the morning.

TWoP's current NoN shirt is FANTASTIC.

Roslin/Airlock

astrum_presul? You know you want that.

Cord McCoy rode Big Bucks for over 92 points.

Then Sean Willingham rode Scene of the Crash for 91.25.

DUDE!!!! What a shortgo!!!

So I'm a few days late, but since everyone else seems to be doing their year-end stuff, I figured I'd jump on the bandwagon. What can I say - I'm kind of a sheep sometimes!

2007 was a pretty damn big year for me. In the last 12 months, I:
-- Got my first real, non-coop job
-- Got my first solo apartment
-- Graduated college
-- Went to Australia
-- Moved to Houston, after having lived in Greensboro for 16 years
-- Started said first real job the week after a problem on a test
-- Participated in four parachute drop tests
-- Had my parents come spend Christmas with me, marking my first Christmas Eve not spent in choir at my old church in about 12 or 13 years

But it's really been a fantastic year. I adore my job, my apartment, and Houston. (The only downside is that my rat is not here! *tackles astrum_presul*)

In smaller news, I also got addicted to Burn Notice, 24, and PBR.

I didn't really do New Year's Resolutions last year, so I have no progress or lack of progress to report, but I do want to make some this year.

( New Year's Resolutions )

So there's my year in review and resolutions!

MY RAT IS COMING!!!!

astrum_presul will be here this afternoon!!!!! YAY!!!!!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!

Figured I'd try this "First Lines" meme I've seen floating around, just to see what I talked about this year. Mind, I tend to go weeks without posting, so some of these "firsts" might be closer to the end of the month, but we'll see.

( First Lines )

There! My year in first lines.