Book Club Entry 2

I finished "Hornet Flight" by Follett last night. Good read and, since I've been doing my pilot's license, bonus points for being technically accurate. The good thing about Follett's writing is that he isn't afraid to kill people off both good and bad. Always a problem I have with books and movies and stuff when the main characters all magically avoid a bazillion bullets being shot at them, but everyone one of theirs takes out a bad guy. So good read.

Also, watched Top Chef from last week over the weekend with Alicia. Can't say I'm all that sorry to see Erik go. He came across as a nice guy but pretty much all of his plates have been sloppy and ugly. Anyone who has watched Top Chef should know from the judge's comments that "you eat with your eyes first." See-ya later buddy. While I still like Top Chef, one of the best things from last season was reading Anthony Bourdain's blog after every episode because he is crazy funny. But this season, no Bourdain blog. Ted Allen and Rocco's are filling in and I guess they will "do" but they are no Anthony "best hangover food" Bourdain.

87%

That's the score I just got on my FAA Private Pilot written exam, in other words, I pass. So one step done, flying still to go before I get my license. Since I qualified to take the tes and passed, I now no longer need to attend the Monday night class (yea!!). But I still have to finish Weather and Navigation classes since they are "college" (and I use the term college loosely) courses.

I've been Digg'd

The mission photo I was in made its way on to Digg.com. There are some very "interesting" comments regarding the photo from the general public. For reference, I am the person standing next to Kevin, otherwise know as "the menacing fellow with the bat".

Digg the link here: http://digg.com/space/Ladies_Gentleman_Meet_NASA_s_STS_123_Flight_Control_Team

Florida Update

Well, it's been almost a month now since I left Houston and moved to old people town. For those who are not aware, my company has assigned me to be an Environmental Inspector for a pipeline project that will add 35 miles of pipeline to our system in West Palm Beach, FL, and connect to the new power plant that Wilke's company is currently constructing. Anyone who knows me, knows why it is hilarious that I've been assigned as an evironmental inspector. But, I have a job to do and I will do my job to the best of my abilities. Our project was supposed to start in January but there are some legal issues that are holding us up to this day. Basically, a bunch of tree huggers are protesting the pipeline and trying to save these damn golpher tortoises that just so happen to live where we want to dig....it's very annoying to say the least. These tortoises are not even endangered or on any protected list. Whatever. We expect to get started any day now, but who knows? All I know is that as of 4pm today, we've not been given the OK to begin work. This means that we won't be done with the project in August as the schedule suggests. As of now, a mid-September return to Houston date is my best guess. But if we get hit with hurricanes who knows how long this thing might go.

Paul (co-worker and friend) and I have rented a furnished house with a pool and gas grill so all is good. We had an insect problem but that is resolved now. Also the house was filthy when we moved in. Underneath my dresser, I noticed a large patch of gray carpet.....oh wait, that was just 3" deep dust. The weather has been fantastic with temps in the high 70s / low 80s with plenty of sun. The bad news is, all good things must come to an end. The summer season here in Florida is also the rainy season, and I'll be here for it all. One of the nice things about my job is all of the wildlife I encounter on a daily basis. Mainly I see about dozen alligators on a daily basis, with the occasional otter family, or family of raccoons running around. The gators really don't bother us or make any aggressive moves in our direction. And we know, because we even threw rocks at them and they wouldn't budge. I hit that bastard in the head twice and he didn't even flinch. They were small rocks so don't anyone go calling PETA.

There isn't much nightlife in West Palm Beach. Everyone would rather ride horses and go to Polo matches. In West Palm Beach there's City Place and Clematis St. The rest of the city is dead. We have to drive south to Ft. Lauderdale or Miami to get a real good selection of bars/restuarants and places to hang out.

Anyone who wants to stop by for a visit is more than welcome, but I don't know how much time I'd have to spend with you since I'll be working 14 hour days 6 or 7 days a week depending on the progress of the project at that time.

I'll be home for a few days in mid-April to attend some Environmental Inspector training put on by the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and Florida DEP. I've been elected to attend to put the company in a better light with FDEP in hopes of getting that permit sooner. I think the absolute last day FDEP can grant us permission to begin work is April 30th. The company will pay for my plane ticket home every 5 weeks or so and Nujoud and I have already made arrangements for her to fly here on the weekends she's available to do so.

Being apart this time around is NOTHING like the times we were apart while I was in the Navy. We talk every night just about, have email, and can visit every couple of weeks. And in the real world they even give you extra pay for being away from your family for an extended period of time. Imagine that, it's almost like you're a real-life human being!!!

That's all I've been up to for the last month. I'll try to keep people informed but I can't make any promises as to much I'll be able to keep up with this thing.

Stay tuned....

GUILTY!!

I got a call at work today, a neighbor found Yasha loose in the neighborhood and called the vet to identify him by the rabies tag number. So I went and picked him up and took him home and what do I find... a very, very muddy Lotus who looks awful guilty. As is usually the case, Lotus digs her way out, Yasha follows, and then Lotus manages to get back. But here is the very muddy and guilty Lotus that tried to convince me otherwise at home.

Night Flight

Last night I completed my night cross-country flight. We flew over to Beaumont (KBPT) and then headed back completing some lesson elements on the way back. Part of those were "under the hood" meaning you wear a dorky plastic thing on your head so you can't see outside the airplane and can only fly using the instruments. Picture wearing half of one of those plastic dog collar cone things on your forehead and then you'll know just about how cool you feel doing this.

Anywho, its best when learning to fly, to bore your instructor. In my case, I really already know how to do all this stuff because 1. I got some flight time in advance with my boss Jim and 2. flying is kinda just coming naturally and so my instructor pretty much just comes along for the ride because he has to. But the good thing about this is he is now teaching me advanced maneuvers that you otherwise wouldn't learn or be ready to attempt until higher ratings like commercial license and certainly ones he's never taught a private pilot student before. So where this is all going, last night we were at 4500' and pretty much right on top of Chambers County airport where we were going to practice some more night landings. So he taught me how to do a steep spiral descent. In a word... AWESOME! This maneuver is pulled off by rolling into a 60deg bank angle (which pretty much feels like you are sideways) and cranking it around in a spiral to lose altitude really quickly. At 60deg you are pulling 2-g's through the turn (cool) so we whipped around 5 or 6 times down to 1500' before leveling it out. Bam! we were set up to land at the airport in no time. I gotta say that was a pretty good maneuver and one I'll be doing again. For reference, private pilots are only supposed to learn 45deg level turns. Which aren't exactly easy either but much easier than 60deg spirals.

All in all, way good time flying last night.

Nujoud Book Club

I finished "The Pillars of the Earth" by Ken Follett yesterday and for anyone reading this, I though it was a great book and this is my recommendation. The book is extremely long, nearly 1000 pages, but it covers and entire lifetime in detail and the building of a catherdral in middle ages England, obviously not a quick task. The book centers on the lives of the Prior whose monestary it is and the "architect" and his family. I say "architect" but they were still laypersons and called builders. In any case, good book and lots of great detail about the process of building and the good and evil in people left to their own devices during a time when power could very easily be used for both good and evil.

State of the Union

As we are still in the very early stages of this blog and I try and feel my way out on it. Here is the current situation for me and John just so everyone is on the same jumping off place.

John, clearly already a rising star at his job (only 9 months in), has been assigned for his second rotation in the Engineering Development Program to the Florida gas pipeline construction project as an environmental inspector. This means he has to at least pretend to hug some trees and save the critters that happen to be caught in the way of the big bad bulldozers. I'm trying to convince him that the world would be better off without venomous snakes and alligators, but so far no luck, he has to protect those too. Wildlife Sherriff John to the rescue. This project is supposed to last until August which means, we'll be doing as much shuttling between West Palm Beach and Houston as we can to see each other.

As for myself, work and school. As previously posted mission 1J/A is up and our team is supporting from the ISS Mission Evaluation Room (MER). So a few longs days and nights for my team for now. The other big thing going on for me right now (at the detriment to pretty much any social life) is school. What school you ask? Why Flight School, of course. I am working on getting my private pilots license. The ground school is 3 nights a week of unbelievably slow teaching for how airplanes fly (duh, might have learned that before), what all the weather can do to you in the air, and how not to end up in San Antonio instead of Dallas, otherwise known as navigation. But needless to say, I am super bored in the classes and have complained endlessly about the teaching. As for the fun part - THE FLYING!! I am flying out of Ellington Field and am probably a little more than halfway done. The added bonusat this field is getting to see T-38s, F-16s, C-130s, AV-8Bs, and many more military aircraft taking off and landing right around me, the person in the puny Cessna 172. But in any case it is super fun and I'm good at it. My remaining flight training includes night flying, cross-coutries (as in going 50+ miles to another airport) and solo flight. I am really exicted for the solo stuff but following the "lesson plan" means I have another SIX flights before then, ARGH!

Anywho- back to the console non-fun at work.

The picture was me having snuck into the Flight Controller Picture alongside ADCO Kevin and HAWKI Jeff since our front room actually like us enough to tell us to come up for the picture.

Last Man on the Moon

Having only one blog entry is already bothering me, so I thought I'd give a little mention about one of the things I did last week.

I went to a lecture given by Dr. Harrison "Jack" Schmitt over at Space Center Houston. Dr. Schmitt just so happens to be one of the crew members on Apollo 17 and was the last person on the moon in 1972. Sad that we haven't been able to get out of low earth orbit in my lifetime and this is the closest we can come right now. It was a great lecture on his time in the program and he had some great stories about his experience.

I am now also the owner of an autographed copy of his book "Return to the Moon", which I will be delving into as soon as I finish the book on loan from Alicia "The Pillars of the Earth" (which has absolutely nothing to do with space or the moon but I'm already near the end and can't stop now). With John off in FL for so long, I need all the books I can get!!

Blog Debut

So I've been on-console for awhile here supporting mission 1J/A (as an ISS person, I have no idea what STS shuttle flight number that is...whatever). Seeing how generally speaking we don't have much to do here, I've been pondering starting a blog so people can keep up with what John and I are off doing from where ever they happen to be.

So here is is, the official debut of The Merancipation Proclamation. We'll see how consistant I am entering stuff into the blog to be read, but we'll never know unless we actually begin.

And we're off...