Stormy Apple Weekend

Houston has had quite the couple days of storms with some very hard rain Friday night and then for 6 or 7 hours today. The rain caused my work golf tournament to get cancelled in the afternoon. But last night it let up, thankfully, long enough for us to go see Christopher Titus (the comedian) with Brent and Alicia. Funny, funny show and glad we didn't get soaked trying to get there.

Today though, John and I had wanted to go to lunch and walked out the front door only to see a large truck fording the street in a foot plus of water. Back inside. Eventually the rain let up some and we went to run a few errands. One of which was stopping at the grocery store to buy some apples and oats. I wanted dessert and John wanted something warm and cheerier then the nasty weather. So I made a large dish of one of my favorite desserts, apple crisp. John loves it too and I made it, as always, with a double recipe of topping. Yummy and it is our dinner for tonight, apples, oats, flour, all you need.

The Bug or the Person?

Spotted in the parking lot by bldg 17 at work. Why would people do this to their cars? In particular, do silly people buy Volkswagen Bugs or do Volkswagen Bugs make people silly? Those are a nose and bunny ears on the beige car (and yes it has a fluffy tail too) and the red one has spots, so its a "ladybug". Har har, really people, why would you want to drive around in this?

Naming Rights

I have never been a person to name my cars or motorcycles or whatever. Typically, inanimate objects don't get a name from me. But a few days ago I was driving my car and a "name" actually popped into my head, so I feel obligated to keep it.

Background: Last Thursday my car was in the APR tuning shop getting an upgraded computer chip and exhaust. The pair of items (for an extremely reasonable cost) takes the engine from the stock 200hp/207ft-lbs torque to ~250hp/290ft-lbs torque, a VERY noticeable and likable performance change.

As I was cruising home from work on Friday in my newly powerful car, I realized her name is Helga, as in a muscular German woman on steroids. It had to be a woman too, because admittedly it is a wagon and that doesn't say "boy" to me.

So I want to hear from you. Do we like the name? Do you name your cars? If so, why or why not. Like I said, I don't normally name vehicles but Helga named herself in this case and now I'm curious.

And The Survey Says

Tonight I spent an hour and half or so on the phone for my bi-annual gift to all sociology majors everywhere. Somehow my family has been a part of an on-going University of Michigan study about economics and what not. My mom got these phone calls for years and now I guess I am I'm sort of a second generation study participant.

The questions get really boring. Everything from how much we spend on electricity bills , to have we collected any food stamps this year, to have I ever been diagnosed with a stroke. My big reward, aside from knowledge that I am one of the statistical inputs in funky newspapers and college thesis graphs, $65. I think the economy is facing inflation as I used to get only $50.

But, next time you hear some wacky economics statistic, you can now say that you know at least one real person that has been statified.

Names for Faces

For the second time in 4 months, I started a new job today. Not a change in company, just a switch to a different position. I was Constellation Program (all the bits and pieces of the mission paper level head office) Software and Avionics Integration. I am now on the Orion Vehicle Systems Performance & Analysis team, which includes the GNC, Aero, Aborts, and Sims teams for people in the know. I was recruited/stolen over to this team by my new customer and fellow Washington Husky (Go DAWGS!) Howard, but I was really happy to accept the change. This new role will be a lot more technical and I will get to have a far greater impact on the whole sending people to the moon thing, then my previous job. All in all I am really excited to get to learn and do new things here. Not sure what they are all yet, but I know they are out there!

Downside, another 50 or so people's names to learn... not a strength of mine. I think I know like 4 right now for sure. They should give you picture book org charts for any new job. That is my process improvement for NASA.

Goal, The Dream On Pause

Awhile ago, I caught an british indie movie on TV that I had heard of called Goal! The Dream Begins. As a soccer fan, I was interested and got beyond the cheesy title, to find that it was actually a really good movie. It is a sports movie, so it certainly isn't a movie that would ever come up in Oscar talk. But the movie avoids most straight up cliche (rare for a sports movie) and I enjoyed the pretty original aspects of the story very much.

Last week I was surfing around on movies.com and found that the movie had a sequel, Goal! Living the Dream (I know, cheesier still), and it was just released on DVD. Better yet, it turns out this is actually 2 of 3 in a planned trilogy. It was a great surprise, because it was definitely a movie I happily wanted to find out what happens 'next' for. I ordered the DVD from Amazon and watched it today. Good, not quite as good as the first, but still enjoyable. But the real downer was that at the end, it literally had the "To Be Continued...". It was a downer because this movie doesn't feel complete and can't stand on its own like the first one.

I think that's a shame, sequels and trilogies are great, but I think they should pull it off a little better and not leave you hanging so bad. Awful part is, I have no idea how long I will now have to wait to get the end of the story. "To Be Continued" should be reserved for TV shows where you only wait a week or at worst the summer for the season premier.

Sweet, Sweet Runnning Relief

Happily, I am over the morning sickness and the fatigue has really started to go away. I actually wake up in the morning vs. dragging myself from bed and I generally and starting to feel normal again. So thankfully, since I was in relatively good shape and healthy before this, the morning sickness has passed quick enough.

Since I was feeling better, I headed over to Gilruth after work and got a decent 2.5 mile run in even if it was slow. ahhhh... so nice to feel active again. It has only been a few weeks since I last ran, but boy does it make a difference.

I also passed on the baby news to my old ISS GNC group and then found out from Aaron that Fred announced it in the 10am MER tagup. ummm... weird, I think he's losing it a little in his old age. I'm not even in the group anymore, but even if I was why would you announce it at the meeting? With any luck, some people might think it was an April Fool's joke.

Vita-many

Now that I am gestating a parasite, we want it to be the healthiest parasite possible. Which means I am following all the rules about what not to eat and do and that also means there are a lot things I am now supposed to be eating. I'm totally increasing my intake of protein, dark greens, fruits, and whole grains and cutting bad carbs out (potato, white bread, etc). Given the demands of the parasite this means an increase in daily calories and 5-6 meals a day. So really all my marathon training tricks are coming back out of the bag.

And it doesn't end there, I've also starting supplementing with vitamins and this makes for one long list of pill popping. I am taking four different types of vitamins. I feel like I'm 80. John told me he's going to have to get a compartment daily pill reminder box thing. I just might need it to remember all of them.

Here they are:
Prenatals - Three Daily, mixed multi-vitamin with all the good stuff
Folate - Better blood, makes your hair healthier too, good side benefit
Omega 3's - Made from fish oil but at least they don't taste like it, immune booster and other goodness
B Complex - For energy to help get over the 1st trimester fatigue

All in all, it isn't bad though. The eating was probably the best part of marathon training, so I'm not sorry to resurrect it with the twist of heavy on the protein instead of carbs.

BOO!

Reality is sinking in and it's time to be made public, ... and baby will make three! We are 9 weeks pregnant, due date is October 27th for a little pumpkin. Hopefully, it will be less goblin and more Casper!

We are both pretty excited and will be figuring out what we've gotten ourselves into over the next 18 years or so. For now, I'm mostly just fatigued and find that the time I most want some coffee and caffeine, I can't have any.

Today, we had our first complete exam including baby's first picture, a black and white blob. Cool part was that we could actually see the heart beating a mile a minute on the screen. For reference, the portion of the blob to the right is the head (or so we've been told) and baby as a whole is the size of a martini olive. Sigh, martini's another thing I can't have right now. Personally, being pregnant thus far seems to be a long list of things I can't have.

Officer Shmociffer

For frequent readers on this post, you may have noticed a lack of any and all piloting related activity lately. The last flight I made was in January with Jen H ride along and then nothing. It's sad, I've missed flying, but it's all because I've been waiting for my new membership card as I am now inactive in the aero club.

I am now a 2nd Lieutenant in the Civil Air Patrol, the non-saluting, fake-military type of 2nd Lieutenant. I say that because technically it is the Air Force Auxiliary and they have uniforms, but seriously when I can choose to wear a polo shirt for a uniform, it really is fake military. Some people actually show up to the meetings in full BDUs, which I personally find kind of stupid since I am married to and know so many actual veterans it would be silly to pretend it is actually the military. I digress.

So anyway, my member information finally arrived yesterday and I am officially now a Civil Air Patrol pilot. What does that mean you ask? For now it means I have access to a cheaper airplanes C-172s and C-182s. Although, much nicer and newer for that cheaper cost, the 182s even with Garmin G1000 glass cockpits! For my first task, I am going to get my complex airplane rating (more than 200hp) so I can then fly the 182s solo. After I build some more hours (need 100, have 60), I will start flying transport missions (e.g. disaster relief supplies, move airplanes to staging locations, etc) and high-bird missions (e.g. homeland security with hyper-spectral imaging cameras type stuff). I will also, in the meantime, get certified as a scanner to fly right seat on search and rescue missions and do the "looking" part of searching. I need 175 hrs to actually fly search and rescue missions because they are low altitude activities.

I am looking forward to the flying, my big thing was have a reason to fly because $100 hamburgers get pretty boring. Plus, its been awhile since I did any volunteer activities and this way I get to give back in a way that I will really enjoy. For more information on the CAP try their www.gocivilairpatrol.com.