8 cent basil

Yesterday I was at Central Market oogling all the way cool expensive foodie items, but my favorite thing is the bulk spice section. Where else can you get an entire baggie full of basil for 8 cents? Its the same quantity you buy in the jars at the supermarket aisle for $5. So for less than $5 I bought at least half a dozen spices. The big ticket item... black peppercorns for the grinder at $1.50. Crazy, I know. So really for any cooks out there that don't use this resource, go try it out and save a few bucks from your pocketbook. You can put what you save towards the $6 gallon of milk lately.

BTW- after writing it, I think "8 cent basil" sounds like the name of a band, at least a "Rock Band" band. Dibs on the drums in my new band.

Self Portrait in Flight

While John is busy with slow moving reptiles in FL, I'm busy chugging around the Houston sky trying to avoid fast moving avians in the air! For me the last couple weeks, the bane of my existance was the weather which kept interfereing with my flights and scrubbing me out a dozen times or so.

But between yesterday and today I managed to finish all of my required solo hours!! So what that means is I have officially completed all the requirements towards my pilot's license. The only thing left is a review flight or two with my instructor and then I will be ready to take the FAA flight exam. I am getting pretty excited to get this done and I can't wait for the test (hmmm... rarely do I say that) to make me an official pilot.

At the end of my flight this afternoon, I grabbed my camera and took this self portrait while flying to prove that I really have been up there and to mark the end of my "training".

The Bane of My Existence

After coming down to FL March 1st, I thought it would be great to go home for a few days, see Nujoud, relax, and then jump right back into the project. Well, little did I know, our project got shut down by Florida's DEP because of Gopher Tortoises. They are a protected species and have been causing us headaches due to the stringent regulations surrounding us wanting to relocate them (permanently in the bottom of Lake Okeechobee).

Elaborating on what I mentioned in my previoius post....We thought we had permission to commence work January 1st. Then some tree-hugger hippie group got involved and so we then thought we could start around March 15th...nope. We finally start April 7th and get shut-down April 17th. The tree-huggers are trying anything and everything to get this project to go away. They "happened" to find another gopher tortoise burrow along a section of our project corridor that hadn't shown up on any previous surveys. It turns out that these tortoises are protected in the southeastern United States. This is driving me nuts because, as environmental inspectors, my group has to directly deal with FDEP. We spent 6 hours today ferrying FDEP up and down every inch of our 34 mile project today looking for these bastards. Go Away!!! It only makes matters worse that Gopher Tortoise mating season is April-May, Nice!!!

Other than that things in Florida are going well. I get to work with a bunch of cool people who only care about working hard and getting things done. Haven't worked with many of these folks in the past, I thought they were extinct. The hours are long but most days seem to fly by, which is nice. The good news is that today Paul and I realized that Fridays still feel like Fridays. The bad news is we work Saturdays. The weather is starting to warm up, high 80s mainly. There was an older gentleman who had to be taken to the ER for dehydration a couple of weeks ago. As of yesterday he's still in the hospital. He had kidney failure and a host of other problems. No one believes dehydration to be the root cause of his ailment as drug use is suspected.

I can't believe that it has already been 2 months (next Thursday) since I packed up and headed to Florida. Time really does fly. There's no time to do anything here besides eat, sleep, and work. Most nights I only get about 3 hours to myself before having to get some sleep, get up, and do it all over again. Kinda like Groundhog Day. It really reminds me of my Navy days at sea, although now I get compensated much better for the long hours I put in.

If the stars align properly, I should be home again around Memorial Day weekend. But that is dependent upon project progress. If we get too far behind, we'll start working Sundays as well....and that will genuinely suck.

Tomorrow is the NFL Draft, and I know Toby probably won't get a wink of sleep in anticipation. There is a rumor floating around that Shockey might get traded to New Orleans. As a Giants fan I hope this trade gets done because Shockey is over-rated and Boss played exceptionally well last season for the Giants. We'll find out in about 15 hours I guess.

Gangly Birds in the Sky

A benefit of working in the Tower II building is having a window cube overlooking Ellington Field. There are quite a few aviation fans on the floor and yesterday afternoon someone pointed out these new birds coming in for a landing. This is the first time I've seen a Osprey in real life but two of them came in to refuel. Here's a zoom in from the picture I snapped while the first was cruising along the runway, sorry for the distance but its a big airfield. Gotta say they looked pretty cool though.

Speaking for Coin

Sunday I gave a talk at a fundraising brunch for the South Puget Sound Comm College. Because I am a "rocket scientist" from Tumwater people think that is worth hearing about. So whatever, the talk went good and the brunch raised over $20k for equipment in a new math and science bldg. So there's my small part to helping out a school. They took a bunch of pictures and if they ever post them on the web, I'll have to add some here. But for now, you'll have to take my word on this.

I also got to see my friend Breyan (Hi Bre!) that I've known since 1st grade there. Always cool to see her and maybe I can convince her sometime to come down and visit beautiful, scenic H-town!

Blow Glass Man, Blow

Today we went to the Glass Museum in Tacoma. Glass blowing is a big thing up here, so much so that we have a whole museum devoted just to the art mostly showcasing Dale Chihuly works. He's the big egotistical end all be all of NW glass art but whatever. The feature exhibit right now is all work from an Italian artist named Lino Tagliapietra. Way cool stuff. My personal favorite was the orange Natoalos (nautilus) piece. No pictures in the museum, of course, but check out the link to see his work. But here is a picture from the live studio in the museum where you can take pics. The group is working on a piece that will be featured in the pool just outside the museum entrance when complete.

Global Warming What??!?!?!

I am up in Olympia (WA) this weekend for an event and this is what is looked like this morning when I got up. I would like to point out that it is April 19th, I repeat APRIL 19th. It used to be we only got a couple days like this a year in Jan/Feb timeframe. But apparently this has been happening a lot this winter here.


And this is what it looked like trying to drive over to my brother's house this morning.


But as with all western WA snow, this is what it looked like by the afternoon.

Tour 18

So for John's graduation, my siblings all got together and gave him a gift certificate to the Tour 18 golf course. It's not exactly close to our house so we hadn't yet used the certificate but him being home this week was a perfect opportunity. He didn't have to work Monday and I took a mental health day and we went up to play. All of the holes on the course are near-replica's (can't be exact or there would be copyright infringement) of famous holes around the country. So my big accomplishment and the only hole I par'd was the Sawgrass 17 hole. I feel good about that because the hole is an island and I managed to stay dry and par. Here is a picture of John tee'ing off on a great looking hole. He ended up in the azaleas but all the same it was a beautiful day and a fun round of golf.

Weekend of John Cont.

Sunday we had a nice brunch at Villa Capri with the Halligan's and then hit up the driving range. We were borrowing the Halligan golf clubs in advance of our big Monday fun (see next post). Jen- Extend the elbows!!

John 3-0 BBQ

So I'm a little late getting this posted but, heck, John is home this week so this is the lower priority. Friday night we had a BBQ with some friends since John was home and we never really got to celebrate his 30th birthday whil he was in FL. So here are some pics from that event.

Countdown... 1

JOhn will be home tomorrow, YEA!!

...and last night was my LAST ground school class and I am ever so glad to be done. I think the ratio of material learned vs. time spent in class was extemely low, especially for something I spen 12hrs a week doing. Free at last, flying to go.

First Aid for a Boeing Pen in the Eye

At work we have a en emergency response team and Charlie and I are both on the team. This means we get paged for medical issues and otherwise end up getting a lot of first aid training. This morning was one of those training sessions and we all got scenarios to "fix" each other up. Charlie and I lucked out and got some super special looking ones.



In case you need to know what to do if a coworker stabs a pen (and not just any pen a Boeing pen) in someone's eye, here is the proper first aid as I demonstrated on Charlie.


Subsequently, should I ever get a chemical burn to the face and eyes, please call Charlie who can very deftly administer this first aid and treat for shock to me.

Countdown... 2 days

Countdown...4

...days till John is home

How do you say fun in pilot-speak?

SOLO!!

It's official, I've now solo'd an airplane! I finally went up and solo'd Sunday afternoon! It was just three laps around the pattern at Ellighton, but all the same I've now got the endorsement for solo flight. Even though I was warned that with only myself in the airplane, it would be pretty a quick takeoff, I still wasn't prepared for how fast I came off the runway. I think I need to gain some weight or something because man the plane popped off the runway 5kts below the normal takeoff speed all of its own without me pulling back for the liftoff. That got my heart rate going, but its all good and I came back well... enough... not my best landings but still in one piece.

We also took another cross-country last night (with my instructor) to Huntsville airport and landing just after sunset. They have wildflowers in the grass around the airstrip, so here is also a photo of the plane in that rather pretty setting.

Next up: Solo cross country

Countdown... 5

5 Days until John is home!

Ann vs. Elizabeth

I finished reading Persuasion and several women commented before I started that their favorite Austen character was Ann from this novel. I had noted that Elizabeth from Pride and Prejudice was mine. I do like Ann and perhaps can see why other women might like her best, but I still like Elizabeth best. Elizabeth is a lot spunkier and never ceases to question the situation and she has faults (e.g. the prejudice), which makes her more real to me. Ann is also a great character but she's a little too proper and not forward enough.

But I still loved both books as expected. Although, is it just me or does anyone else find that the first time you read an Austen novel its a little hard to follow in the beginning trying to figure out the characters? I always seem to be halfway in before I can relax and read knowing enough about the plot and the characters.

It's Arrived!!

Holy Cow! So the ATV actually made it to the ISS yesterday and didn't crash into us. As many of you know, I've been working on this project for close to 5 years now and seeing it actually come to life and fly is pretty amazing. It is also a little bittersweet of an event as well, seeing how this project has been one of the most frustrating experiences as far as working relationships go that I have ever experienced. I am happy to see it dock and be successul but I can't help but also be extremely glad that this means I will be able to put a lot of what has happened behind me.

As for the project, the ATV docking is really only the first step of what is supposed to do and the often overlooked part is the ATV actually supporting ISS attitude control and reboost and being otherwise USEFUL while its here. Most people seem to consider having the ATV dock be the end all be all, but from my point of view this is only just the beginning really. But congratulations to ESA and all those that worked on the project for getting this far. Let's hope this bodes well and the rest of the mission is just as successful.

Sleepy Time

Yesterday I had to be on-console at 6am, today at 4am for the ATV docking. But I had class both Tue and Wed nights until 10pm, so needless to say, I haven't gotten a ton of sleep the last few days. So here I am on-console and I sure and tired. Doesn't help that its 5-something in the morning and there is nothing going on. The ATV is still a far distant speck in the ISS sky but we still have to be here... just in case.

Maybe I will sleep a full night tonight... maybe.

Weight Loss WTF

So I know I live in the land of fat people (more commonly know as Texas) but I was in the car this afternoon and heard a rather awful radio commercial about weight loss. They said that medical sceince recommends diet and exercise as a means of losing weight only for those less than 80 lbs over weight and that for those that are morbidly obese it is recommended that you go get surgery and what not. Obviously, this ad is for a place that does lap band and gastric bypass type stuff, but I was a little mad that they would imply that people that are obese have been recommended not to eat better and work out. I shouldn't be shocked, but I am. This concludes my tirade for today.