Weekend Report

The weekend started off nicely with several happy hours at Boondoggles with the peeps. As always it was fun, if not hot and sticky out on the old deck. The rest of the weekend was pretty chill. Soccer game Saturday afternoon we lost, boo. But note to all others, if you want to stay on Nujoud's good side in a game, don't be a tool and shoot a goal when the keeper is lying on the ground with a twisted knee for a good long time before you get the ball. Also after shooting said lame goal on an empty net, DO NOT celebrate right over said keeper still lying on the ground in pain. In fact don't celebrate at all because you should have showed some class and kicked the ball out instead. WTF people??

I also tried to go flying Sat evening only to be denied by high winds. Will try again Tuesday morning before the weather has a chance to suck for the day.

As for Sunday, I went for a run and was terribly tired afterwards (see note on humidity above) and the pups got to go for a walk with me after the run. They do love the walk, maybe next time we'll hit the doggie parkie. Sunday afternoon however, I went to see Get Smart with Brent and Alicia. Good Movie!! I watched the show on Nick at Nite as a kid and I thought this movie did a great job updating the show. The comedy was good and not dumb spoof, so for managing to accomplish that, they get big props. We also went back to my place and attempted to make spinach and cheese ravioli with the new pasta machine. So far I have only managed to produce tasty "rustic" ravioli. Which means they look a sight and I will have to continue trying to get something that resembles a ravioli as an end product. Ravioli status must continue.

The Cigarette Smoking Man

Speaking of consipiracies, you don't perhaps think this guy might have anything to do with it? Check out the list of boards he is a member of.

For the record BA stock has dropped $10 (13%) in a matter of 3 days because of this, which means our bonus has dropped almost 50%. There are a lot of unhappy campers.

Bonus Conspiracy

Mulder and Scully sure would be useful around The Boeing Company this week. Every two years employees get a stock award bonus based on the trading price of the stock on June 30th of the year. It is supposed to make us want to "execute more flawlessly" and get a reward for performance as reflected on Wall Street. Whatever, most of us are so far down in the weeds unless I go steal several boxes of Lockheed proposal data I don't think there is anything I can do to actually affect our stock price.

But this morning a massive selloff of Boeing stock started on this Goldman Sachs sell recommendation. This comes exactly 5 days before our award and is especialyl puzzling on the rationale seeing how only good news has come from the 787 program lately, high gas prices are actually a good thing for Boeing since airlines want more fuel efficient planes, the weak dollar means planes are far CHEAPER for foreign companies, and the tanker protest was upheld, all very good news in Boeing-land. Two years ago Boeing announced a half a billion dollar write-off on the doomed Connexion program the day before our award was determined also tanking the stock price.

Conspiracy? Maybe. Awfully sucky timing at a minimum? Definately.

Rain is for Rainbows

Saturday afternoon my soccer game got called early due to lightning in the area. Not a big deal since we were up 3-0, of which I contributed a smashing good header to the upper corner of the net on a cross by Erin, 2 pts for being a girl. Why does no one have a camera to catch the stuff when you do something right? That header goal would have been at least a 5 on the Sportscenter top ten.

Anywho- that lightning eventually turned into a raging thunderstorm in the area. After the storm passed and I was headed to a friends house, I caught this view from the car and had to pull over to get a couple pictures. There was a full double rainbow, although the reflected double was too faint to really pick up. It was too big for one frame, so I stictched the two together to get this.

Another pilot amoung us

Jen Mendeck passed her FAA Private Pilot checkride yesterday. Congrats Jen!

I like my spaceship...

Doggie Kiddie-Door

My cousin Melanie and the family drove down from Arkansas so they could get a tour of NASA for their 1st-grader Lindsey who was super-excited about it. Monday night while at my house, little bro Aaron found a use for the doggie door himself.



We also had a good time on the tour and they seemed to enjoy it. Lindsey was all prepared with questions for me, but I think NASA overwhelmed her a bit and she ended up not asking me many. As she put it, she was too busy trying to "keep it all in her head" to ask me questions. But even I got sight of something for the first time on the tour, in Bldg 9 I noticed that the new moon rover prototype was being worked on.

John Weekend Update

John was also in town this weekend and it sure was good to have him home for a bit even if he did leave shoes in the path for me to trip on. We went to the Yankees-Astros baseball game Friday night to watch the Yankees beat them (which they did and eventually swept the poor 'stros). Alas, he is just about to get on a plane and go back to West Palm... single once again. :(

S&TC Girl's Night

Saturday night the girl's got together in our finest couture-like outfits for food, fun, and conversation followed by an outing to see the Sex & The City movie. Nothing but good times were had and the gift exchange was highly entertaining. I made out with a cute pink clutch which will be gracing many outfits in the future. For a complete set of pictures from the evening, check out Jaime's blog. But the few I snapped are here:

And the Top Chef is....

Stephanie!!!

HOORAY for Stephanie who was the Season 4 and first female top chef winner. She rocks as a chef and has made some excellent looking dishes which I can only assume are super tasty and wish our TV was a scratch-and-taste model. Stephanie also deserved to win for being a super classy girl even when things didn't go right for her, unlike fan nemesis Lisa.