Meeting of the Minds

I've been at a conference in Orlando for the last couple days. I wrote a paper on my Orion Crew Optical Alignment Sight and presented with by co-author from L3 that I worked with on it. It was well received, but it is interesting to be here because it is a hodge-podge conference from the optical society and not aerospace specific. Seems most people think a) they know everything about NASA even when they don't work here and want to tell me what's really going on from what they read on (most likely) NASAWatch and b) apparently everyone thinks Orion doesn't exist anymore. Been kind of interesting getting out in the "real world" to find out what a well kept secret HQ has made us.

Otherwise though, I met a few people and had an okay time, but best part was the fact that my corporate "rate" at the hotel included free golf everyday. I only played once and had to pay for the rental clubs. Ouch, since it is the Marriott resort that was pretty much what I would pay for a round at home, but I wouldn't have played at all if I was paying for that and the greens fees. I got the earliest tee time I could this morning, played and then changed and headed into the conference and still got most of a full day in there. Not bad at all, but I think conferences in snow bound locations are still better. ;)

Pop Pop Pop Pop

All around the mulberry bush,
Someone learned to hand crank,
around, around until the monkey comes up,
... and POPs! for the 10th time.

Veggie Tales

About a month ago, Alison found out that Woodduck Farms CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) was adding drop offs in our next of Houston. They have been operating for a few years, but the dropoffs were way too far away to make a weekly excursion. For those that don't know CSAs are local farms that you buy a "share" of the crop from and get a regular supply of whatever is ripe and in season. Woodduck also uses organic growing methods, but as with most small farms is not "certified organic" which requires a lengthy and expensive government process.

For us this means we are getting a half share (splitting with Alison) once a week and has certainly upped our veggie intake which is for the better. For example this week we got salad greens, zucchini, little neck squash, a couple other i-don't-know squashes, beets, sugar snap peas, radishes, micro greens, and spring onions. We were getting strawberries but I am afraid that local season is probably over already. All the produce has been fairly good quality and I am thus far very happy. This week I made an awesome salad for Zara and my dinner when John wasn't home with fried zucchini patties. I didn't like beets as a kid but I though the roasted beets were tasty and, amazingly, Zara really liked them and cleaned her plate of those.

Eye Don't Know

I've had a fairly mild nearsightedness (as in can't see far stuff well) since high school. I started in glasses, went to contacts, hated them for making my vision worse, and have been back in glasses for a few years. When I say I am "in" glasses that mostly just means I forget to take them to meetings with me and squint at the screens instead. It also means I am terrible at recognizing faces from a distance (sorry, I'm not being mean if I don't wave, I just don't know its you). Further, I haven't gotten a new prescription for glasses in, oh, around 11 years and they are actually too strong for me now and give me a headache if I wear them too long anyway. In summary, I don't like them.

So I'm trying to find out if ponying up some money to get some high-tech laser action on my eyeballs will free me from my albatross of corrective lenses. This also means I have to accept the risks of doing so, but Lasik sure has come a long way and given my mild correction needed the risks are typically fairly low. BUT, and here it is, I've now been to two places for consultations and have been found to have an irregular astigmatism. Which means instead of have a normal goofed up eye where the corneal "cone" is a little flattened in only one axis, mine droops to form something like a horseshoe with the luck pouring out (although not that extreme).

The first place I went to which I knew was most likely to be an eye chop shop (since it was the only one "in-network" and has laser special pricing) said I was just flat out not a good candidate. Probably because they don't want to deal with anything other than easy stuff to make their buck. Yesterday I went to Mann eyes, which is a very well known and respected outfit, and they said Lasik may be an option but need to make sure my droop isn't continuing to droop and need a follow up a month from now. Basically if the astigmatism was continuing to shift and not be just how my eyes are, bad things could happen since the Lasik weakens your cornea and it could make that worse. If Lasik can't be done, then something like PRK could still correct my vision which doesn't have as much impact on the cornea but is a little more complex up front and needs more healing time.

I have a third consultation with Baylor Eye in a few days and we'll see what they say. Not 100% that I'd go through with anything, but it is interesting so far.

Increase of Awesomeness

Here is a great video about the James Webb Space Telescope. We need this guy to explain a lot more about the space program.

Harry Potter's Room

You know the project we started three months ago, yea the closet one. Well we are finally finished... for the most part. Over the last two weekends, it got primed, painted, carpet laid and fully trimmed out. I think it turned out great even if the drywall tape is not so pretty in a couple places. It is a closet after all and the worst seam really was the first one I did and the others got better as I figured it out. The last couple items we have to finish is really outside the closet, getting matching trim paint for the rest of the house to do the door and frame, caulking those seams, and putting down a threshold between the wood transition and carpet. All minor items I hope to do one night this week after I drop in to the hardware store to get what we need.

Here it is complete and all ready to move the stuff in now.

Fairly Fed

Saturday was the International Festival at Zara's school. This is their big fundraiser for the year, one of several fundraisers. Still don't understand why this should be necessary at a private institution, but apparently all the daycares/schools do this so its not like we could get out of it somehow.

But at least the festival/fair/whatever is enjoyable for all the kids and parents. The food I personally think is the best part. They have several options to choose from including hamburgers and pizza and stuff. But they have several different ethnic cuisines including homemade indian food by the teachers. That is what I get and that's some fantastic biryani and samosas. Zara enjoyed it too. She also got to play in a bounce house, ride a train thing, and a couple games.

The fair was great except for the DJ who seems to have little experience with family events. Pop music and current hits are fine, but Rhianna "S&M" is not. He got cut off on that one by the parents. Hope they get a different DJ next year because that was pretty inexcusable.

But pictures...

Flower Power

Just a catch up for the last couple weeks, my parents have been in town for a week long visit. While they were here they took care of Zara while we were at work and got to have loads of bonding time. John and I got to go to the rodeo Friday night to see Lady Antebellum since we had "babysitters" and then all five of us went again on Saturday. During the daytime visit Zara got to go in both petting zoos and ride her first carousel (all big hits) and we all enjoyed the rodeo.

We took yet another visit to the Children's Museum (now that we have memberships) on Sunday and had a grand time. This time we wandered around a bit more and found the Water Works area. Zara was way impressed and we will have to go back prepared with a change of clothes for her to really play next time. Zara picked up a few new words this week including "Dii-do" (grandfather in arabic is jihdo) and "day-da" (grandmother being tayta). Zara definitely has an easier time with her d's. She really is starting to communicate verbally more and it's really neat, although she still has no trouble getting herself understood even without words.

I'm a little slow getting this up since the work was done before the relay, but here at last are pictures of the front yard landscaping. Of course the boring before photo, sorry on the right I snapped this picture the night before and barely remembered to do so before the sun went down.

...and the new and improved. We hired a real landscaper to do the work because this is way better than we could have managed ourselves working 2 hours at a time on weekends during baby girl's naps. They did all of this and a few cleanup items in the back yard, like removing the random palm tree that was in the middle of the backyard, in just one day.

A closeup of the south bed.

And the best flower perched in the garden.

TIR-ing Up

Here are more pictures as promised from the relay. They are from two different cameras and not necessarily all in chronological order. For reference, several pictures were during the exchanges. The "baton" for the relay was a TIR reflective slap bracelet just like from sixth grade. So the awkward hand-off usually was someone trying to get it on the other persons arm in a reasonably efficient manner. I will say it was a lot nicer than having to actually hold something while you ran.

Tearing up the TIR

This weekend myself and 11 others from my office ran the Texas Independence Relay. The race is a staggered (slowest team first) start from Gonzales, TX near San Antonio to the San Jacinto Monument in Houston 203 miles away. These are the sites of the first and last battles in the Texas war against Mexico for independence, hence the name. That is also the start and end of my knowledge of Texas history.

The race had 40 legs, teams could be from 8-12 people (but there was one solo and a team of 3 ultra-marathoners also). Most legs were 4-6 miles and I did 4 for just over 20 miles this weekend. Everyone on my team did awesome and mostly beat their pre-race paces so we finished well ahead of schedule. Overall time was 31:51:30 and our trip took us through many tiny towns in country all through the day and night Saturday starting at 6:36am. Then continued with the long run across the expanse of urban Houston Sunday finishing around 2:30 in the afternoon. The race is non-stop so it is a challenge of both running and overall endurance to stay awake and active.

Some of the highlights were the general team bonding occuring from being only semi-coherent in the middle of the night, a relay baton presented to me when I finished the leg in Weimar from the town residents, having Houston PD stop traffic for me (and only me) to cross streets in downtown Houston, and seeing all the people I conned into this enjoying themselves and the challenge.

I think one of my teammates said it best earlier today, it was "miserable fun" we all look forward to doing again! Here is the least bad picture of myself while running (it really was a hill and not a crooked picture) from my camera. I'll post some team shots or other pictures later.