Update

It has been a long time since I’ve posted here, but I’m still around. It was a combination of being too busy with schoolwork, being burned out on blogging, and spending more time on Twitter that has kept me away.

Anyway, I finally finished with school. I haven’t officially got my degree yet- they’ve completed the academic portion of my graduation audit, but they have to do the administrative part, and then they only confer degrees once a month, so it’ll be a few more weeks. But what a relief to be finished! It was a rough two years of constant studying and writing while keeping up with work and everything.

In the time I’ve been away, I have blogged a little, in other places. I started a group for space enthusiasts on Twitter called the Space Tweep Society and launched a multi-author blog for the group at http://spacetweepsociety.org. That has kept me busy as well. So, I’m not sure if I’ll get back to regular posting here or not. Perhaps

Under-employed

I keep getting all these great ideas for things I want to do- inventions, societies, graphic designs, books, etc. and I have been following through with as many of the best of them that I can. Doing all of this creative work has made me start to think about the mostly very uncreative work I do on the shuttle program.

Don’t get me wrong, I love working on the shuttle program and it is exciting at times, but for a technician it gets to be somewhat of the same thing over and over. It takes a long time to get to that point because there is so much to learn and do, but if you stay in the same area for several years, the excitement begins to pale. For most technicians, that isn’t a problem; it is just about getting the job done. But a select few of us are wired a little differently- we have to be creating things or building things or figuring things out to be happy over the long term. I think I suppressed that innovative part of me for a while, but over the last few years it has pushed through, and I am at its mercy. Everywhere I turn I see better ways to do things and interesting projects I want to take on.

This evening I was talking to a prospective collaborator about a project idea I have and was asked if I was worried about being unemployed at the end of the shuttle program, especially since both Andy and I could stand to be laid off. Strangely, I’m not and neither is Andy. But I couldn’t give a good answer as to why not- I don’t know exactly what we’ll be doing if we are laid off, but I feel a sense of calm. I answered by saying that we have confidence in our abilities, but it is more than that. I feel right now as though I am just biding my time until things truly start to happen with some of my inventions and other creative ventures. In the meantime, I feel as though I am under-employed. That I could be providing so much more value to NASA through doing more creative work than what I am doing. I think change is in my very near future.

How Twitter has made my job better

Okay, I know my job is envied by many, but at the end of the day it is a job like everyone else’s. It has its difficulties, frustrations, and other drawbacks. It is easy to become defeated when trying to make positive changes at work, because of the near impossible odds you are up against. Also there is a certain atmosphere of dread around the place due to the looming “END OF THE SHUTTLE PROGRAM” hanging over our heads which will mean the loss of the majority of our jobs.

When I joined Twitter last September, I thought it would be an interesting diversion, but never realized how much it could affect me and my feelings about my work. I eventually found myself in a circle of NASA employees and space enthusiasts who were tweeting excitedly about launches. At the first launch after I started tweeting, I got up to the minute updates from a space center contact, @herrea straight from the Launch Control Complex. It was so cool to know exactly what was happening and any potential delays that posed a threat. It was after this launch that Andy started to see the value of Twitter and decided to join as well. He’s @apacheman, by the way.

After that, I became even more entrenched in the space community on Twitter. I started following Wayne Hale (former NASA flight director), Miles O’Brien (aviation and space journalist), and Leroy Chiao (former astronaut). I saw that I was days ahead of my co-workers and even my upper management when it came to finding out what was happening with the US space program. I started to realize that Twitter  had the potential to help me in my career. What I didn’t anticipate is the effects that it would have on the way I felt about my job.

With this last launch, I had gained some more followers that are what I would call “space enthusiasts.” This was a really good thing because it forced me to look at my job from the perspective of other people who would give anything to be in my position. It made me more excited about the cool opportunities I had and more inclined to seek out new ones. I started posting photos I took during the day of things that seemed mundane, but was amazed to find that there were some followers that really enjoyed seeing these behind-the-scenes shots. I am happy to share these little tidbits with those that find them interesting.

I became Twitter friends with other contractor employees (some even within my own company) from Johnson Space Center in Houston that are facing the same “end of program blues” and uncertainty due to change that we are. It is somehow comforting to know that these people are dealing with many of the same challenges we are facing at Kennedy Space Center. We also can share our pride in each launch or milestone, knowing that we each had a little part in it. I also found an inspirational leader in @rikerjoe, who is trying to make positive changes within NASA and is very supportive of my efforts. 

While I have always tried to attend every launch that I possibly could because I didn’t want to waste the amazing opportunity I have been given, now launches are even more exciting. This is because I get to share the play-by-play with and from other Twitterers: some watching it in person like me and some on the other side of the world.

Last week, I was able to meet a Twitter friend that came from JSC for the launch and just happens to work for the same company as I do. Andy had given her a tour of the launch pad a couple of days earlier, and then, on her last day at KSC, she was able to come down to my work area and visit. It was a pleasure to give a tour of the Hypergolic Maintenance Facility to @absolutspacegrl because she was truly excited to be there. She did not think the hardware was mundane, but saw it with the fresh eyes of a space enthusiast. Even though she has a great deal of knowledge of the systems as a flight controller, she said that they rarely see hardware, and mostly deal with data. It was energizing to see someone that appreciates what they are seeing the way she did. She even blogged about her experience at KSC.

And finally, there is one more group of people on Twitter that help me through a challenging workday. That group is my blog friends that are now on Twitter; many of you I have now known for over four years, some of you I have met in real life, and all of you are people I feel honored to be friends with.  To @susank, @tropicalwonder, @poppycede, @nycwatchdog, @strangeafoot, @patrice108, @beth4158, @MaryKC, @Grynet, @kimsnotebook, @halo969, @felicia4774, @absentcanadian, @yoshi, @fyrchk, @sweetanne, :  I am glad to be able to keep up with you on a daily (or weekly, for some) basis and would be far worse off if not for your support. And Mel, one day you’ll make me truly happy and start tweeting again!

Hubble Servicing Mission

STS-125 Astronauts, originally uploaded by Flying Jenny.

As some of you know, we launched on Monday. It was a beautiful launch, but this one was an exceptionally cool one for me. It wasn’t the first launch that I posted live on Twitter, actually I think this was the third for me. But this one was the first time that I got to meet someone I knew from Twitter. I saw a tweet from @RyInSpace that he was waiting to see the astronauts come out of the Operations & Checkout Building to the Astronaut van. I had never gotten to see that in person before, but it happens less than a mile away from where I was sitting at work. I okayed it with my manager and decided to go over to see it for myself (on my own time, of course). It was definitely cool to see, and I met my twitter friend there too!

Andy had a Twitter encounter too, yesterday. Twitterer @absolutspacegrl was visiting the space center from Johnson Space Center where she works. Andy was able to give her and her co-workers a fantastic tour of the launch pad. Click here to see some of our photos of the launch and prelaunch events.

Oh, and I almost forgot- the iPhone photo of the launch that I tweeted made the wired.com page: Link

Mine is the fourth photo from the top.

15 Minutes

I’m famous! Just kidding.  But I am on page 4 of this publication

Hints of the future

 

It is strange, but my entire career was foreshadowed by grade school poster contests. Seriously. It is so odd to look back and see how things turned out. 

In sixth grade, I entered a patriotic poster contest.  The theme that year was “Freedom.”  It was only weeks after we had watched Challenger explode on the TV in our classroom. I actually still have my poster from back then, February of 1986.  It is all yellowed with age and wrinkled, but here it is:

 

I was only 12 when I made this, so it isn’t that great- don’t be too harsh! It actually won first place. The interesting thing about this poster to me was that I went on to become an aircraft mechanic, then space shuttle technician. 

It just so happens that I won another poster contest in grade school, way back in first grade. It was for Pedestrian Safety Week. My poster showed a little girl whose ball had rolled into the street, and she was asking an adult if they would please get it for her, rather than running after it.  The significance of that one is that I am getting my degree in Occupational Safety & Health, and pursuing a career in safety at Kennedy Space Center.  Okay, so it isn’t a perfect match- pedestrian safety vs. occupational safety, but still- it is close.

I was looking through some old papers this afternoon and found another little funny thing I made as a kid that hinted at my future.  It was a little poem I had made into a booklet. Judging by the other papers in the folder, this is something I made when I was four or five years old. I was surprised that I managed to rhyme and get my facts mostly right as well. The illustrations are comical:

I must’ve been a real pill in school. I remember that my first grade teacher, Ms. Inez Dudley, told my mom that I was sassy.  I was a fairly shy and introverted child, but apparently I would correct Ms. Dudley’s spelling, and it used to really bug the crap out of her. See, just look at me. I’m the little snot on the end of the back row in the green dress:

She really couldn’t spell to save her life. I wasn’t trying to be sassy, I was just helping out Anyway, I must be going into the field I was supposed to be in, because I have run out of poster contests to predict my future.

Clearing!

I have been slacking a bit on posting here, but go check out Tortoise Hollow for the latest on our progress on house building, if you get a chance. It is terribly exciting for us, and every time I go out to the property to visit, I feel like I want to just pitch a tent out there and stay. Forget this crappy neighborhood living, already. But alas we are stuck until we get everything all in order.

 

Stuff

I think this is the longest I have ever gone without posting on this blog. Sorry about that- it is just that life gets in the way sometimes. You know how it is.

Work and school have been taking up a lot of my time lately.  Andy and I volunteered at the Kennedy Space Center All-American Picnic for the fourth year in a row yesterday.  In doing so, we gave up a day we really didn’t have to give.  Andy had to work all day today, and I had to scramble to get the house in some semblance of order and the laundry done, all while carefully avoiding my homework.  Now that everything is all ironed and scrubbed and dusted, I have no choice but to buckle down and write a paper for my toxicology class. Boy, I sure wish I had that hour back that we lost when we “sprang forward.”

Things are going okay. Work is frustrating, but at night I can come home to some Rhythm Boxing on my Wii and take my aggressions out there. Of course the Wii is very critical of my weight and exercise habits, but what does he know anyway? He’s a wiitard.

We are supposed to start clearing for our workshop/house on Tortoise Hollow early this week, but I am not jumping up and down celebrating just yet. I’m still too cautious for that. 

Ack- back to schoolwork- I’ve procrastinated long enough. I’ll try to post a little more regularly again; I know this is pretty pathetic.

Progressive Valentine

Aside from Valentine’s gifts and all, I wanted to do something fun for Andy that would be interesting. Around Christmas time, I was wandering around a small local toy store and found something I thought I could do something neat with. I decided to make a “progressive Valentine” out of it.  I started in mid January with the following note and fish that I left in a place I knew Andy would find.

That was followed by this one a few days later:

There were seven more installments spaced several days apart and left in different places for him to discover. Here is another example:

For the final installment, which was this morning, I gave him the crust with the note, “I will love you till we are old and crusty.”  Underneath that was a little note telling him that this was the final installment and he could put the pizza together. 

 

Yeah, maybe it is a little bit dorky, but it was fun for both of us, so I think it was a successful experiment. If you think about it, there are probably lots of other things that could be made into progressive Valentines like this. 

The notes I used to accompany the components were:

Anchovies- There are many fish in the sea, but you are the one for me

Peppers- You spice up my life like a hot pepper

Olives- Olive (I’ll love) you forever

Tomatoes- I love you from my head tomatoes (to my toes)

Mushrooms- I love you in that mushy kind of way 

Onions- Our love has many layers like an onion

Cheese- Maybe it sounds cheesy, but I love you

Pepperoni- We go together like cheese and pepperoni

Crust- I will love you till we are old and crusty

On the last note the title said, “A little pizza (piece of) my heart”

I used a ransom note type of font to make it more interesting, and I started with the fish to sort of throw him off the track of what I was up to- since he didn’t know they were anchovies, it would be harder for him to figure out where I was going with the whole thing. For the same reason I saved the pepperoni until almost the last, right before the crust.

What do you think, would you like to be the recipient of a puzzling Valentine like this?

Spoiled?

For so long, Andy and I tried not to spend much money on things we didn’t need in order to save for the house. We are still working toward that goal, but in the past few months we have thrown caution somewhat to the wind in order to get some things to make our lives easier or just more enjoyable. I kind of feel a little bit spoiled, actually.

The way I look at it, these few things are not going to make the difference in whether or not we build our house if the stupid permits ever come through again. We’ll need a great deal more money than what we are spending, so screw it.

Last weekend we got iPhones, and absolutely love them. Next, Andy wants a big monitor for his MacBook like the one I have, and then I really am lusting after one of the new Kindle ebook readers.

Maybe it isn’t so horrible to treat yourself to some fun things once in a while?