On the road again

Greetings and salutations from Virginia!

Yes...it's that time of year again...THANKSGIVING time! Jeannie and I are safely at the farm in rural Virginia. And the weather isn't what I expected at all! I brought my cold-weather gear, thinking it would be frigid. It's not (woo-HOO!) It's still chilly for me, of tropical blood....I'm chilly in California usually! But considering what it could be, I'm quite thankful.

Let me back up a few days...into last week. My work has been quite busy. We are shorthanded, and I don't see that changing anytime soon, if at all. Well, let me be fair...we have a plethora of managers...just not enough WORKERS. We just went thru our last (?) round of layoffs, where we got rid of MORE workers...while the managers seem to have shielded themselves quite aptly. So in 3 years when our contract is bid for real, there's likely no way we can win it against a company who doesn't need the upside-down pyramid structure of managers to workers. But I digress...

Last Thursday my boss came to me late in the day and said I was needed to come in at 11:30pm that night for a 12 hour shift. It was time for the spacecraft (that I was with down in Los Angeles back in Sept) to be transported to the launch pad from the processing center. Okey dokey I said (not a lot of choice, but hey...I'm a team-player). So I went home, had a bite to eat and went to bed (like you can go to sleep at 6pm). The babies were hovering and walking around, wondering what I was doing in bed so early. Jeannie was out getting her hair done, as she was flying to VA early Friday morning (she was going out early to visit with friends). I was to follow on Sunday morning.

I get up at 10pm, grab a bite to eat and head out by 11 for work. The transport went well, and we were at the pad by around 5am. Then the problems began. It seems the company responsible for this part of the operation (lifting the encapsulated spacecraft into the Mobile Service Tower and attaching it to the Atlas V booster) hadn't run a "trailblazer" on this model fairing and with the lifting sling. A "trailblazer" is a full dress-rehearsal with a fake spacecraft/fairing assy so-as to find any wrinkles in the plan. Well...there was a wrinkle. The lifting sling holding the encapsulated spacecraft wouldn't allow them to lower the vehicle all-the-way down onto the booster so it could be attached...there was parts that didn't fit. That should have been caught during a trailblazer. So now there is a billion dollars hanging on the "hook" (attached to the crane) that can't be mounted...so they had to lower it back to the pad-deck far below and disconnect / reconfigure the lifting sling. Then they re-hoisted the billion (plus) dollars and tried again. Still no work'y. Lower and reconfigure. Try again. No joy. By then our shift was well over and the next shift came in.

My job in all this btw is to wait until ULA has the vehicle attached to the booster and then we shut down one of our monitoring systems, load it all up and move it all into the tower, hook it all back up and get it working). So I had now worked a 14 hour shift on maybe 3 hours sleep. And because the vehicle STILL isn't attached to the rocket, we had to come back in again on Friday night at 11:30 to try it all again. Jeannie was now gone, somewhere in mid-travel to Richmond VA. I got a few hours sleep (another 3 or 4 maybe) and then it was time to go back in. After a few more tries they finally had the sling configured correctly so they could soft-mount the vehicle to the booster....HOORAY! About 9am on Saturday morning we got the go-ahead to shut down one of our systems, take it all apart and move it into the tower. We had that all done, system hooked up and functional, around 1pm. My job is done, I am now on VACATION! Got home and did a zillion things on my pre-travel list, and then some sleep...Sunday morning I was at the airport for my turn in the travel blender.

All went relatively well...just a few extra-hours in Chicago as my flight was weather-delayed in arrival, so instead of getting to Richmond around 9:30pm Sunday night I landed about 11:30pm. Finally got my luggage and a cab, and I arrived at Jeannie's sisters place around midnight. Jeannie had been napping on the couch waiting for me, her sister asleep as she had to work on Monday. No showers were available sadly as the cast-iron-tub had fallen over the morning before, luckily her sister wasn't hurt, as she was just getting ready to get in...the tub must weigh 300lbs and could kill or maim for sure if it rolled over on her. The maintenance guys had never seen a cast-iron-tub have a foot fall off, and it had ripped the plumbing out of the floor and was lying on it's side.

So as Sara went off to work we were off to find breakfast and then drive to the farm (about 2.5 hours north-west of Richmond). We made it to the farm uneventfully after a nice drive thru the Virginia countryside, resplendent in fall colors. The temperature was probably in the mid to high 60's...not too shabby for sure. We stopped at the Farmville Wally-world for groceries as usual on the way. And now we are relaxing at the farm. It's Tuesday morning, cloudy and windy but a far cry from snow and cold that I was expecting.

And so...have yourselves a WONDERFUL Thanksgiving! On a closing note, just watching the news and the pathetic rioting and looting in Missouri over the Michael Brown Grand Jury decision...pathetic (the rioters, not the Grand Jury). There are always those looking for an excuse to do bad things. Which sadly takes away from the 99.9% of honest folk who were peacefully demonstrating their feelings (which is a god-given right). I certainly can't say what the right answer is other than I listened to the prosecutor talk for about 15 minutes explaining what evidence the Grand Jury heard, and how/why they came to their decision. It sounds like they did the right thing...but a lot of people don't want to hear that...their minds are already made up even though they had not heard the FACTS of the case. And the looting/burning commenced as expected. I sure don't know how we will ever get past all this racism stuff....sure it exists and I don't know how to fix that. But it appears our country just stepped back 50 or more years. Sad, just sad.

I have lots to be thankful for this year as always...I'll reflect on that during the week as we approach Turkey-day. Be safe and enjoy.

Cheers!