morrowlife

Here are some more of those rock sculptures we found during our wonderful family camping trip late last summer. Yes, I know they’re just piles of rocks. It’s not what they’re made of that counts, it’s what the artiste has done with them. They’re artistic piles of rocks.

Well, the die is cast. We’re moving back to California, something we thought we would absolutely, positively never do. This time it’s the Bay Area. My new job will be at the Lockheed Martin facilities in Sunnyvale. I’ll be a software engineering manager working on the Anti-Ballistic Laser project. I’m excited about the career change and looking forward to the move, although it’s really hard to leave. The company here in Newtown is making it as easy as they possibly can by coming apart at the seams all of a sudden. We hear there will be massive layoffs and big management changes in the next few weeks. We don’t know when the new job will start, but we kind of hope for it to be in the first week of June. The final offer just came in this evening, so I haven’t yet formally accepted it. After I do that (tomorrow or Wednesday), we can start negotiating the start date and other details.

We think we’ll probably end up living in or near Modesto, which will be a very long commute (although not really longer timewise than it was in Virginia) but hopefully a nice little community in a beautiful area (for the desert) with very reasonable housing prices. We need to get out there and look a little bit before we make a final decision, though.

Tomorrow is our friend Jeri’s wedding. Congratulations Jeri and Art! Reader Number Four and I are going down to Washington to be there. We’re really excited for her. We’re dogsitting her two, umm, dogs for the week while she and Art go on their honeymoon. It’s already kind of interesting to have that many animals around here. She’ll come pick them up on Sunday.

There are so many things to get done before the move that I hardly know where to begin. Fortunately, Number Four has helped me out with a list of things I need to do to the house right away. Fortunately, I have a few days of comp time to take over the next week or two, so I should have time to get all the projects going. Then maybe I can find the time later to get all the projects completed.

Well, it’s late and I have to be ready to go tomorrow morning at 4:00, so it would be a good idea to quit. More move details tomorrow.

Loyal Readers Number One and Number Two are camping tonight. Sadly, I’m not there. However, here’s a recent picture of Reader Number One with his tent. It was a little cold.

The campaign is officially over! We cleaned the office and loaded up the trucks today, and I’m heading for home tomorrow morning. Hallelujah! I’m really ready.

Wrote a couple of poems – I work exclusively in limericks, with a special talent for Epic-length work – in support of Reader Number Four’s act in Saturday night’s talent show. I really hate talent shows. I’m not really sure why either. Maybe somebody was killed before my very eyes at a talent show I attended as an infant. Or maybe they’re just terrible. Who knows? Hey, that would make a good mystery novel – “Murder at the Talent Show.” The main character could be forced to come up with an act for a talent show he doesn’t even want to attend, much less take part in. A woman would scream during his lame act – she’s found a body behind the piano! Chaos ensues and the murderer is caught by the hero at last, but not before nearly making another victim of our hero. How exciting!

It’s late, I’m sleepy, I have to get up early tomorrow morning, and the sooner I sleep, the sooner I will wake up and go home. So good night!

Here’s a picture taken from my balcony on Easter Sunday. Yes, it’s slightly fuzzy. Sorry about that. I had to zoom all the way in to get the picture, including using the digital zoom. Not too sharp, but I like the picture, so my Loyal Readers will just have to live with it.

Success! We flew our spacecraft this afternoon, on the first day of the launch period, at the first moment of the launch window. That’s very unusual for Atlas. It was picture perfect. Absolutely beautiful! And the best part is that I get to go home on Saturday!

Tomorrow we pack out and ship the stuff home. Since we’re in the USA this time, we don’t have to lease another Antonov. A bunch ‘o trucks will show up in the morning and drive away in the afternoon – some to Newtown and others to Sunnyvale. I need to get a few personal items into the Newtown shipment, like my new DVD player.

Had a big dinner with the spacecraft launch team at the Sunset Grill this evening. They’re in a very pretty location – right on the Banana River. It was pretty busy when we got there, so we stood around for a while waiting for our table. During our Standing Period, somebody rang a ship’s bell and they started playing loud music to go along with the sunset. It was a very pretty sunset. They had a guy playing a guitar and singing. He was pretty good but didn’t get much applause. I hope he at least got paid. After he was done, they started playing rock music from the 80’s. We all enjoyed identifying the songs and bands and, in most cases, cringing (link warning – cheesy 80’s music) at the thought that we ever listened to them.

Happy birthday to my brother Chris. I got my dinner group to sing the birthday song to him, after which he told me all the people in his meeting enjoyed the music. Perfect.

Time for bed – I have a lot of packing to do tomorrow. See you then.

Here are a couple of surfboards somebody left on the grass outside the condo the other day. Whoa, dude.

Things continue to be fine here at the Cape. Tomorrow is our scheduled launch day and all systems are go. Keep your fingers crossed and watch us on the internet.

I left work at just about the right time this afternoon, which was unusual for me on a launch campaign. We’ve had strangely few difficulties in my area, so I’ve been trying to help my coworkers when the opportunity presents itself. Today I helped Sam find the ASOC, for example.

Not much else to talk about tonight. The launch looms large in my consciousness right now, pushing most other thoughts aside. Also, I’m sleepy. So you tomorrow.

Wish us luck!

Here’s the airboat I rode in a couple of weeks ago on my infamous alligator-picture-taking trip. It was loud. Pretty high-class outfit, huh?

Well, a previously-unimaginable event has occurred. Are you ready? Sit down. No, really, sit down. Okay. We have our ninth Loyal Reader! Welcome, Tony. Send your picture (or maybe I can dig one out from somewhere when I get home) and you’ll be photographically featured right here in the blog. And check out your name in actual pixels over there on the right (link alert: “The Dead Pixels” would be a great name for a rock band, don’t you think?).

Went to the launch team banquet tonight. It went from 7:30 to about 11:30 and I’m tired. Dog tired. It was a nice time, though. I like the people on the team and will miss them when I’m no longer hanging around with them.

I did a little bit of Financial Negotiation this afternoon. We’ll see the results tomorrow, I hope. Maybe it will work out to my advantage! Maybe not. That’s the beauty of negotiation – it’s so unpredictable.

I want to go to bed now, and since none of my loyal readers are actually here telling me to keep typing (although I know you’re thinking it), I’m quitting for now. My Loyal Readers can definitely count on more content tomorrow – unless it’s absolutely inconvenient.