morrowlife

This guy creeps me out. And he’s supposed to make you want to go into a restaurant! If that’s what they look like in there, no thank you for that.

I’m back in Trier, and it was a beautiful and sunny day, if just a little bit cold. There’s a possibility of snow later in the week – I hope it doesn’t come on Friday, when I’m driving back to Frankfurt.

I have a BMW 118 this week, which turns out to be a nice little car. It’s about the size of a Volkswagen Golf. Does it drive like a BMW? I don’t know, but it does go and handle very well for the kind of car it is. It will do 220 km/h downhill and cruise at 200 to 205 on a level surface. I enjoyed the two-hour drive over here from the airport.

I’ve been trying to upload today’s picture to the server for quite a while now, and it doesn’t seem to be working at all. I don’t understand the problem, but if there’s no picture today, I’ll revise the site to add it as soon as I can figure it out. In the meantime, you can look at the morrowlife picture gallery. Just click the link over there on the right.

Later – Now I’m having troubles publishing anything at all. I just gets partway through and hangs. I have a trouble report in to Blogger. Can’t figure out what I could be doing wrong, so it must be in their servers (or maybe the Gardenville Software server, I guess).

Well, the computer’s just about out of juice. I’m in the hotel lobby where the wireless connection is, but there’s no power down here. So, I have to log off and go back up to my room to recharge. Have a great rest of the day. See you tomorrow.

Here’s the view from my condo’s balcony last night. The moonlight on the water was pretty.

I’m on my way in a few minutes from Cocoa Beach, Florida to Luxembourg. I’m sorry to leave the campaign and not necessarily looking forward to another transatlantic flight. I’m in first class again, though, so don’t worry about me too much.

Gotta get going. More on Tuesday.

I’m heading back to Luxembourg in three days so, in honor of that, here’s another picture from there. It’s a detail from one of the numerous fountains in Trier. Sadly, the water isn’t running this time of year, so the little guys with pipes in their mouths look a little strange. Still, it’s a cool fountain.

I spent eleven hours at work today and never got to anything on my to-do list. I’m hoping to keep it down to five or so hours the next couple of days, but I have my doubts. On a launch campaign, there are always an infinite number of things that need doing. For example, I fixed a golf cart yesterday. It was broken, we needed it, and all the techs were (or at least should have been) busy testing the spacecraft, so I volunteered. I enjoyed doing it and we now have a working golf cart. I guess I probably should been engineering this or integrating that, but the team needed the cart. Something else is bound to come up tomorrow and every day thereafter. I guess that’s part of the excitement of the campaign.

It was very warm and another beautiful day today. When I spoke with the family, I learned that they’ve been having warm, nice weather today too, so I can’t lord it over them today. Too bad. Maybe it will be great here and terrible there tomorrow. We can only hope not.

Today’s fitcheck went very well, and we’re moving full-steam ahead with spacecraft testing tomorrow morning.

I was able to change my lodging reservations to add a few days at the beginning of my next trip here, so I won’t have to move right in the middle of things next time. I don’t want to come back earlier, but I’m needed, so I’ll come. Sadly, my stay at home between trips will only last ten days. The good news is that it looks like I’ll be able to take a couple of comp days during that time, maximizing my (and even possibly my family’s) enjoyment.

Monk (link warning – sound!) was pretty good tonight, no? There were a few little obvious moments there, and I’m not really crazy about Randy’s band, but I still enjoyed it. However, I’m afraid to go to the dentist now, of course. Right now, I’m watching the end of Pillow Talk, with Rock Hudson and Doris Day on TCM. Very amusing. Interestingly, Doris Day’s character is named Jan Morrow. A long-lost relative!

Had dinner with three co-workers tonight at the Durango Steakhouse, the finest restaurant in Beautiful Titusville, Florida. Roy mentioned that if it was just a little bit better, it would be absolutely average.

It’s late, the movie is over now, my laptop’s battery is nearly dead, and I’m going to bed. Gotta get up early again tomorrow. I continue to wish a speedy recovery to Reader Number One. G’night, mate!

Here’s the view from my balcony window this morning. Nice. It was a gorgeous day today – quite a bit warmer than yesterday, but still dry and pleasant.

The downside was that I worked like a dog and didn’t get to enjoy the beautiful day. It was a twelve-hour day, and we didn’t even really have any integrated activities. I went up to the Atlas Vertical Integration Facility with a few other guys. The rocket looks just fine. We’re scheduled to do our fitcheck bright and early in the morning and then we can get down to testing the spacecraft.

A few of us were planning to go to a restaurant called Thai Thai, which occupies the building where Daniel’s Motorcycle Cafe used to be. I never really like Daniel’s much. Some of the other guys were crazy about it, though, so I went there several times. They sold “gourmet” pizzas, none of which ever appealed to me, and one entree a day, which was sometimes okay. Anyway, Thai Thai was really good. They had sushi, which, strangely, I didn’t have. I had a bowl of miso soup and something called “Thai Thai Chicken.” It’s really hard to describe, so let’s just say it was delicious. I’ll be back, and I’ll be trying the sushi next time.

The only downside of Thai Thai is that it appears to be pretty trendy. That goes against the grain, but at least it’s not pretentious.

Well, I’ve only been home for an hour or so and I already need to go to bed, so it’s time to quit. Maybe I’ll get home before dark tomorrow. Hope springs eternal!

Our spacecraft arrived today! Here’s the tail of the Antonov AN-124 we used to carry it.

Long day. I finally got moved in to the Cape Winds this afternoon. I got a top-floor corner room with a great view of the Atlantic as well as the swimming pool. I like it.

There’s not a lot of work scheduled for tomorrow, so I’m hoping to accomplish some of the tasks that have been piling up.

I haven’t been able to get much reading done on this trip yet, but I’m currently watching Arsenic and Old Lace. What a great movie. This condo has a DVD player in the living room, which is much better than using my computer to watch movies. As mentioned in an earlier post, I have plenty of movies to watch. Better get cracking.

Way past my bedtime. Good night.