morrowlife

As today’s title suggests, watch for Tiki guy 2 tomorrow! The Tiki guys are out in front of Ron Jon’s. Pretty cool.

It was nice to hear from Reader Number Seven in yesterday’s comments. Those ‘gators were pretty big, but I heard about somewhere I can find some bigger ones. Apparently, there’s an alligator farm (link warning – talking alligator) not far from here (it’s near Christmas, Florida – home of the world’s largest non-organic alligator) where they grow ’em really big. However, I’m not sure that really counts since they’re in captivity. Still, if I get another free day, I’ll probably go over there and take a look. And a picture or two.

Had dinner at Roberto’s again tonight, with Bill and his wife once again. Also, we had Steve and Bridget – old friends who live here in town and have been very kind to me in the past – and Craig and a guy named Bill who I hadn’t met before yesterday. It was another great meal at a wonderful restaurant with delightful company. Let’s just say I’m not exactly losing weight on this campaign.

Operations are still on schedule today. Keep your fingers, toes, and eyes crossed. I want to go home on time! We don’t have much joint work tomorrow. The Atlas folks will prepare for transport to the launch pad and we’ll do other things. I’m going over to the pad for my familiarization walkdown. It’s the last step I have to take to renew my Cape safety badge. After that, I’ll probably spend the rest of the day working on charts for yet another management pre-launch review. Oh joy.

Nothing else to report today, so I won’t. After all, I got up, got dressed, went to work, worked, went straight to dinner, came home, talked to Reader Number Four for a long while, blogged, had a nice glass of smoothie, and went to bed (still to come, of course, but I can pretty safely predict in this area), so there’s not a lot of news. I’ll be back tomorrow. Until then, try to survive without me.

As promised yesterday, here’s a picture of the biggest alligator I saw on Saturday. Do you think that was worth sixteen bucks?

Saw another gator for free this afternoon, on the NASA causeway. There are a bunch of runoff ponds on either side of the road. On the way back to Astrotech from the ASOC, I noticed about a four-footer floating in one of them. Note to self: if my car breaks down on the base, don’t walk home. Call somebody.

I have to agree with Loyal Reader Number One’s comments on the obtuseness of the OCC website. Ironically, the subtext of last night’s American Chopper episode was Mikey’s new job as chief web architect for the company. They had a professional web designer do the coding, but Mikey did the redesign. I guess it just didn’t work out. As my Loyal Readers may or may not know, Mikey is widely thought to be the family member who’s a little bit short on know-how. Bluntly put, he’s an idiot. At least that’s how they treat him. Maybe it’s not really true, but it’s interesting how he acts when everybody else is giving him the usual grief. Hey – he might make an interesting case study. Maybe he acts stupid because of his environment. Maybe he would turn out to be a super-genius if only they would treat him like one. Maybe I could get together with some of my wealthy, snobbish friends and offer to take Mikey in and teach him to be a true gentleman. We could make a movie and call it “My Fair Biker.”

Or maybe he’s just stupid.

I just polished off another bottle of Smoothie. Yum. Luckily, there’s another one in the fridge.

The campaign went well today. We’re right on track for tomorrow’s operation, which is about the best we can hope for at this stage of the game. Keep watching for a launch on the twentieth!

Had dinner at Roberto’s Cuban Restaurant tonight. I got out of the office pretty late, picked up my laundry, went home and dropped it off, and then went directly to the restaurant. Still, I didn’t get out of there until just before 9:00. The food was outstanding – I had a Cuban tamale, garlic-and-lemon-encrusted shrimp, and flan – and the company turned out to be very nice. My old friend Bill Raynor and his wife were there when I arrived, just finishing up their meal. They came over and chatted with me for my entire meal, which was really nice of them. I had dinner with them last night too. Now I need to find out where they’re eating tomorrow.

See you tomorrow.

Here’s an artist’s-eye view of Ron Jon‘s surf shop here in Cocoa Beach. How artistic!

Had a pretty good day today. Our integrated operations started this morning with very good success. The only tough part of the day was that we started at 6:00 this morning. On top of the time change over the weekend, we had a pretty sleepy team, including me.

I went to Thai Thai for the third time on this campaign. Some friends from Denver invited me. The food was great, just as it has been every time, and the company was great. I really enjoyed the meal. After dinner, I came back to the condo and jacuzzified for an hour or so. There were a couple of families down there from Michigan – I enjoyed talking with them. Now I’m watching American Chopper on Discovery (they’re making a drag racing bike tonight, which is something new for the guys at OCC [link alert – sound!]), drinking a little bit of V8 Splash Smoothie, and writing my Monday blog post. The perfect end to a very nice day. The only thing I would change about today would be to spend it at home. Sigh.

I didn’t work over the weekend! On Saturday, I took a few pictures, including the highly artistic one featured above, and went to the Lone Cabbage Fish Camp for an airboat tour and fried lunch. I saw a bunch of alligators and some pretty (if somewhat swampy) scenery. I’ll work a couple of pictures in over the next few blog days. Sunday I spent at home in the condo, including listening to general conference, which I enjoyed.

And now, to bed!

Here are Reader Number One and an younger scout working on dinner at a recent campout. It may look like they were in the wild, but we were actually in the church parking lot. Close to home though we may have been, I think we had fun.

Well, it’s official – I have the whole weekend off. Unless somebody calls and they need me, of course. Whatever will I do? How will I spend the precious time other than listening to general conference? It still remains to be seen. Reader Number One is suggesting the swamp boat ride with large alligator viewing as a major goal. I have to admit that sounds attractive. Maybe it will happen. One thing is for certain, though – I need to take some good pictures. I don’t have my full photo collection here in Florida, and the pickings are getting pretty slim.

I also need to look into the Brevard County Manatees schedule. I need to see a ball game or two while I’m here.

We’re worried that we might have to work every future weekend day during this campaign except for Easter Sunday. That would be a shame, but if it keeps our launch on schedule, we’ll do it gladly. Time will tell.

Had dinner tonight at the Tokyo Japanese restaurant. It’s a Benihana clone. The food was good and plentiful. I tried the sushi. It’s definitely good, but not as good as at Thai Thai, which is the current reigning champion of Cocoa Beach.

I finished my bottle of pina colada V8 Splash Smoothie and opened the strawberry-banana one. Yum! The only thing better would be if I had someone to share it with. However, all the Valued Readers I know of hate the stuff. So I guess it’s just as well that I have it all to myself. And that the company paid for it.

See you on Monday, with a full report of the as-yet-unknown weekend activities. Remember to spring ahead!

I don’t think I’ve shown this one here before. It’s a statue guy on a pharmacy in Trier.

Check out the updates to the book club. I just finished Right Ho, Jeeves, by P.G. Wodehouse. What a hilarious book! I had read it before, of course, but the plot is so clever and amusing that I’m surprised and delighted every time. It’s a definite Must Read.

I’m now working on Psmith in the City, also by Wodehouse. I haven’t read any of his Psmith (pronounced Smith – the P is silent, as in psychology) books before, but I’ve heard say they’re his funniest. If so, I’m really going to enjoy this.

I dumped some of the other books from the list. They were library books that needed to be returned before my current trip is over, so I left them home and Shannon kindly returned them for me. Besides, I just couldn’t bring myself to read some of them, and that’s a sure sign that I should return them. I may be a half-wit, but it would take a quarter-wit to not figure that out eventually

It looks like I’ll have the weekend off – the spacecraft is doing great, so there’s not much to do until the launch vehicle people are ready for us on Monday (we hope). I haven’t decided what to do on Saturday yet. There’s always Disney (link warning – happy, peppy Disney music), which is much better if you have a friend to go with you. However, I’ve gone there alone in the past and still enjoyed it. I might be able to get some new photographic fodder for the blog there. I could also go on a swamp tour, which I’ve never done before. There’s also the possibility of lounging around the condo, walking on the beach, and generally being idle. That sounds pretty decent too. Of course, it’s general conference this weekend, so I also want to catch some of all of it.

Time for bed. Nighty-night.