Ever get back from a great vacation where you were completely out of touch with television, internet, and most radio stations and when you reconnect, it seems like the whole world is falling apart? Me too.
New Orleans is a wasteland. The Gulf Coast is ripped to shreds. The Chief Justice died. A freak accident in Europe broke the cable on a gondola killing some of the passengers. A race car rammed into one of its pit crew. Gas prices climb and climb.
My air conditioning is on the fritz. As far as I can tell, it only cuts on once the apartment has surpassed about 87 degrees. Thankfully the humidity subsided sometime between when I left for the Pacific Northwest and when I returned, so with the windows open and my ceiling fans on, it’s actually not bad. I’m just glad it didn’t break in July!
The A/C issue follows a repeatedly broken garbage disposal (that they finally replaced instead of just fixing) and a repeatedly leaky roof (that they also appear to have finally fixed as evidenced by the bits of ceiling insulation I found all over my floor when I got back from vacation). Things break in threes, I guess.
I’ve got a long list of things to take care of in the next week or so. The triathlon in Lafayette, Louisiana that I was supposed to shoot this weekend with Karen was cancelled in the aftermath of the hurricane, so I have my weekend back. I’ll be spending it doing homework, since I obviously didn’t get any of it done while I was out of town. (Laptops are not good items to carry into the backcountry, go figure, heh.) I’ve got photos to print and mail, homework to do, and the RRCA Houston 2006 website templates to finish so that Jon and I can start adding content. I’ve got to start running regularly again so that I can do the 20K relay with Cassie.
Work is also busy. I’m trying to finalize a point design with Gavin, but can’t log into the Langley servers this morning because they are moving, and someone ignored the “DO NOT TOUCH, DO NOT MOVE” sign on the machine that has all the password files, so the servers aren’t recognizing my login. I am also starting my training for a flight control position, which is rather exciting! I have work on the Mars neural network to finish up as well.
AND, most exciting of all, I found out when I came back to work yesterday that I will be traveling to JPL in a week and a half for a meeting of young employees — a meet-‘n-greet, sharing information, making connections, discussing how to work together in the future type trip. There is a fairly large contingent going from JSC, including George and either Rich or Gavin, and Ron, and a bunch of others I don’t know. I am very excited. I’ve never been out there because it’s always Gavin that gets to go to JPL for the Mars meetings. Finally I get to go! (Even if it’s for a different purpose.) I actually think I will have more to contribute to this meeting than I would to a technical meeting anyway.
This slightly makes up for the fact that I don’t get to go to the IAASS conference in Nice at the end of October, despite the fact that I am writing a paper for it.
