Four things:
1) Rascal Flatts was cancelled at the rodeo last night. When I first heard the news, I assumed it was because of the weather (heavy heavy rain laced with hail), and thought that was pretty silly. Turns out he had bronchitis. Random. After another round of hail, we decided to cut our losses, get our money refunded, and just go to dinner at BJ’s instead.
2) After a pint at BJ’s, I needed to use the restroom. As I walked across the restaurant, I passed some random guy and didn’t give him any thought until I heard him say “are you Sarah?” I turned around and looked at him and said “yes…and you’re JD! Whoa!” Yes, I had never met him in person and we ran into each other at BJ’s and recognized each other from our blogs. Everyone at the table laughed at me when I came back from the bathroom and told them I’d just met one of my “internet friends.” Oh well. I didn’t meet his lovely wife Jaclyn (she was there, but after the brief interchange with JD, it was necessary for me to continue straight to the restroom)…but I will meet her this weekend at Seabrook.
3) I went to the rendezvous sim today, and one of my coworkers came along to sit with me and talk through everything that was happening. It felt very good to be watching a sim. Sims really feel like training, and make me feel like I’m making progress. All the reading I have to do, while necessary, just feels like school. I get easily disheartened. Sims make it better. Not to mention that the coworker who was sitting with me is one that I think is a really good flight controller. I don’t have much hard evidence to go on, but the way he works gives me a good feeling.
4) Said coworker did depress me, however, when he pointed out that had the freak hailstorm in Florida not happened, STS-117 would have launched this morning. I would’ve launched a space shuttle today, and tomorrow he’d be coming in to prepare it for rendeavous. Sigh. Maybe we should have seen it coming when we planned the launch for the Ides of March…