Happy Birthday Jose!
I could say some schmoopy things to go along with that, but I won’t. It’s my boy’s birthday and I am doing my best to make it a good one. He already got his present — an Astros jersey that I gave him on Saturday so he could wear it to the game that night. He says having a jersey makes him want to go to even more games. Exactly. All part of my evil plan…
It’s been a weird day. I had a training class that was scheduled from 11-1, which of course is the worst possible time block for a training class. The only person willing to wait until 1:00 to eat lunch in honor of Jose’s birthday was Nick (and Heather, who met us there), which turned out to be just fine. Because we ate lunch so late, we didn’t get back until almost 3:00. The day’s almost over and it feels like I just got here.
My training class was fun, but my brain was just not firing on all cylinders today. Take, for example, my stunning display of coordinate system logic as I tried to figure out which way to push the stick to do a +Z burn. (That’s firing the jets on top of the orbiter that fire up, thus pushing you in the +Z direction, which is in the direction the belly of the vehicle is facing.)
In trying to figure out which way to push the stick, I decided that since I knew that +X was pushing in (forward) and +Y was pushing right, I’d use the right hand rule to figure out where +Z was.
I did it once and the answer was to pull the stick out. Hmm. That’s not right. In is +X, so out must be -X, not +Z. Oh, I realized, I’d inadvertently pointed +X in the up direction instead of into the console.
I did it again and the answer was to push the stick up. “Think again,” my instructor told me. But I used the right hand rule, I thought, it has to be up.
Then I remembered why the right hand rule is so aptly named. It’s because it only works when you use your RIGHT HAND.
I’d been sitting there doing the right hand rule with my left hand.
Some days I think I’d be better off at home. My brain obviously never got to work today.