STS-117 is hopefully coming home today after a wild ‘n crazy mission. The weather is cloudy with scattered storms in Florida though, so they may not make it in. I worked the launch, but I’m only a spectator for the landing. But speaking of the mission, here I am in the backroom watching the undocking on Tuesday. Those are the undocking procedures in my lap. We weren’t even looking at the displays because at that point we were watching the pretty pictures on TV.

Can you believe they didn’t take any photos of the backroom during launch? Dang! My first mission, and I don’t even have a record of me working it.

My mom arrives tonight for a 5 day visit, so I spent some time last night cleaning. Now my mom has known me for, oh, more than 29 years, so she knows that my apartment is always in a state of clutter. I organize by the “pile method.” I have a lot of stuff, and I keep most of it neatly stacked in various piles around the room. She knows this, so I don’t feel an overwhelming need to hide my piles.

I do, however, feel the need to clean things that have the potential to make her question how successful she was in raising me. (For the record, she was very successful.) This means wiping down the countertop in the bathroom, vacuuming the floor, putting fresh sheets on the bed, taking out the trash, and cleaning out the refrigerator.

I threw away everything in the fridge that was old or expired. I was left with what’s in the photo. While it’s not quite approaching bachelor level, it’s certainly proof that I eat out far too much. I’d be hard-pressed to make a full meal out of anything in there. (Go to the Flickr page to see notes on what’s in there.)

I skipped BAFT’s bike-run workout last night in favor of a solid hour on the bike, since I hadn’t ridden in three weeks. I left my apartment at 6:00 and did two laps around JSC plus a bit at the end to end up with 15.5 miles in about 57 minutes. I felt good on the first loop. I felt horrible on the second loop — tired and slightly nauseous. The slightly nauseous feeling has been common lately. My best guess is that I’m just not totally adjusted to the hot weather yet. I’ve always had a tendency to overheat quickly, and as a kid I often got heat rash. My guess is that the stomach discomfort is just a touch of heat exhaustion. Whatever it is, I hope it’s just a passing thing.