Do Not Enter

Yesterday when I arrived at work, I found the main entrance to my building (one of three) roped off with caution tape. They have been resurfacing all of the sidewalks because apparently someone felt they were too much of a slip, trip, and fall hazard. They really weren’t slippery before. Nevermind the thought that people simply take responsibility for themselves and be careful walking when it’s rainy.

Anyway, they are resurfacing the sidewalks to make them less slippery. Ironically, the intermediate step in this process is to basically varnish the whole sidewalk, presumably to even out the surface from its old rocks and pebbles feel. The varnish makes the sidewalk far more slippery than it ever was before, so they put up caution tape preventing access to the main entrance of the building. At first most people were simply ignoring the tape and walking (carefully) into the building. Around lunchtime, someone put an additional barrier in place so that we were reduced to slipping through a break in the bushes and trekking across the grass.

Today the resurfacing was complete, and we could all enter the building without fear of slipping, tripping, or falling.

Sigh. Such is life at a government agency.

Not a whole lot going on. Went to bed at 10:30 last night, the earliest in ages, but was still tired when I got up early this morning for a sim. The times aren’t going to get any better either as the launch gets closer. There’s a test next week that means I’ll have to come in at 5 a.m. The week after that is our last ascent sim before launch and I’ll have to be in at 4 a.m. Then of course is the launch itself (on October 23) that means I’ll have to be in at 3 a.m. We launch at 10:30 in the morning, which is what drives all these events as the crew begins to sleep shift in preparation for flight. Anything the crew is involved in moves earlier and earlier. We will be a cranky bunch by the time the launch shift rolls around.