Pensive

It’s only Tuesday but it’s already been a weird week. I find myself trying to get certified to work a position that, for now, is specific to the space shuttle. The space shuttle, however, is going to stop flying in two years. There are lots of decisions being made about how to conclude flight controller training for the shuttle and begin to transition a large part of the NASA workforce to the new Constellation program. And I feel pinched. I really, really want to finish the training flow I am about to begin, and I really, really want to be able to work a shuttle flight as lead rendezvous officer before the program ends. I feel like I need this certification, and the ensuing experience, in order to put myself in a decent position to make contributions to the future vehicle — and to position myself for a fulfilling job after the shuttle program ends. But upper management is trying to figure out how to reduce the number of sims that we run. This is necessary to free up people to work the new program, but it also adversely affects people like me who are still in a training flow. It’s a race against time, but many of the factors involved are beyond my control, and I’m afraid that I might not win. So I feel very anxious about my future career.
I swam 1800 yards last night and I can feel it in my arms and back today. It was a good swim, three sets of 500 yards freestyle, each followed by 100 yards of breaststroke. There was a crazy guy two lanes over from me. I couldn’t figure out what he was doing. As I left, I noticed his bag had tags hanging off it that read “Speedo” and “Athlete” and things like that — they looked like athlete passes from some kind of event. But his behavior in the pool was just strange. He never swam more than 50 yards without taking an extended break. He swam each of those 50 yards all-out, but his breaks were so long that it didn’t seem as if he was doing any sort of structured workout. At one point, he wore flippers on his feet and paddled backstroke furiously while his body was angled in the water at about 45 degrees. I can’t even describe well what he was doing but it was strange. Basically, everything he did seemed designed to produce the maximum amount of splash and noise. Weird.
I bought two more orchids last night at HEB. I know, HEB! A grocery store. Seems like a strange place to buy orchids, but they were only $9.99 and they looked very healthy. Plus, they were both still blooming, so now I’ve got some new flowers to enjoy while my purple one goes dormant for the year — or whatever it is they do.
After two up-and-down years, I surrendered the HARRA webmaster position to someone else. I enjoyed working on the website, and being a part of the HARRA board, even if I wasn’t very active as a board member. I enjoyed redesigning the site and getting things up and running with a new system. But after two years, I needed a break from the day-to-day maintenance work, and from the emails from members asking questions that were new to them, but that I felt like I’d answered a thousand times already. I think I’m a lot more interested in website design than in website maintenance anyway. It will be good to have fresh blood working on the site.