Ok. That was one crazy awesome weekend. I’ve never been quite as annoyed to have to wake up, come to work, and hear that I might never actually get certified to work in the front room because the grand plan is to start cutting generic sims as soon as possible. But I am trying to keep my frustration at bay by remembering my weekend. Which was awesome.
Friday night Jen, Debbie, Jose and I headed downtown to the Astros game. They lost by the disappointing score of 2-1, but at least we got to enjoy the Friday Night Fireworks after the game. They really spare no expense with those things!
I had originally planned to get up Saturday morning and run the BARC Predict-Your-Time 5K and also renew my membership for the next year, but that was before I remembered that we had scheduled a BAM board meeting for 8:00 that morning! I was disappointed to miss the run, but we got some good stuff done at the BAM meeting. I got home in time to watch the STS-124 landing on NASA TV, and then Jose and I spent the rest of the day bumming around and running errands. I tried to buy a new camera (point and shoot), but Circuit City only had it in pink and I want blue. Hey, if I’m paying $200, I might as well get the color I want, right?
We had just started wondering what to do for dinner and how to spend our evening when Becca and Byron invited us to go sailing on Byron’s boat. That turned out to be the perfect activity for the evening.
We got out on the water just as the sun was setting and it was really nice. We had rushed to get out while it was still light because one of Byron’s friends wanted us to take some photos of his boat. After sailing up next to him and trading cameras, we sailed neck-and-neck for a while snapping photos and video as we went.
They headed back in while we continued to sail south along the shore for a while. The sun went down and you could see a lot more stars out there on the bay than you ever can from Clear Lake. Kemah shrank to just a small speck of neon on the horizon. After a while, we turned around to head back and the wind pretty much died. We were pulling about 2.5 knots with 4 miles still to go when Byron’s friend called — the motor on his boat had died, which made it nearly impossible for them to get back into their marina. We ended up putting the outboard motor back in the water and motoring the rest of the way back to Kemah to help them out. We towed them into the Kemah marina and then motored our way back under the bridge and into Clear Lake back to the Watergate Marina where Byron is currently keeping his boat. By the time we got back it was almost 11:30! I was pooped, but sailing was definitely a fun way to spend the evening.
As if that weren’t enough, Jose and I got up early Sunday morning to go flying! Sailing and flying in less than 24 hours. Jose wanted to get up and back early before it got too hot, and that was a great idea as far as I was concerned — yesterday had to have been one of the hottest days of the year so far. We were roasting on the ramp while Jose pre-flighted the plane. I did the two jobs I know how to do — take off the cover and untie the plane. I really should learn how to do more of the pre-flight checks so I can do something other than stand there. It took us forever to get the plane started — the engine just did not want to turn over. It finally roared to life after about 10 tries, and off we went.
It had gotten late enough that we only had about an hour to fly before we needed to be back to get ready for the Astros game yesterday afternoon, so we just flew over Clear Lake and Kemah before heading south to the coast. I even flew the plane for about 10 minutes, just keeping it straight and level. Oh, but I did fly a couple shallow turns. Fun! Just before we hit the coast, we turned to head back to Pearland. I was looking at the map to figure out exactly where we were, but I never felt sick. Hooray! As we got closer to the airport, I actually spotted the runway before Jose. That doesn’t usually happen, since he’s got so much more experience looking for the place.
We had an exciting landing because the wind was entirely crosswind, but of course Jose did a great job and squeak — our tires hit the concrete and we were back. We didn’t have time to dawdle since we immediately headed home to shower and meet Jen and Jason for what turned out to be a miserable day at Minute Maid Park. The Yankees won 13-0. It sucked. I’m so glad that I paid twice the normal ticket price to see the Astros get swept. (Yes, tickets for this series — and the Red Sox series in two weeks — were twice as expensive as any other series.) Cooper even decided to rest Berkman, Matsui and Wigginton, three regular starters. For a sold out game. On Father’s Day. It was crap. Just crap.
We had dinner over at Gavin and Jen’s house before the third and fourth episodes of “When We Left Earth” on the Discovery Channel. Carina was still awake when we got there for dinner and big news — she has started walking! We saw her take a couple very small steps on her own, and man was she pushing her plastic walker around the living room like noboby’s business. It was great. Go Carina.
With all that activity, I didn’t get a chance to go to Ellington for the STS-124 Welcome Home ceremony yesterday. But that doesn’t change the fact that they are safely home after a beautiful landing in Florida on Saturday morning. My first mission as rendezvous support is officially over.
There are more photos of all the weekend activities on Flickr if you’re interested.
Wow, those sailing pictures are beautiful.