What day is it? What time is it? Both of those questions require a lot of thinking on my part before I can come up with an answer. It’s sunny outside, so it must be daytime…Monday? Just in case you’ve never been so fortunate as to work a middle-of-the-night shift, let me tell you: it sucks. Working in Mission Control is fun, and working a space shuttle mission is fun, and I hate to complain about the one part of my job that makes the whole thing worthwhile…but the night shift? S. U. C. K. S.
And did I mention that I now have a cold as well? So add sniffling and sneezing and general achiness to my overall fatigue and I’m probably not a fun person to be around at the moment.
The good news is that we docked successfully yesterday to the space station, so I was able to go on-call starting last night. I had planned to stay up to watch the rendezvous, but that didn’t happen. I sat down on the couch and the rest of the afternoon went like this:
Fall asleep.
Wake up briefly.
Think “oh look, they’re about to do a burn.”
Fall back asleep.
Wake up briefly.
“Oh look, they just did another burn.”
Fall back asleep.
Wake up briefly.
“Oh, they’re doing the backflip to get pictures of the heat shield tiles…”
Fall back asleep.
Wake up.
“Oh, they’re docked.”
The TV was on, showing the rendezvous, but I was most definitely not watching as I’d planned. Oh well. I’m hoping I can now finally let my internal clock readjust to Houston time. I figure that about when I’m finally readjusted, it’ll be time for me to power through two more night shifts I have to work leading up to undock. You know, the astronauts flying a mission get all sorts of help when they have to shift their schedule — special place to sleep, all contact with them is controlled so that they can shift, etc, etc. But flight controllers? We have to somehow do it on our own. Suddenly I start wondering how my dad has worked odd hours for so many years, especially when my siblings and I were still at home…
Well, that’s enough talk about my screwed up schedule and internal clock for today. The engagement news has spread all over and the most popular question is “so when’s the wedding?” I know that people don’t actually expect us to have a date yet…I know that it’s just the standard question to ask in a conversation about getting engaged, just like you’d ask a pregnant woman when she’s due. But the repeated question makes me want to start planning! Because I do love to plan. So I’ve started pondering a couple different things, and holy crap are weddings expensive or what?!
First up is choosing a venue, I guess. We have a few ideas, but I’m definitely open to suggestion. For those of you who live in the Houston area, have you ever been to a wedding in a cool or unique location? I’d love to hear about it. Neither Jose or I are churchgoers, so we need to find a place for the ceremony as well, and we’re hoping we can find a cool place.
Weddings are indeed expensive. You should think about a budget and type of wedding you want before looking at venues. The most expensive thing will be to feed and water people, so think about how many people you will need. If you want someone else to feed and water people (with alcohol) you will probably need to budget $45 a head just for that. If you want them to all be able to sit down for dinner on a Saturday and drink other than soft-drinks then it will be more expensive.
I’m sure your sister can fill you in on all the details.
There are several great restaurants that have reception rooms where I’ve been for weddings. Is there someplace that holds a special meaning for both of you that could hold the wedding?
I’ve always wanted to go to a wedding at the Transco Tower (or whatever it’s called now) with the waterfall as the backdrop.
And if all else fails – my house! It’s free! It’s available most weekends!
I think you should have it at NASA or at least Space Center Houston. 😉