Whew! I worked our first STS-133 rendezvous sim yesterday. It was a real doozy, with multiple failures that required a lot of action on our part. And for every action, there’s 10 times as much discussion and coordination that has to take place. Towards the end of the sim, I swear my brain hurt. And I mean that literally, as in: I had a pounding headache that slowly faded once the sim was over. I got home last night after 10.5 hours of simming, basically collapsed onto the couch, and barely moved for the rest of the night. It sounds bizarre to claim that something that involves zero physical activity — I sit in a chair at a console in front of a computer — can be so exhausting. And yet it is.
Despite my exhaustion, it was a good sim, and good practice for our mission. STS-133 is scheduled to launch on November 1.
On to other topics! The three-day holiday weekend was fantastic, relaxing, and utterly enjoyable. We bought books for our upcoming beach vacation. I went to see the Twilight movie. (No, I did not make Jose go with me; I went with a friend. And yes, the movie was as awful as expected.) I went out to dinner with friends, and we all watched fireworks from the parking lot of the Hobby Lobby. Ah, Texas.
On Monday, Jose and I made a trip to the frame store. Luckily for us, they were having a buy-one, get-one-for-a-penny sale! We came home with a bunch of frames for a bunch of little projects. First up was framing and hanging two engravings we bought in Venice. We decided they would look really nice in our bedroom, so I decided there was no time like the present and got to work. Half an hour later, the job was done!
Here’s the “before” shot. This is Jose’s dresser, and it sits between the door to the bedroom and the door to the bathroom. Our bedroom has a vaulted ceiling that reaches something like 14 or 16 feet at the apex. It’s absurdly tall, and makes our bedroom feel huge!
Here’s the “after” shot! Lovely! A super easy project that makes the bedroom look nicer already.
We got these prints from a shop in Venice called BAC Art Studio. They had many different engravings of Venice scenes to choose from. My favorite was the one on the left; I liked the gondolas, and the colors of the print. Jose’s favorite was the one on the right; he loved the middle-eastern style windows and arches. We compromised and just got both. Win!
