Fraught first foray

Well, nothing worth doing is ever easy, correct?  Good, because I think this new job is going to be pretty doggone challenging.  I got through my initial bout of HR business this morning without any big issues, including getting my first badge for the day for USA.

I then headed over to JSC and got my temporary access badge to enter the base and got myself up to the offices whence I'll base myself for the foreseeable future.  It is kind of a rabbits' warren of partitions and doors and narrow walkways.  It became quickly apparent that getting through the next round of security screenings and obtaining permission to use IT resources was going to take a bit, which might actually take even longer (more below) given current events.  I got the whirlwind tour and gauntlet of introductions, and I think some names and roles sunk in after the first immersion.  I eventually got some hard copies of training materials I need to start learning for my various levels of certification for the hierarchy of positions within the Grappling Visiting Vehicle Officer (VVO) Group.  Reading that material and intermittently trying to find out how to get IT access and sort out other bureaucratic issues consumed the rest of the day save for about 30 minutes spent touring the attached building with the actual operations rooms/flight control rooms.  Learning acronyms is going to be a long-term effort, which comes as no surprise.

Soooo, my initiation into this challenging position is being made all the more tough by the looming issue of the government shutdown and potential furloughs that could go into effect as early as tomorrow.  Great, just great.  Contractors like me won't be unable to work, but we may be kept out of JSC proper and have to work elsewhere.  Regardless, this will neither get me my badges any more rapidly, nor will it get me into and through the background check process any swifter.  The plan is to go to work at the normal hour tomorrow and see what happens.  It'd be nice not to have to worry about this, but it is what it is (way above my pay grade).

So, my plate is pretty full for the time being.  I think it will be from now on, period.

“Man does what he can and bears what he must.”

~Nicias

Turning the crank

Since I last wrote, I have continued to get acclimated to my new digs and environs.  The weather has been fair, despite some rains that rolled through over the weekend.  I have kept myself busy with continuing to research my past for the big upcoming background check, as well as taking care of sundry address changes and such for my bureaucratic entanglements.  Some of the bigger tasks that are almost completed are now just waiting for others to mail me final versions of titles, driver’s licenses, etc.

My apartment complex is quite nice, rather nicer than any I have been in before.  Of course I would not mind an uncluttered vista like the view from my folks’ place back home, but that is not really possible here.  So it is and so it goes for a country mouse in a city house.  After a week in the apartment I am getting used to some of the rhythms of the place.  The gurgle and spurt of sprinklers turning on late woke me up the first few nights.  I also seem to be coming to grips with my paranoia about mold, but will remain vigilant to keep that at bay.

All in all, things are going well and I think I will be well and ready for work to start next Monday. 

“Like many introverts, I'm capable of adopting a persona and going out into a public place if there's a reason to."

~Neal Stephenson, Eurogamer interview pub. 7/5/2012

Dislocation, relocation, & now this location

I got myself moved down to Houston over the weekend and Monday with the assistance of my folks, and thankfully with no mishaps.  The truck I was given was a 16' one, not a 10' one like I'd ordered, so I had plenty of extra space in the cargo box.  After getting my folks to the airport I started the process of unpacking and doing the multitude of errands involved in resettling someplace urban like this.

There are already things I miss about home, for sure.  But, it has been alright here, and I've probably not suffered any more than my usual fair share of trepidations upon embarking on something new.  I know I have to make a long-term home here, and I think it will be doable.  It's mostly going to be a mind game, like so much of life is it seems.

A few niceties of the experience thus far are that I seem to be able to navigate pretty well, though I haven't been here much since an internship during the summer of 2000.  My apartment is pretty close to a lot of the places I've needed or will need to visit to take care of the relocation errands.  The public library nearby is pretty big/extensive.  I will have a succinct commute to work, as well.  My apartment is also very livable, though I'm going to have to deal with some paranoia regarding mold in the swampy environment here.  All in all (knock on wood), the process of becoming a Texas resident is going pretty decently so far.

"Turning Japanese, I think I'm turning Japanese!  I really think so."
~The Vapors

The Guy Who Came in from the Cold

Once again I will be heading south to work, but not THAT far south.  I have actually accepted an actual offer for an aerospace-related position in Houston, TX.  I will work at National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Johnson Space Center (JSC) in mission control as a Visiting Vehicle Officer (VVO), supporting flights to and from the International Space Station (ISS).  I will not start until later next month, but am already in the thick of doing hiring paperwork, background check data collection (daunting), and the usual interstate relocation song and dance.  It feels great to have gotten this opportunity at long last, and I look forward to much learning and professional development in years to come.  A door has certainly opened at an opportune time.

“Stand by the grey stone when the thrush knocks, and the setting sun with the last light of Durin’s Day will shine upon the key-hole.”

~J.R.R. Tolkien, “The Hobbit”

Northward, ho the wagons!

I had a nice little road trip and visit to Omaha, Nebraska last week.  It was a new destination for me, and having some local friends from the Ice to see the sights with was certainly fun.

The first big destination was the Strategic Air and Space Museum, which had many remarkable vehicles on display.  Getting to see a B-29, let alone go in the cockpit of a B-36 was pretty novel.

Downtown Omaha with its NPS visitor’s center for the Lewis and Clark Trail, multiple monuments to organized labor, relatively new pedestrian bridge over the Missouri River, and proximity to my most newly visited state of the Union (Iowa) was a fun outing for day two.

The last day there we went to the really big and excellent zoo.  I didn’t really photograph anything there, but really enjoyed the day.  Animals of note for me were a giant Japanese salamander (head the size of a large cantaloupe), sleepy aardvarks, snow leopards, and pygmy hippopotami.

The drive to and from was nice as well.  We visited the Atomic Cannon above I-70 at Fort Riley, the Pony Express barn (last home station in existence) in Marysville, and the Homestead National Monument of America near Beatrice (that’s pronounced be-AT-tris, FYI) on the way up.  On the way back we had lunch in the oldest restaurant west of the Mississippi (Hays House in Council Grove), visited the verdant National Tallgrass Prairie Preserve, and watched muddy flood waters of the Cottonwood River at Cottonwood Falls.

“The slow cavalcade of horsemen armed to the teeth has disappeared before parlor cars and the effeminate comforts of modern travel.”

~Francis Parkman, “The Oregon Trail”

Home & Away

Unfortunately my plans for what comes next are still in flux around that familiar acronym, TBD.  One of these days that will change.

Here at home we had a visitor one day a while back: the second horned toad I’ve ever encountered.  He/she was quite fleet of foot, and certainly lived up to its name.  It didn’t spit any blood out of its eyeballs, though.

Over the Independence Day weekend I took a quick road trip to St. Louis.  My venerable chariot “El Civ” knocked down 42.8 miles per gallon going and coming, which was reassuring.  It was nice to get away, and I had some lovely company for the duration.  I also espied 43 states’ (and one Canadian province) license plates, which seemed pretty darn good for the brevity of the journey!

The savior of the Union and 18^th President of the United States figured largely in two of the places we visited.  The first was the Ulysses S. GrantNational Historic Site, which was the home of his wife’s family.  It was a slave plantation; and-yes-that issue did create strife with Grant’s in-laws (should come as little surprise).  Across the contemporary street is the Grant’s Farm facility, which includes the humble cabin U.S.G. built for his Hardscrabble Farm, as well as some of the herd of Clydesdale horses.  The place is owned/operated by Anheuser-Busch, and has a bunch of other animals in its menagerie as well.

The Sandy Creek Covered Bridge was also on the itinerary, which is just one of four remaining such structures in the state of Missouri.  It turns out covered bridges were primarily enclosed to protect their wooden truss structures.  That practical means just serendipitously led to a rather picturesque end.

The Mastodon State Historic Site had an interesting museum, as well as a nice walk down the bluff to the site of the historically significant Kimmswick Bone Bed.  It was here that not only were a bunch of fossil bones found, but that some Folsom spear points were found in contact with the bones.  This pretty well established the contact between megafauna (like mastodons and 8-foot-long giant beavers) and early human residents of the neighborhood.  Cool, huh?

On the way home I made a quick stop in Jefferson City to stroll through the state capitol building and Missouri State Museum therein.  I would have gone through the buildings down at the Jefferson Landing site at the bottom of the hill on the Missouri River, but they were closed on Mondays.  At least I got to see an Amtrak train arrive and depart from the little station there.  It was cool to see one of the multitude of places the Corps of Discovery, headed by Lewis and Clark, passed on their way to/from the Pacific.

"The world is old, and no doubt plenty of people have lived in it and been forgotten."

~Allan's Wife by H. Rider Haggard

Hanging in there

Well, summer is gorgeous so far here in Kansas.  Things are still green, but the wheat has gone golden in the last week, so harvest is shortly going to get underway.  Lightning bugs, bats, skinks, all manner of birds, snakes, mosquitoes, and the other cast of billions have made their appearance.  That includes the usual arrival of the armada of buzzards that roost on one of the water towers in town, which does not bother me as much as it does some people.

I’m still searching for some clarity regarding what comes next for yours truly, but have a bunch of proverbial irons in the proverbial fire.  Sometimes it seems like reporting on what I’m doing would sound like the guy’s paper on what he did during his summer vacation in Cheech and Chong’s Sister Mary Elephant sketch.  Something will coalesce here pretty soon, I’m sure, even if it ends up just being for a few months.  Regardless, it will be nice to have a purpose once again.  One evening this week I took a several-hour basic first aid refresher class down in Wichita, which made me feel pretty decent about my knowledge on the subjects covered and then some.  Next week I have an appointment for a little work to be done on my car to make sure I have a steed ready to ride off into the sunset upon whenever the time comes.  With luck by the time I’m all said and done I’ll have put together a biography as varied and interesting as Louis L’Amour’s.  One step at a time…

Eight folks got a nice, big step this week with NASA’s new astronaut candidates being selected.  One is an “ice person”, so it is nice to know the door is open, though it looks like military backgrounds are a lot more desirable.  I certainly will apply whenever the next selection begins again.

‘Despair, or folly?’ said Gandalf. ‘It is not despair, for despair is only for those who see the end beyond all doubt.  We do not.  It is wisdom to recognize necessity, when all other courses have been weighed, though as folly it may appear to those who cling to false hope.’
~Gandalf (Council of Elrond), LOTR by J.R.R. Tolkien