the slopey bit

Indeed, I'm going to have steep going to climb this learning curve for my job for a good long while.  However, I am making progress, despite the extra challenges the last weeks have held.  We continue to meet for training sessions at the library, and I’m getting in plenty of studying at home as well.  I haven not set foot on JSC since a week ago Tuesday, so it will be a little weird to do that again (at some point).

Something here that gets joked about a lot, but is a real phenomenon to which a neophyte must adapt, is the lingo.  We talk in acronyms, and even sometimes nested acronyms, that stretch to several levels of encryption.  The whole operational culture is different than that in which I worked for three years with the SOHO spacecraft.  The scale of the organization is orders of magnitudes larger as well.  Of course a lot of that has to do with the scope of the vehicles involved (a space station with an area footprint the size of a football field…hello, big!) and the added concerns about safety since human beings get to go fly on a number of those vehicles.  I have a lot to learn, and I’m looking forward to it.

On the home front, I feel pretty much settled in and continue to revise how I have my junk arrayed in my apartment.  I actually got a folding lawn chair and some new pillows last weekend, so I feel I’m living pretty large now.  But, with the uncertainties about the work situation, I have been maintaining a frugal budget.  I did get my first paycheck today (hooray!), and hopefully that will continue to be a weekly event.

My heart goes out to the researchers and support personnel of the United States Antarctic Program that are being hit hard by this manufactured disruption to normal business.  With a bit of luck the abbreviated summer season and premature redeployment of hundreds of people will come off safely and leave the stations squared away for next winter.

“Valor is of no service, chance rules all, and the bravest often fall by the hands of cowards.”

~Tacitus

a memorable inauguration

This first week of work has been mostly me studying materials at home, with a couple trips to meet co-workers to receive training at the local library branch.  I have made incremental progress, but I think the learning for this job will probably never cease.  There is a lot to know about flying these vehicles and doing so safely.  For now, we are still being paid for our time.  I fill my time card out online, and keep in touch with my manager via email.  It certainly is a bizarre way to start a new job, but there is nothing we can do to change it.  At some point, however much further down the road, we will get to resume. 

Apropos to this ongoing situation, I got my new voter registration certificate in the mail this week.

“Beware the fury of a patient man.”

~John Dryden

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”