Awards Day

Me and Tereasa Washington, Director of OHC

Yesterday, at my NASA job, my office attended the department’s annual award banquet. The theme this year was Mardi Gras. The location was all decked out in gold, green, yellow and purple table clothes, beads, masks and streamers. I received an OHC (Office of Human Capital) Achiever Award for (to quote the award) “For communicating and coordinating with customers on what Academic Affairs is and does to support the Center’s Human Capital strategy and the Agency mission.” Only one person gets this award each year. So all my helping beyond my contract boundaries, the tasks that fall under “other duties as assigned” such as helping with tours, answering the main phone line, supporting student events, running errands, and anything that they ask for volunteers has been recognized. I usually get in trouble for helping the other contractors (not on my contract) too much, but yesterday I got rewarded for it. So my years of helping out – despite being told not to – have paid off.

My Visitors Have Left

My Mom and her husband Charlie came to visit me this past weekend. I was a little nervous about them coming because I wasn’t sure if I would get my house clean to my liking and what they really wanted to do while they were here. I got all the cleaning I wanted to do done by Saturday morning and decided to make the plans once they arrived. I finally got a second bed in my guest bedroom, so I didn’t have to give up my bed or have my guests sleep on an air mattress or the couch. So anyone that wants to visit, I actually have a guest bed now. Hint, hint. ;)

Saturday, Sept 13
Weather: around 90 degrees, sunny and humid. Mom and Charlie showed up around 1:30 on Saturday afternoon. They got settled and we decided to go for a walk in the neighborhood. I haven’t really gone walking in the neighborhood yet so I was up for the walk. We then went out for dinner at a Bar-B-Que place that I heard was the best in town. I would not agree, but it was still good. After dinner took a little drive around the historic part of down town then went to the grocery store.

Sunday, Sept 14
Weather: Around 85, rainy and humid. I took them to church with me and we got a treat with a baptism, which I haven’t seen yet at the church. They both really liked the service. We went to my favorite Mexican restaurant for lunch then went home. There was a break in the rain and we decided to go for another walk in a different direction, but we weren’t so luck to stay dry for the entire walk. Good thing we brought our umbrellas. Mom made her famous home made spaghetti sauce for dinner and I loved it. I had forgotten how much I love her home made spaghetti sauce.

Monday, Sept 15
Weather: 75, rainy and cool. Charlie wanted to go to the US Space and Rocket Center. So I took them over there for a couple hours. They have a new entrance and I haven’t been to the new part. The new part was nice, but they just took displays from the museum and moved them to the new part. So I had seen pretty much everything there before they were just in a new spot. But the outing was for me, it was for Mom and Charlie. We ate a quick dinner of pizza and salad and played a couple rounds of the card game kings in the corners. By about 8 pm we were all getting tired and decided to stop and watch a little TV, One Tree Hill and CSI: Miami.

Tuesday, Sept 16
Weather: 78, sunny and a cool breeze. Mom and Charlie left this morning after breakfast around 8:45am. It was nice to have them visit.

Pepper did really well with them and only hissed once. Most of the time he acted like he usually does when it is just me in the house. I was really expecting him to be all upset and cranky. I really didn’t want to come to work after they left, but I had to go back eventually so way not this morning.

Not So Exciting Labor Day Weekend

Saturday morning I got up early to join my Uncle John, Aunt Kandy, Grandma Hayden and Uncle Jim on a historic trolley tour of downtown Huntsville. It was very informative, but I don’t remember any of it so don’t ask. Even my Uncle John learned some new things. He usually knows tons of history on the downtown area and the adjacent wealthy neighborhood called Twickingham. After that we all headed back to John & Kandy’s house for lunch and a weekend filled with watching DVDs, eating out at my least favorite Mexican restaurant, Univ of Alabama football, watching 2 hours of Mystery Diagnosis on TLC, and eating way more food than any one person should eat. Kandy always makes twice as much food as there are people. So there were only 5 of us there, but she easily had enough food for 8-10 people. Grandma and Jim left for home around 9am on Monday morning, so I didn’t bother going to John & Kandy’s. I got to stay home and catch up on chores around the house.

Monday I got up and waited until around 9:30am to go out and mow the grass. Tropical Storm Faye’s winds had dropped some branches in my yard so I had to pick them up before I started. I had such high hopes to get tons of things done around the house: mow the grass, laundry, dishes, watch the 2 movies I rented, and clean the bathrooms. Around 1:30 or 2:00, as I was watching the movie Georgia Rule, my sinuses started hurting, so I took a nap until around 6:00pm. There goes my super productive day. I could have slept longer, but I wanted to catch the season premiere of One Tree Hill which I thought started at 7:00pm but was really at 8:00pm. I am so glad I stayed up long enough to watch One Tree Hill. That would not have been as good to see recorded. I then went to bed in hopes that my sinuses would clear out in time to go to work in the morning. No such luck. My sinuses were not as bad, but they still hurt and now my eyes did too. So I stayed home yesterday. In the afternoon, I got a good dose of really clean hospital air at my second job and it helped clear them out. So today I am back at work with just a sinus headache that is a little worse than my everyday sinus headache.

Dixie Derby Girls

Sunday, I went to my very first Dixie Derby Girls roller derby bout (game). I’ve wanted to go to a bout for awhile now, but never had anyone who wanted to go with me. I mentioned to my co-worker Miranda that I wanted to go see a bout and she said that she goes and watches them all the time. Miranda was the best person to go with because she knows the ins-and-outs of the sport and explained things about the bout before and as it was being played.

If you are unsure about how roller derby is played, here you go. Each team consists of a Jammer (who wears a helmet with a star on it), a Pivot (that has a stripe on their helmet), and Blockers (3 others each team). Each bout lasts 2 minutes and there are two-30 minute periods with a half time in between. Each team has one Jammer and they are the only person who can score points. They also have just one Pivot, they set the pace for the Blockers. The Bout starts with the Blockers starting on the first whistle and the Jammers starting on the second whistle. The way the Jammers score points is to catch up to the Blockers and pass them without falling or going out of bounds. It moves very quickly and sometime it is hard to count how many times they pass the Blockers during the bout. They have a commentator that acts as the cheerleader and gave a play by play during the bouts.

During half time they had a raffle. You could win tattoos, piercings, and gift certificates. One of Miranda’s friends won a $100 tattoo. They also had a live band to play during half time.

I’m definitely going to their next bout in October. They only have a home bout once a month, so there is not much opportunity to see them in action. I really didn’t know what to expect to find, but I figured it would be fun. It was tons of fun!

I’m so tired….

Since the NASA workshop ended in the middle of July, the weeks have been really low key and nothing new both at home and at work. The last 2 weeks have been, I don’t want to say exciting, but I’ll say interesting. I’m going to chunk it out to help explain better.

I didn’t expect to get so caught up in the Olympics, but I did. So I’ve been taping and trying to watch as much as I can at home between the time I get home from my second job and the time I go to bed; which usually is 9:15pm – 10:15pm or 10:30pm. I missed out on seeing most of the individual gymnastics events. :( They were the events I wanted to see the most. The last few days I’ve been trying to catch the BMX bike events, but I can’t figure out what time they are on. I think they were on late last night, after I went to bed. I’ve been struggling with sleepiness since I’ve been staying up later to watch the events.

The lady that I work with at my second job car broke down 2 Sundays ago. Her car breaking down is not what she needed and sent her finances in a downward spiral. To help her out I have been doing (what my friend Paula calls) missionary work; bring her back and forth to work for about 5 days out of the past 2 weeks. Thank God she is getting her car back this morning. She claims she is going to pay me gas money, but I’ll find out tonight if it is going to be like pulling teeth to get it out of her. I’ve been bring her back and forth because I can’t clean what we both clean in one night by myself, so I needed her to be there.

Last Sunday night, as I was in my bathroom brushing my teeth, I hear out the window “Stop, don’t run!” and police radios. I quickly looked out the window to see 2 police officers chasing my neighbor in between our houses into his back yard and on to the deck. They asked why he was running and he said he wasn’t and that this was his house. They said prove it, so he yelled in the house for the other guy that lives there to come out and ID him. They then sat on the deck taking to him and I couldn’t hear their conversation too well over the teeth brushing and water running. When I was finished, I went to the front of the house to see if there was a group of squad cars, because I didn’t see any lights flashing outside. I found one squad car parked in front of the neighbor 2 houses down with just the parking lights on. I think the police was following him from out on the main street. That sort of creeped me out for a couple days and got me thinking about his weird behavior in the past. Since the spring he has been parking his mother’s car (that also lives there) in the back yard. He never uses the front door to go in or out of the house, he goes through the back sliding door. Even though there is a car in the back yard, he always seems to be waiting at the end of the driveway for someone to come pick him up and always stares at me when I leave for my second job (like he is noticing when I come and go). On Saturday, he came outside while I was mowing my grass and sat on the deck to watch me. As soon as I went behind my gigantic bushes he went back in the house. If I can swing it, it may be time for either an alarm system or a big dog.

My NASA job has even been lively this week. Tuesday we were going to have a Crew Visit. A Crew Visit is NASA’s way of getting the crew of each Shuttle flight out to each NASA Center to thank them for their hard work and getting them safely to and from space. We often invite schools to participate in the crew visits. My boss had put me in charge of making sure the logistics for the school that was invited this time was all set. Tuesday morning rolls around and I get a call at 8:30am saying the crew visit is cancelled because of weather in Houston, TX. So I had to call the school to tell them the crew visit was cancelled, but the bus had already left. So I thought I would catch them when they got to the US Space & Rocket Center, where I was going to meet them. I then remembered that we had activities for them after the crew visit, so we were going to just do those activities. After I was waiting for about 30 minutes for the bus to arrive, I called the school and they said they caught the bus and had them turn back around. So that whole morning was pretty much thrown out the window.

So far that is it. Here's a sneak peek of what I'm doing on Sunday - watching the Dixie Derby Girls bout (Roller Derby).