It really did snow in Houston this year, and I have video proof!
Monday, December 14, 2009
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
4th of July BBQ
I went from having no plans for the 4th, to hosting a party/BBQ at my house. And it was awsome. A party complete with Burgers, Brats, Beers, corn on the cob (on the grill!), and Rock Band. Then we headed to Pasadena fair grounds for fireworks. It was all pretty fun, good food, good company. Here is the album:
Saturday, July 4, 2009
Beach week, conclusion.
So, I guess I spent less time on the internet than I thought I would. That translated into significantly less updates over the course of beach week 2009. Anyways, I hope to give a good overview of the week here on the blog, complete with photo album and play by play. This may take a while to put together, due to all the house work I have neglected, but it will all be posted eventually. Here is an album to get you started.
Monday, June 22, 2009
Beach Week, Part 1
At the beach for a week with old High School buddies! Having a blast so far, so in the down time at the house we rented, I will be doing some blogging!
We got to Salvo, NC around 1pm Sunday, but couldn't get into the rental property until 2:30, so we spent a few hours that day on the beach and in the water. Then we did burgers and hot dogs on the grill for dinner.
Today was the first full day at the beach. The weather was great, and the waves were huge! Just got back in, showered, and am now helping Brian cook dinner. Tonight it is Chicken Breast on the grill, half with Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ sauce, half with a sweet mescuite dry rub, cooked over the grill. Gotta go help now, so here is today's Burn Update:
Monday, June 1, 2009
Pictures from my last trip home
Totally forgot I had uploaded these!
Pictures from my last trip home: Emily's graduation, night out with my cop and lawyer friend, and hanging out with the family and the entire neighborhood. Good times!
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| From 2009-05-23 Ems graduation |
Pictures from my last trip home: Emily's graduation, night out with my cop and lawyer friend, and hanging out with the family and the entire neighborhood. Good times!
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Six person ISS crew on it's way, and nomination of new NASA Admin
Just wanted to post a little something about a few things NASA related that you all might be interested in. The first is the news that the second half of the first 6 person Space Station Crew is on it's way! Soyuz TMA-15 launched today from Baiconure Cosmodrome, on it's way to a docking with ISS for the start of 6 person ops. This is big news for us, especially since we just started processing urine into potable water last week (my group was partially in charge of getting the toilet to work so it could ship urine to the processor). We did a lot of other work to prepare for six person ops, but this is probably the most visible of our contributions. Internationally, it has big implications because the crew will be made up of astronauts from all the space agencies participating in the ISS program. NASA, ESA (Europe), JAXA (Japan), Roscosmos, and CSA (Canada) will all now have astronauts on board, come Soyuz docking day.
The other thing worth mentioning is the nomination of Gen. Charles Bolden as NASA Administrator. Obama has made his pick, now it is up to Congress to confirm him. As a former Space Shuttle Astronaut, you would think he would be a great choice for the manned spaceflight crowd, but the fact is he is also very supportive of the additional goals of the space program. He has shown his support for manned exploration as well as the science programs of NASA, many of which were cut when NASA had to reorganize after budget cuts. He is also a big believer that the work NASA does today is what will influence the engineers and scientists of tomorrow. With Bolden at the helm, I can see him fighting for more funding for science programs, and maintaining current funding for exploration prgrams (which would all be a good thing).
The other thing worth mentioning is the nomination of Gen. Charles Bolden as NASA Administrator. Obama has made his pick, now it is up to Congress to confirm him. As a former Space Shuttle Astronaut, you would think he would be a great choice for the manned spaceflight crowd, but the fact is he is also very supportive of the additional goals of the space program. He has shown his support for manned exploration as well as the science programs of NASA, many of which were cut when NASA had to reorganize after budget cuts. He is also a big believer that the work NASA does today is what will influence the engineers and scientists of tomorrow. With Bolden at the helm, I can see him fighting for more funding for science programs, and maintaining current funding for exploration prgrams (which would all be a good thing).
Anyways, that is the big news from today for you.
Saturday, May 23, 2009
The Long Awaited New House Album...
I know, I know, this took me forever to put up. I have been really busy and only recently was able to upload the few pictures of the house that I have taken. I will try and add some more in the coming days, but for now this should be enough to get you started.
Stats:
House Square Footage: 1580
Yard: 8750
2 car garage
15 minutes from Johnson Space Center, no traffic ever.
Stats:
House Square Footage: 1580
Yard: 8750
2 car garage
15 minutes from Johnson Space Center, no traffic ever.
Enjoy:
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Coolest Pictures of the International Space Station You Will See [until STS-127 flies]
You can't Photoshop this sh*t...
With the STS-119 mission to ISS complete, the station is now symmetrical and a whole lot more capable. Not to mention how gorgeous it looks now, sailing over planet Earth.
In just a few short months, the International Space Station crew will grow to 6 long duration astronauts (up from 3), assuming we can get the potty to work! This is a big step for the world's space programs, and hopefully the work we do in the coming years will help open up that frontier to commercial entities. By having commercial companies develop Low Earth Orbit, NASA (and ESA and JAXA and Roscosmos) can get back to doing what they do best, exploring and pushing back our boundaries! Ad luna, ad ares, ad astra!On an interesting side note, Stephen Colbert recently won an online voting contest NASA held to name the last permanent habitable module the US is launching to the station at the end of the year. Colbert beat out Serenity for the new name of Node 3. I think it is tragic that he won, but I also can't deny the amount of good publicity Stephen has given the space program, and national science programs in general. I kind of hope they choose to at least name the toilet after him, if not the Cupola (the Colbert Bump). In reality, the names are just publicity pseudonyms anyways. Us engineering type folk, and all the operations people just call the modules by their engineering names: Node 1, Lab, Node 2, FGB, JEM, etc. It is still nice to see such a public figure showing interest.
Get the rest of this amazing photography taken from the Space Shuttle Discovery here.
Friday, March 13, 2009
ISS Lives On
I figured by now more people would have called or emailed to ask about the whole "ISS Evacuated" headlines that ran rampant yesterday. I guess people don't follow NASA news as much as I hoped...
So just to quell any curiosity, I figured I would make sure to post about the excitement of the past couple of days.
News sites worldwide were freaking out Thursday when the three residents of the International Space Station (of which I am a team member, being part of the training and operations organization, the Mission Operations Directorate) were told to board the Russian Soyuz (their ride home in case of an emergency). The media outlet sure made it seem like ISS was actually abandoned, with headlines like "Astronauts Evacuate Space Station" and the like. I will try to explain what actually happened and the general mood at JSC during the whole event.
Currently, we have 2 NASA Astronauts (Mike Finke and Sandy Magnus) and one cosmonaut (Yuri Lonchakov) living on the International Space Station. Sometime Wednesday night, STRATCOM notified JSC that they were tracking a piece of debris that would potentially violate the "zone of exclusion" (so to speak) at 11:39 am Central time Thursday. Usually, NASA is notified of these conjunctions much earlier, but STRATCOM apparently made some mistakes in their calculations due to the highly elliptical nature of the object's orbit, and only found out about it Wednesday. This was not enough time to conduct a Debris Avoidance Maneuver (DAM), which essentially consists of ISS raising it's orbit to avoid the piece of space junk. For history, since the first pieces of ISS were launched 10 years ago, we have only conducted something like 8 of these maneuvers.
So Thursday morning, as calculations and orbits were updated, Mission Control Center Houston (MCC-H) decided to go to an unmanned config and place crew in the Soyuz, as a precaution. What this consists of is turning off a lot of essential equipment on ISS and things that wouldn't be needed if ISS were unmanned, closing hatches so a debris hit on any one module would not mean we lose all the modules, then going to the Soyuz to ride out the event. If the habitable modules of the space station were to be punctured, atmosphere would leak until station was at vacuum, so by being in the Soyuz crew could just close that hatch and head home safely if there was not enough time to find and patch the hole.
Because of the nature of this particular piece of space junk (both its velocity and size) MCC-H was calculating that it could potentially cause of 2 inch hole in station if it hit. A hole this size would mean crew would have a reserve time (Tres) of about 10 minutes. This is enginerd-speak for "10 minutes until ISS is at vacuum". As some of you don't know, my job at NASA is to conduct training sessions for crew and flight controllers, simulating potential real-life scenarios. Typically, we simulate debris hits or atmosphere leaks with a Tres of about 4-10 hours. This is still an emergency, but it gives an adept crew plenty of time to locate and patch a leak before losing too much atmosphere. A Tres of 10 minutes gives crew just enough time to shut the Soyuz hatch before being in vacuum (IF they are already there in the first place, ready to slam the hatch shut). SOO this was kind of a big deal.
For those of us at JSC who hadn't heard about the conjunction until Thursday morning, this all came as kind of a shock. To find out that in a few hours, a piece of space junk may or may not render your livelihood nonexistent, not to mention potentially threaten the lives of 3 people you have helped train for their important mission. It was a tense few hours as we waited and listened to the Flight Control team coordinate the graceful transition to "unmanned". The crew closed all the US hatches in about 22 minutes (which is a lot faster than we typically budget for this activity), and patiently waited in the Soyuz for the closest approach to pass. It is interesting to note that the crew did not actually shut the Soyuz hatch at this time. I mention this because all the news outlets at the time were reporting that we had evacuated station, when in fact crew was still breathing ISS atmosphere and able to jump out in order to fight a leak if need be.
So there we were, waiting around for about 10 minutes monitoring data, waiting for any sign that ISS had been hit. About the only useful piece of data we had was a display showing us the pressures in each module of the space station. If any of those pressures started to decrease rapidly, we would know there had been a hit.
As is probably old news now, we know the debris did not strike the station, and a few minutes after the calculated time of closest approach passed, crew was told they could exit Soyuz, open hatches and resume their normal duties. And everyone went back to work, a little more sober and a little more in need of a drink.
So just to quell any curiosity, I figured I would make sure to post about the excitement of the past couple of days.
News sites worldwide were freaking out Thursday when the three residents of the International Space Station (of which I am a team member, being part of the training and operations organization, the Mission Operations Directorate) were told to board the Russian Soyuz (their ride home in case of an emergency). The media outlet sure made it seem like ISS was actually abandoned, with headlines like "Astronauts Evacuate Space Station" and the like. I will try to explain what actually happened and the general mood at JSC during the whole event.
Currently, we have 2 NASA Astronauts (Mike Finke and Sandy Magnus) and one cosmonaut (Yuri Lonchakov) living on the International Space Station. Sometime Wednesday night, STRATCOM notified JSC that they were tracking a piece of debris that would potentially violate the "zone of exclusion" (so to speak) at 11:39 am Central time Thursday. Usually, NASA is notified of these conjunctions much earlier, but STRATCOM apparently made some mistakes in their calculations due to the highly elliptical nature of the object's orbit, and only found out about it Wednesday. This was not enough time to conduct a Debris Avoidance Maneuver (DAM), which essentially consists of ISS raising it's orbit to avoid the piece of space junk. For history, since the first pieces of ISS were launched 10 years ago, we have only conducted something like 8 of these maneuvers.
So Thursday morning, as calculations and orbits were updated, Mission Control Center Houston (MCC-H) decided to go to an unmanned config and place crew in the Soyuz, as a precaution. What this consists of is turning off a lot of essential equipment on ISS and things that wouldn't be needed if ISS were unmanned, closing hatches so a debris hit on any one module would not mean we lose all the modules, then going to the Soyuz to ride out the event. If the habitable modules of the space station were to be punctured, atmosphere would leak until station was at vacuum, so by being in the Soyuz crew could just close that hatch and head home safely if there was not enough time to find and patch the hole.
Because of the nature of this particular piece of space junk (both its velocity and size) MCC-H was calculating that it could potentially cause of 2 inch hole in station if it hit. A hole this size would mean crew would have a reserve time (Tres) of about 10 minutes. This is enginerd-speak for "10 minutes until ISS is at vacuum". As some of you don't know, my job at NASA is to conduct training sessions for crew and flight controllers, simulating potential real-life scenarios. Typically, we simulate debris hits or atmosphere leaks with a Tres of about 4-10 hours. This is still an emergency, but it gives an adept crew plenty of time to locate and patch a leak before losing too much atmosphere. A Tres of 10 minutes gives crew just enough time to shut the Soyuz hatch before being in vacuum (IF they are already there in the first place, ready to slam the hatch shut). SOO this was kind of a big deal.
For those of us at JSC who hadn't heard about the conjunction until Thursday morning, this all came as kind of a shock. To find out that in a few hours, a piece of space junk may or may not render your livelihood nonexistent, not to mention potentially threaten the lives of 3 people you have helped train for their important mission. It was a tense few hours as we waited and listened to the Flight Control team coordinate the graceful transition to "unmanned". The crew closed all the US hatches in about 22 minutes (which is a lot faster than we typically budget for this activity), and patiently waited in the Soyuz for the closest approach to pass. It is interesting to note that the crew did not actually shut the Soyuz hatch at this time. I mention this because all the news outlets at the time were reporting that we had evacuated station, when in fact crew was still breathing ISS atmosphere and able to jump out in order to fight a leak if need be.
So there we were, waiting around for about 10 minutes monitoring data, waiting for any sign that ISS had been hit. About the only useful piece of data we had was a display showing us the pressures in each module of the space station. If any of those pressures started to decrease rapidly, we would know there had been a hit.
As is probably old news now, we know the debris did not strike the station, and a few minutes after the calculated time of closest approach passed, crew was told they could exit Soyuz, open hatches and resume their normal duties. And everyone went back to work, a little more sober and a little more in need of a drink.
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Shuttle Flyover at JSC
Who says we don't get to see cool things down in Houston? The last Shuttle mission had to land in California because of weather in Florida, and when that happens, NASA has to transport the Shuttle cross country back to the vehicle processing facility...on the back of a 747.
The flight path usually does not take the Shuttle directly over JSC, but I guess this time the agency decided to be nice and give (some of us) one last close up view of that beautiful machine before they retire her. The 747 came in around Ellington Field (a few miles to the north of JSC), circled around the east side of Clear Lake, and then did 3 laps of JSC, flying very low right up NASA Rd 1. The pictures taken here were all from coworkers of mine from their own personal cameras. The entire center workforce basically stopped for half an hour that day and everyone (!) was outside looking up and cheering as the Shuttle flew over. It was really something.
The 747/Shuttle hybrid flying machine then practiced touch and goes at Ellington. There are some pretty spectacular pictures taken from the T-38 escort jet of this. As you can imagine, flying a 747 must be pretty hard with just people inside, but with a FREAKING SPACE SHUTTLE on your back must be damn near impossible. So any extra training they get in the better.
This flyover took place in December and I am just getting to posting this now, I know, but I have been so busy with work and such I have not been very vigilant about providing updates to the blog. Hopefully that will change (the frequency of updates part, if anything I will just be more busy at work). Anyways, here are the pictures.
I love my job.
The flight path usually does not take the Shuttle directly over JSC, but I guess this time the agency decided to be nice and give (some of us) one last close up view of that beautiful machine before they retire her. The 747 came in around Ellington Field (a few miles to the north of JSC), circled around the east side of Clear Lake, and then did 3 laps of JSC, flying very low right up NASA Rd 1. The pictures taken here were all from coworkers of mine from their own personal cameras. The entire center workforce basically stopped for half an hour that day and everyone (!) was outside looking up and cheering as the Shuttle flew over. It was really something.
The 747/Shuttle hybrid flying machine then practiced touch and goes at Ellington. There are some pretty spectacular pictures taken from the T-38 escort jet of this. As you can imagine, flying a 747 must be pretty hard with just people inside, but with a FREAKING SPACE SHUTTLE on your back must be damn near impossible. So any extra training they get in the better.
This flyover took place in December and I am just getting to posting this now, I know, but I have been so busy with work and such I have not been very vigilant about providing updates to the blog. Hopefully that will change (the frequency of updates part, if anything I will just be more busy at work). Anyways, here are the pictures.
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| Shuttle/747 Flyover |
I love my job.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Two Birds on the Pad
I meant to post this sooner, but what with the wedding and all, I never got around to it until now.
Don't know if you all realized this, but for the upcoming Space Shuttle flight to Hubble, STS-125 (now moved to 2009), there needs to be a back-up shuttle on the pad ready to launch in case the crew of the Hubble mission needs rescuing. This contingency flight has a crew trained and a flight plan already in place, and is called STS-400. Because of this, when STS-125 was being readied at the Pad for lift-off, STS-400 was rolled out as well, making for a great scene of two shuttles on the pad at the same time. Here are a few that were passed around the office.
Enjoy these for now, and look for more pictures in 2009 when the Hubble mission rolls out again, hopefully to launch this time.
Don't know if you all realized this, but for the upcoming Space Shuttle flight to Hubble, STS-125 (now moved to 2009), there needs to be a back-up shuttle on the pad ready to launch in case the crew of the Hubble mission needs rescuing. This contingency flight has a crew trained and a flight plan already in place, and is called STS-400. Because of this, when STS-125 was being readied at the Pad for lift-off, STS-400 was rolled out as well, making for a great scene of two shuttles on the pad at the same time. Here are a few that were passed around the office.
Enjoy these for now, and look for more pictures in 2009 when the Hubble mission rolls out again, hopefully to launch this time.
Monday, September 22, 2008
More Carnage Pictures
A co-worker forwarded this presentation around. It's a lot of pictures from before and after Ike moved through. Lots of things were destroyed by this hurricane, as the pictures here will show you.
Most of this is from Galveston and Bolivar Peninsula, and a few pictures of blown out windows in Downtown Houston. Where I live in League City was not nearly as bad, because we didn't have surge waters come through and rip everything out. My division chief lives in Baycliff on the water and he said his house was a total loss because water blew out the back of his house and ruined everything inside.
Most of this is from Galveston and Bolivar Peninsula, and a few pictures of blown out windows in Downtown Houston. Where I live in League City was not nearly as bad, because we didn't have surge waters come through and rip everything out. My division chief lives in Baycliff on the water and he said his house was a total loss because water blew out the back of his house and ruined everything inside.
Friday, September 19, 2008
Ike messed up our Sh*t
As promised, here is a link to some photos I took with my cell phone around Clear Lake where I live, near Johnson Space Center.
Hurricane Ike Aftermath Photos
I had evac'd to The Woodlands (on the complete opposite side of town from Clear Lake) and all we had seen there were a bunch of large trees down and a little bit of flooding. By the time I got back to my apartment in League City on Sunday, most of the water was gone and the streets were drivable. I didn't drive around much because power was out everywhere and I didn't know when gas pumps would work again. So because of this I didn't get a chance to see a lot of the 'death and destruction' we were told about on the news right away. Eventually I did get out though.
I was without power in The Woodlands from Friday night/Saturday Morning, up until we left on Sunday. Then I got power back at my apartment by Sunday evening, so that was pretty lucky since most of the city is still down even now as I type this.
The division I work in at NASA is called the Mission Operations Directorate, or MOD. It basically involves all flight controllers, MCC personnel, trainers like myself, and generally anyone that helps operate Shuttle or Station while they are flying (which for station is 24/7/365). It is a fantastic place to work, and one of the things everyone yells when they are enjoying their job is "It's a great day to be in MOD!!". I tell you this because a few of my days since the storm have been spent helping out fellow MODers. Basically, someone organized a task force to find people in the Mission Operations Directorate who sustained heavy damage to their homes and needed a hand (or 20) to help clean up. There were plenty of names to draw from apparently. MOD takes care of its own.
They sent out emails to all of us in MOD, asking for volunteers, so me and some other co-workers decided sure why not. So that is what we did, Thursday and Friday, this week. Basically clean up jobs that would have taken the families weeks to do on their own we managed to help finish in a matter of hours. We helped at 4 houses in those two days, and we saw an awful lot of destruction that was not as apparent driving through my neighborhood, away from the water.
The first house was a nice old house in a neighborhood surrounded by large oak trees. The man that lived there was a fellow MODer who enjoyed a large shaded backyard before Ike. When we showed up, the yard was sunny and literally blanketed is broken oaks. Our job was to clear out that debris and move it to the front yard where city debris removal teams could haul it away. With 8 people helping, we made quick work of that and had a spotless (though still sunny) yard in less than 3 hours. Mike (the owner) was so happy with us, we got a big ol' "It's a GREAT day to be in MOD". That felt good. We went on and helped at another house with a similar yard debris problem, then called it a day.
Friday was a little more depressing because we had to help people in neighborhoods that had been underwater. The first house had been under about 6 inches to a foot of water. That is enough to ruin all the sheet rock and insulation and carpet of course, and some of the furniture. We went in and knocked out the bottom 4 feet of drywall on the entire first floor and hauled it out so the rest of the framework could dry out before repairs were attempted. The family was so grateful. It was a lot of work, but we had about 10 people there and managed to get everything cleaned up enough with enough time to go to a house that had been under about 3 feet of water. That one was just depressing.
Everything in that house was ruined. When we showed up, there had already been a crew there most of the day, and they had gotten all the belongings moved out of the house, onto the front yard, all the carpet removed, and about 90% of the sheet rock out. They still needed plenty of help knocking out the rest of the walls and cleaning up the mess inside from all the demolition. So just remember, if you live near water, and under about 20 feet above see level, buy flood insurance. Their house is basically unlivable until a contractor comes in and redoes all the walls. The entire neighborhood was in this boat, and a few people even went over to complete strangers to help them since we had so many people at this one house.
The job was huge and we had a good 20 people helping out. They were so thankful for us coming to bail them out, they had posted a sign on the garage that said "Thank you NASA and USA, you saved us!" to thank all the NASA and United Space Alliance employees for coming to help, and then brought us lunch. It was a good day for volunteering.
That is the summary so far, I'll try and add some more pics as I get them and keep you informed as things progress. As of right now, we are returning to work on Monday, with all training canceled and under orders to "wear comfortable cloths", whatever that means. Pray for those who lost so much during the storm, that they get back on their feet quickly and painlessly.
Hurricane Ike Aftermath Photos
I had evac'd to The Woodlands (on the complete opposite side of town from Clear Lake) and all we had seen there were a bunch of large trees down and a little bit of flooding. By the time I got back to my apartment in League City on Sunday, most of the water was gone and the streets were drivable. I didn't drive around much because power was out everywhere and I didn't know when gas pumps would work again. So because of this I didn't get a chance to see a lot of the 'death and destruction' we were told about on the news right away. Eventually I did get out though.
I was without power in The Woodlands from Friday night/Saturday Morning, up until we left on Sunday. Then I got power back at my apartment by Sunday evening, so that was pretty lucky since most of the city is still down even now as I type this.
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| From Ike Aftermath |
The division I work in at NASA is called the Mission Operations Directorate, or MOD. It basically involves all flight controllers, MCC personnel, trainers like myself, and generally anyone that helps operate Shuttle or Station while they are flying (which for station is 24/7/365). It is a fantastic place to work, and one of the things everyone yells when they are enjoying their job is "It's a great day to be in MOD!!". I tell you this because a few of my days since the storm have been spent helping out fellow MODers. Basically, someone organized a task force to find people in the Mission Operations Directorate who sustained heavy damage to their homes and needed a hand (or 20) to help clean up. There were plenty of names to draw from apparently. MOD takes care of its own.
They sent out emails to all of us in MOD, asking for volunteers, so me and some other co-workers decided sure why not. So that is what we did, Thursday and Friday, this week. Basically clean up jobs that would have taken the families weeks to do on their own we managed to help finish in a matter of hours. We helped at 4 houses in those two days, and we saw an awful lot of destruction that was not as apparent driving through my neighborhood, away from the water.
 |
| From Ike Aftermath |
The first house was a nice old house in a neighborhood surrounded by large oak trees. The man that lived there was a fellow MODer who enjoyed a large shaded backyard before Ike. When we showed up, the yard was sunny and literally blanketed is broken oaks. Our job was to clear out that debris and move it to the front yard where city debris removal teams could haul it away. With 8 people helping, we made quick work of that and had a spotless (though still sunny) yard in less than 3 hours. Mike (the owner) was so happy with us, we got a big ol' "It's a GREAT day to be in MOD". That felt good. We went on and helped at another house with a similar yard debris problem, then called it a day.
Friday was a little more depressing because we had to help people in neighborhoods that had been underwater. The first house had been under about 6 inches to a foot of water. That is enough to ruin all the sheet rock and insulation and carpet of course, and some of the furniture. We went in and knocked out the bottom 4 feet of drywall on the entire first floor and hauled it out so the rest of the framework could dry out before repairs were attempted. The family was so grateful. It was a lot of work, but we had about 10 people there and managed to get everything cleaned up enough with enough time to go to a house that had been under about 3 feet of water. That one was just depressing.
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| From Ike Aftermath |
Everything in that house was ruined. When we showed up, there had already been a crew there most of the day, and they had gotten all the belongings moved out of the house, onto the front yard, all the carpet removed, and about 90% of the sheet rock out. They still needed plenty of help knocking out the rest of the walls and cleaning up the mess inside from all the demolition. So just remember, if you live near water, and under about 20 feet above see level, buy flood insurance. Their house is basically unlivable until a contractor comes in and redoes all the walls. The entire neighborhood was in this boat, and a few people even went over to complete strangers to help them since we had so many people at this one house.
 |
| From Ike Aftermath |
The job was huge and we had a good 20 people helping out. They were so thankful for us coming to bail them out, they had posted a sign on the garage that said "Thank you NASA and USA, you saved us!" to thank all the NASA and United Space Alliance employees for coming to help, and then brought us lunch. It was a good day for volunteering.
That is the summary so far, I'll try and add some more pics as I get them and keep you informed as things progress. As of right now, we are returning to work on Monday, with all training canceled and under orders to "wear comfortable cloths", whatever that means. Pray for those who lost so much during the storm, that they get back on their feet quickly and painlessly.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
The Great Denver Trip
So I went to Denver last weekend with a bunch of my friends from work. The story for why we all went out there at the same time goes something like this...
My work buddy Jared lived and went to school in Fort Collins, CO. His fiance, Lisa, lives in Fort Collins now. They are getting married in August and she probably won't be coming out to visit Houston before then, and since she is totally awesome, decided to invite us all out for a long weekend to hang out and party. This worked out perfectly because Mike just moved into a house my parents bought in Denver, so we would have a place to crash and party. Mike says to me, "Do it, Do it," and graciously offers to throw a party for us. So Tim decides to go since he has never been to Colorado, I decide to go to see my brother and the house, and Isaac decides to go because, well, what the hell else was he going to do that weekend.
Memorial Day weekend, if I took off work that Friday, would be a 4 day weekend so that is what I did. Got to Denver around noon on Friday and basically hung out with Mike all day unt
il the rest of them got in in the evening. Oh, and I also cleaned the house with him to get ready for the party. Friday night we all met up downtown for food and drinks. That was pretty sweet. Here is the Lisa and her Houston Boys coming back from downtown:Saturday we all (Jared, Lisa, Isaac, Tim, Mike, and myself) went out to Golden to do a simple hike. It was pretty sweet, it took us through a small valley between two mountains, then up to the top where you looked out over the city of Denver. That was really pretty. We then went into downtown Golden to grab some lunch before heading to the Coors Brewery for some free beers. Lunch was at Woody's and it was delicious.
The Brewery Tour was really goofy. You get there and they give you this device that you have to type numbers into when you see them posted on the walls and you basically just get a self guided audio tour. The end is the best part though because you get spit out into a lounge area though where you can get 3 free beers, with multiple choices. I had Blue Moon and Honey Moon (which I had no idea was brewed by Coors in Colorado). It was still relatively interesting at least. Here are some pics:
The Party Saturday night was awesome (don't have any pictures though). We bought all kinds of meat to grill: sausage, chicken, steak kabobs, tuna, pork ribs, burgers, and hot dogs even. Everything was freaking delicious. And the beer flowed like water...
Saturday was pretty relaxing, we just went downtown to walk around for a bit, Commons Park, and then to Wynkoop brewery near the ball park. There we had lunch, drank beers and played pool on a 90 degree table for most of the afternoon. That, too, was awesome.
As Monday came, alas, it was time to go home...Isaac and I flew out around 1, got into Hobby around 4:30, and thus ended our fantastic trip to Denver...
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