The Launch Pad

He Said, She Said: Is this weird?

noreply@blogger.com (Booster MPS) — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 05:40:00 +0000

She Said: Is this weird?

He Said: What do you mean? What's weird?

She Said: The whole conversation, don't you think this is weird?

(pssst here is a hint, if you have to ask if it's weird, trust me, you just made the whole thing "weird")

Nobody's Right If Everybody's Wrong

noreply@blogger.com (Booster MPS) — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 15:28:00 +0000

There's battle lines being drawn
Nobody's right if everybody's wrong
Young people speaking their minds
Getting so much resistance from behind
I think it's time we stop..............

When I heard that today, it just somehow seemed to ring true. I do hope that one day we can see that everybody simply can't be wrong. Looking back on this election I saw a lot of communication, but not a lot of listening which is why as usual, I divorced myself from the subject with friends and family. My views and opinions have always been controversial, but they are always grounded in Socratic discourse and an open heart and mind. Fact is, we all can't be right. This is a simple and elusive truth, but we can only see that when we open our hearts to love, compassion and tolerance with those we know and more importantly don't know.

You can't lead the people if you don't love the people. You can't save the people if you don't serve the people. - Cornell West

He always concisely states observations that cut to the heart of the issues in America. We can all lead. We can all serve.

Hard Fought

noreply@blogger.com (Booster MPS) — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 23:49:00 +0000

Those are probably the best words to describe this week. All said I got a lot done this week and it was very productive. If you could believe it, there were a lot of long days that started early and ended late and all said, I am still getting the same confirmation from the market. The message is that I have a lot to offer and I know this. However the "process" is getting in my way. The process seems to always be at the beginning and never at a pace aggressive enough that provides quick feedback and most importantly closure. Some of the roles that I am finding via my Kellogg network could be interesting and promising but if nothing else, they substantiate my origination efforts for finding new stuff.

The 20 jumps way at Spaceland are this weekend and I decided not to go. They want to have possibly two groups of 20 way formations this weekend with a possible larger group and formation load for 40 or so at the end of the day. Sucks to be passing on cool stuff like this but I am trying to sacrifice to save cash and skydiving does not qualify as a need. I am still jumping a couple of times maybe once a month or so to stay current and I will continue that. It just sucks to be missing out on a lot of great weather days this time of year.

I can laugh about it now, but I almost went through the phone today on some guy trying to sell me a mortgage product IMMEDIATELY after I just finished forbearing my school loans with him. I mean, come on, what the hell are you thinking dude?

Warning!

noreply@blogger.com (Booster MPS) — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 13:56:00 +0000

8:58 AM and I am already caffeinated at toxic levels. Maintain a safe distance.

He Said, He Said: What Did You Just Call Your Wife?

noreply@blogger.com (Booster MPS) — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 12:25:00 +0000

The set up: A casual conversation with a late 40's guy who is a business associate. His wife is Chinese. We are having beers after work with another male business associate.

He said: Can you believe my son's foot is size 14 EE and he is 14 years old?

I said: Wow! That is amazing. Is your wife tall?

He said: Yeah, she's pretty tall for an Oriental.

I said: .......you mean......Asian......right?

He said: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, (insert dumb chuckle) .........Asian.

We have so, so very far left to go in this country. The evidence is overwhelming and the implications are without bounds. The notion of just relaxing and being less "politically correct" represents our laziness in addressing an issue that is still relevant in our lives. I will never forget the fact that a young man was hung in my home town - during my lifetime. It is a huge mistake that somebody would still use a pejorative term like this. It is completely unthinkable to use that term about your wife.

When all else fails, I just quote movies.

Randal Graves: "You know, come to think of it, my grandmother was kind of a racist."

I am Carolyn Burnham

noreply@blogger.com (Booster MPS) — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 13:24:00 +0000

Another turn at bat today with an interview. This time it will be a completely different industry and type of role, but I don't think that is a bad thing given the turmoil in the energy sector and economy. Finding safe haven for a while is a good thing.

Getting up this morning I found myself talking myself up more than normal just trying to be positive on the whole thing. I had to laugh for a sec because I immediately thought of the scene in American Beauty with Annette Bening frantically cleaning an abandoned, dated, dirty home saying to her self affirming, "I will sell this house today, I will sell this house today."

I am Carolyn Burnham.

What's for Dinner: Dinner on the Cheap

noreply@blogger.com (Booster MPS) — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 23:10:00 +0000

Soba, pork, garlic, cabbage, shitake, spring onion, carrots, snow peas and egg.

What's for Dinner: Good Friends

noreply@blogger.com (Booster MPS) — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 23:00:00 +0000

Dinner with Sean and Edit, thanks to Edit for the pictures.

Cumberland Sound

noreply@blogger.com (Booster MPS) — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 19:36:00 +0000

"This old hound
St. Marys bound
This old hound
Still got a ways to go
In the first half of the year I was tryin' to run away
In the second half I'm just tryin' to get back home"

To the Cumberland Sound......

An Empty Envelope

noreply@blogger.com (Booster MPS) — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 15:36:00 +0000

Applying for a job via a corporate web site is like throwing an empty envelope over a wall and expecting somebody to throw it back over stuffed with hundred dollar bills.

It Was Supposed to Be

noreply@blogger.com (Booster MPS) — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 04:54:00 +0000

The beginning of this week was tough. Very tough.

Truth be told, I had a "tentative" verbal offer from an interview a couple of weeks ago. So why not be excited? Well, we had discussed salary, role, start date and that I could probably expect a call this past Friday and this seemed like a completely done deal. Only because I have seen these things before and watched them come and go with all kinds of promise, I just could not find it in me to say this is done and celebrate. It's almost like I need to physically walk into work on day one for this to really be done. Well, turns out Friday came and went. Monday brought the news that "things had changed."

You just could not begin to imagine how frustrating and up and down this has all been on my end. This is not the first time. It is just "this" close - so close that it has been completely unreasonable the way that opportunity has been snatched away from me time and time again. It's as if this just defies reason. This is like if somebody suddenly said to me that Monday now follows Wednesday which is after Friday.

It still gets me how this has changed the world of people that I know. I still can't get over my friends being separated. That just blows me away. They really looked out for me when I lived in FL and made sure I was ok. I owe them a lot for that. And now this happens to them and they are not even in the same city.

Salt

noreply@blogger.com (Booster MPS) — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 01:33:00 +0000

This year, well, it is what it is in a way. Anybody that knows me can see how tough it has been for me just to make it through this far. The last two weeks though have kind of turned everything around though in an odd way.

Hear that noise? It's our wake up call.

As the financial markets have taken a turn for the worst, it seems like everybody around me has suddenly paused to take note of what I have been seeing all year long and it is now affecting them. What was a passing conversation about my job search followed by the assumption that "It's gonna all right for him, he's smart" has now quickly become a situation of careful self examination of individual employment by everybody around me. Being around panic, chaos or disorder has never been my thing but the way that it is affecting others just bothers me because it rips at heart of what makes us human and uncovers all of the ugly possibilities that nobody wants to face.

I recently found out that a friend from days past is now separated from her husband who is in a different city now and boy did that get me. I know these guys to be a strong couple where love abounded and also a strong family that very much had God in their lives. It wasn't enough and that is a hard realization to see the couples that you think will make it fall away. Maybe that is my blessing that I don't have a wife and child right now as I am going through this because my stress would only be magnified. And then there is the family that I read about that was killed by a husband who was distraught over being without a job - how in the world do things get that bad?

Now listen, listen to the truth
It does not matter, doesn't matter what you do
Still gonna be you
Just like the salt in the stew
Yeah it's all a part of you
And one thing, the one thing that life cannot do
It can't take your song from you

Another Major Melt Down

noreply@blogger.com (Booster MPS) — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 15:22:00 +0000

That is a compressor motor capacitor. Well, actually that is a thoroughly charred motor capacitor.

You kinda always know when something is not working quite as well as it should be. Saturday night when I got home it was about 78 degrees on the top floor, noticeably warmer than I usually keep it. Something was clearly not right. The longer I paid attention to it, the situation became clear that my AC was running but not doing a whole lot all night long. Great as this is all I need to have heaped on me right now.

Well, rewind three or four weeks ago, I had the same problem with the upstairs AC. Turns out the capacitor for the compressor had failed and needed to be replaced. The job of this little guy is the keep the voltage going to the motor in the compressor constant since the source is alternating current. I certainly thought that this would fix my problem for good but it did not. It seems like the compressor was in the process of becoming more inefficient and failing as it was drawing more and more voltage through this poor capacitor. This time, all of the wiring and the compressor failed with the capacitor. I think the power coming on instantaneously after the hurricane and the compressor starting was all it needed for the whole thing to be on a road to failure.

Everything is melting down.

One Thousand Two Hundred Eighty Three

noreply@blogger.com (Booster MPS) — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 21:33:00 +0000

Let's just start with mid June.

Since 6/14/2008 alone, I have sent 1,283 emails from my primary email account. I venture that approximately 85% of those are associated with my job search. Even if I conservatively sort them by category and use lower value of 76% to estimate the number of emails that I have sent as a part of my job search, that is still about 980 emails. Based upon business days, that means I send about 13.4 emails a day. Throw in my secondary email address and that estimate probably approaches 17 or 18 per day.

That would be 18 carefully crafted, considerate, and value added introductions to um.....me, every day. I suppose if you are working a full time job, that really is not a big number. But if you consider sending that many as a part of a job search, I think it becomes apparent how hard I have been working to examine every corner of the job market.

1,283 - that is our number for the day. This is how bad things are out there.

All Over Again

noreply@blogger.com (Booster MPS) — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 03:02:00 +0000

Well I can't say that I saw these turns in my career coming when I went to grad school. Things are very different now in our world and I am becoming keenly aware of how fragile life as we know it as an citizen of this country is. To be honest, the fluctuations and turmoil that we are seeing in the financial markets are something that I have seen coming for quite a while now. What I did not see coming was the possibility of me being in the middle of it all. This is Enron all over again but worse. Much worse.

What's for dinner? Skirt Steak. Maybe I did miss my culinary calling.

After Ike

noreply@blogger.com (Booster MPS) — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 03:27:00 +0000

Well I got back to Houston yesterday afternoon. I have to say everything is fine and pretty much just as I left it - there is nothing for me to complain about. Also all of my utilities are on and I only lost the contents of my refrigerator. I was surprised to head out this morning and find grocerty stores stocked for the most part and I was able to re-stock some staple items and get the kitchen back functioning. Over all Houston did really well through the storm and there is not a lot of damage at all. It seems like there are a lot of people still without power in the suburbs but that is getting better by the day.

Ike

noreply@blogger.com (Booster MPS) — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 19:55:00 +0000

Well if anybody is posting in or wondering what I am up to with the storm, I am fine.

I came home to Alabama yesterday and surprised mom with a visit. This visit home to see mom actually had nothing to do with leaving for the storm and I was scheduled to head back to Houston today. Looks like the storm will come somewhere south and west of the Galveston coast on Friday night so I am gonna stay here for the weekend and go back on Monday. I am sure the house will be fine and the worse will probably be having no power for a day or so which is the reason I am staying here until Monday.

What's For Dinner: Ginger Garlic Shrimp

noreply@blogger.com (Booster MPS) — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 02:32:00 +0000

Woody's on the Beach August 2008

noreply@blogger.com (Booster MPS) — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 22:03:00 +0000

He Said: You Must Be An Idiot

noreply@blogger.com (Booster MPS) — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 00:57:00 +0000

Like most people I have my list of stuff that gets put off around the house. I have a toilet in my guest bedroom that has been slowly leaking for months now and it has just gotten put off again and again because it is on the first floor and out of sight. Yesterday in the name of productivity and conserving natural resources I decided to finally address the offending toilet and see if I could make the repair. Well.......

Mechanical stuff has never been a strong suit of mine. I don't have a lot of skill beyond a screwdriver and using a hammer. Kinda like I have never been all that athletic or good at ball sports. I know my strengths and prefer to just find somebody that can come over fix the problem, give them a check, and be done. I have learned this is my high road after starting way too many projects to get stumped in the middle of them. So this time I decided to use a bit of technology as I attempted this project and take a picture of the type of mechanism I have in the toilet and take it to the local mom and pops hardware store.

So I walk in with my camera thinking I am going beyond the call of duty with a picture of my problem. Surely whoever helps me will be able to clearly see what my situation is and what the problem might be. Hey, I am helping them out to solve my problem, right. Well I head over to the plumbing department and find Jim Bob. No sooner do I pull out my camera to describe my problem that he looks at me with his head cocked to the side like I am an idiot. He should have just gone ahead and said it to my face. You know dude, OK, so you are good at plumbing - congratulations. But you don't have to make me feel stupid because I had to bring a picture of my problem.

Hell with it, I just asked him for the name of a plumber........

Those Moments

noreply@blogger.com (Booster MPS) — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 15:26:00 +0000

I would be lying if I said I did not feel a little panicked on Thursday. That was my last day of my contract job with the private equity group here in town. Over all the engagement went really well and I had a very focused three weeks working on the project. I am pretty proud of my work and I think that the document turned out better than expected given that I felt a bit overwhelmed going in. I suppose that it was one of those "gotta back it up" moments.

It never hit me until I was wrapping up on Thursday that I was headed back into "the world." The job search has been there for the last few weeks but it did take a bit of a back seat in that I did not have time to originate new opportunities and only time to keep what I have going (which is still a good bit). Staring at the void of uncertainty again just turns my stomach at times. I want to believe that things will be ok, and I try to tell myself that things will be ok, but at times it's hard to believe it. I just want it to be ok not now but RIGHT NOW. When does this end? How can I be this close, this long and still have my life and future "hanging" in the balance? Anywho, I will be back at it on Tuesday.

I have been good for the most part though. This week was really busy and highlighted that I need to take time to shut out the world every few days and meditate - just me and my thoughts. I find myself running from task to task and none of it is all that important at the end of the day. I have to say that I had a really cool day on Friday though. I headed down to Galveston (for the first time in at least 10 years) with Rob and Adrienne and got a couple of R-44 jumps in. I will post some pics once I get those together and uploaded to flickr.

Still a Booster

noreply@blogger.com (Booster MPS) — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 13:35:00 +0000

For the rest of my life I will remember my days at NASA very fondly. I loved that job and the people that I worked with, and for a rookie aerospace engineer fresh out of college, it was a dream job. For those of you that I have not spoken over the years that may have found me via my blog, I probably should explain.

I worked in the Booster Systems Group when I was at NASA. Booster is one of the many console positions that you see in the Mission Control Center or MCC during a Space Shuttle Mission. The role of the three person Booster team is to monitor the external tank, solid rocket boosters, three Space Shuttle main engines and the cryogenic systems that get liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen from the external tank to the main engines during a launch. Pretty cool stuff. I flew six launches on the Main Propulsion System (MPS) console (tank, boosters, cryo) supporting that team. (hence Booster MPS) The team lead was the Booster Officer that sat in the main room you would see on TV. I sat in another room with the Main Engine Officer and we would communicate over the voice loops with the Booster up front.

One of the coolest accomplishments that I remember from working there during that time is that we were transitioning from the old control center to the new one. What that means is that we were leaving the MCC that you might remember historically from the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo missions to a modern facility with high powered unix workstations and all the bells and whistles of a high-tech control room. The old MCC has a ton of nostalgia and history mostly because of the ugly green consoles with the flashing lights and push button panels that clicked when you press them. When people come to visit NASA, the old MCC is one of the things that everybody wants to see because it is the image of men sitting at these consoles that comes to mind when you think of the lunar missions. I was fortunate to fly the very last mission (STS-76) from the old control center before it was closed and the very first (STS-77) mission from the new MCC.

Well, this morning I got this email from my old boss Ken from the Booster Group.

Folks,
On my annual trip to the Oregon Coast, my family and I stopped by the Evergreen Aviation Air Museum. This year the museum has added a new building just for space related hardware. As I was enjoying the new exhibits, I noticed an old MCC console. The console had been stripped of everything! Well almost everything. The only piece of paper remaining under the glass was the Booster Phone Card!

Enjoy - you are now part of aviation history at the air museum.

Ken

So there you have it. That is the console where I sat during missions now on display in a museum. Funny thing is that I remember after they started to take all of the consoles apart and remove most of the lights and command panels, the MPS console where I sat still had some of our paper notes and cheat sheets on it. I never thought anything of it....

Just Gringing Through

noreply@blogger.com (Booster MPS) — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 03:20:00 +0000

Just been grinding through this week. The good news is that I picked up a three week contract gig through the end of August. It's nothing particularly sexy but I can at least put some private equity experience on my CV and at this point and it gets me out of the house. It's also been a good week with making contacts hopefully leading to something permanent and tomorrow I am meeting with the president of the TX division of a company. Tomorrow's meeting could be good but it's up to me to sell it but after all, he opened the door which is all I can ask.

The good kinda got shat on yesterday when I came out to my car after work only to find that it had been hit in the garage. Great. If nothing else it's just a huge distraction that puts me out of my car and throws my schedule. Since I moved here with that car it has taken more abuse from others than I would have ever thought in Houston. Whatever, material things come and go.

What's for dinner? Halibut w/ chili vinaigrette

Blam!

noreply@blogger.com (Booster MPS) — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 03:23:00 +0000

That Which Is Life Changing

noreply@blogger.com (Booster MPS) — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 03:04:00 +0000

Truth be told this week has been a load of complete crap at the casa over here. Maybe that is a bit blunt but that kinda sums it up for the most part. After a relaxing weekend away it seems like I have come back to more questions, misunderstandings, and uncertainty than I thought were possible.

I have always been a big fan of re-inventing myself and this is probably as good a time as any for me. I found this article about a week ago but I did not really read it until tonight. I have to say that Julie pretty much got it right.

I am gonna get my knees in the breeze tomorrow afternoon at the DZ, get some perspective, and get my ass back in gear.