Nada February 8, 2007
Posted by spacemom in : Nance , 4 commentsI had a great post. Really, I did. It involved some politics and some other things that I recently overheard.
And then I felt ill. REALLY ill.
Fever, chills, aches…nausea…lovely.
I have to get Soleil to the dentist at 1.
I have a meeting at 3
There was a Target of Oppertunity triggered last night, so we have a new load of space craft commands.
And they haven’t been released yet.
MIL is arriving at 5:36
I need to get in a bed and rest. Dear G-d I need to feel better.
Shoot me. Now… Tranquilizer gun is fine, as long as I can be awake during the drive to the denitist, the drive back and my meeting, and that I can review the command load…. sigh…
So, you want to be an astronaut! February 7, 2007
Posted by spacemom in : She Blinded me with Science , 5 commentsOK, if you haven’t heard about Capt Nowak yet, you are living under a rock. So, I’ll spare the links and get to the guts.
(disclaimer…these are MY views. If you disagree, FINE, but this is based on my experience)
A female working in the physical sciences is often a minority. We are surrounded by egos that often exceed the normal size and need to work daily with this. When a woman works in this sort of environment, a certain mentality develops. We are "one of the guys". We learn to work with the crude jokes and sometimes even like them. Like most women working in a man’s field, there are subtle levels of discrimination, intended and not. To work in a man’s field, you learn to suck up more. Yeah, I wish there was equality in all places, but let’s be realistic for a minute.
Now take a woman who goes into a high risk field, like, oh firefighting, military, astronaut. She has to have a certain attitude towards risk. I don’t have it. I find space travel to be too risky for my family. I respect the men and women who do it, but I don’t have what it takes to be able to do it. She (and the men) are already slightly "nuts". Like the mountain climbers who tackle Everest. There’s a certain level of insanity that lives in those people.
NASA screens the astronaut corps in the beginning. What they really need to continual screening. Working in tight quarters with others is difficult. It is true with men and women. Any high stress job needs to not only make the facilities available, but to also make it mandatory to allow people to get help.
NASA work is STRESSFUL. I can’t imagine the stress of working with people in space. I know the stress of working on a problem when it’s just equipment involved.
I can see how this woman snapped. Really. I can even understand her justification for wearing diapers (come on guys, she was in space. Think there are toilet breaks while you are on the launch pad?) But I can’t comprehend the things she had in her car. The perfect items for subduing, killing and dismembering a human.
NASA needs to work on this. It may piss people off, but there needs to be more mental health care available and required for all of the astronaut corps. I see that NASA is having a press briefing on this right now.
It is something to be taken seriously.
Note that Ms. Nowak’s husband is in mission control for ISS (international Space Station). Yeah, that’s not stressful either…
The sun is shining, the tank is clean…. February 7, 2007
Posted by spacemom in : Life...otherwise , add a comment"The sun is shining! The tank is clean! And we’re getting out of….gasp! The tank is clean?!?"
-Peach from Finding Nemo
There is a saying in our house. "You need a plan to deviate from." Yesterday was a prime example. Tomorrow is too. Jay has a meeting that was changed from today to tomorrow. Soleil has a dentist appointment tomorrow. Jay was going to take her, now I need to. Sigh. The best plans get f*cked by someone cleaning the tank.
I am overwelmed by the amount life interfers with living. That sounds really odd, but really, have you noticed this?
I want to curl up with a good book in the evening, but sometimes work pops up and sometimes life gets insane and someone is still up at 10:30. I miss seeing my hockey team, but I did get to watch the overtime last night.
I want to talk on the phone to new friends. I got a precious few minutes last night to chat with a new friend. I really love talking with her and I just wish we lived closer because a night out would certainly be happening.
I want to get more work done with less meetings. As I check my clock to make sure I don’t miss the 12:30 lunch meeting.
I had never planning on life being so scheduled. I want some down time. To just be….me.
Life in the fast lane February 6, 2007
Posted by spacemom in : Life...otherwise, She Blinded me with Science, Depression, Fun with Crohn's Disease, Travel, I dream of sleep, In A Family Way , 2 commentsOy! Some days, the dragon wins. Today is not one of those days, but it started like it.
First, I have to fix the photos above. For some reason, they came out funny and three photos are on top of each other…
Let’s see, last night, I went to work out at the gym. Jay and I came to an agreement that I could work out on Monday nights and Saturday mornings (and I am going to add Thursday nights in there too). When I came home, Soleil was at the door to the garage screaming, reaching for me. Oh shit, what is this? I picked her up and Jay told me that her ear was bothering her. After 20 minutes of ear piercing screams that had MY ears hurting, I got the on-call doctor to tell me that giving her Tylenol and motrin 3 hours apart overnight was the best thing and to get her in to get checked in the morning. Sure enough, she has an ear infection and will start the evil, yet needed antibiotics tonight.
I really hate the over use of antibiotics, on the other hand, I can’t stand to see my girl in pain. It’s a double edged sword…
Jay and I had a long time deciding what to do last night. You see, there are 4 people on my operations team at work. And this is my duty week. I am on call 24/7 this week. I have a 9am meeting every workday and I have to review the spacecraft command load to make sure it is safe for our instrument and that we are completing the science we want. I also need to be available to deal with any changes to the parameters for an observation and to build new commanding if needed. We have an agreement that I will take any child to the doctor/dentist/ stay home if needed UNLESS it is my duty week. So, Jay should have taken her to the doctor. Except he had a meeting this morning at 10 that he had to be at. Sigh. I was able to do some work at home last night and get things worked out so I was ok to get her into the doctor. It is hard when life and work collide.
We have a busy week. Jay’s mother is visiting on Thursday-Monday. Yes! We have a sitter for a weekend night! 
Nance is very happy! Hopefully the girls will be as excited and let mommy get some stuff done this weekend!
Jay is not doing as well with his new Crohn’s management as we had hoped. The doctor is also not thrilled. The next plan may involve a very nasty drug, given via IV, once a month. I don’t like the sound of it, nor the side effects. I am trying hard not to put my head in the sand on this one, but for the moment, I am hiding from this.
Not even Dr. Google is allowed to talk to me about this until we decide this is to be done.
I was sad to see that ChicagoMom is still struggling with her depression. It bites. It really does. If you visit her site, go give her a cyber hug, will you? I am starting to get a better handle on it by taking the cymbalta early, but… It comes and goes. This weekend I was with a group of wonderful people and I had a long day with Soleil and I was just apologizing for living by the end of the day. It was terrible. Everyone kept saying they understood, but MAN was it hard….
Finally, a big group cheer for Johnny, who finally got his referral for his son! Congrats Johnny and S and M!!!!
A child’s bliss February 5, 2007
Posted by spacemom in : Kids , 1 comment so farSnow White 
Cinderella 
Belle 
Ethnic? February 2, 2007
Posted by spacemom in : Weblogs , 3 commentsI often hear people referring to themselves of being a certain ethnicity. I recently had a mammogram and was asked my ethnicity.
Nance: Um, white?
Nice woman taking information: No, what is your ETH-NEH-CITY?
Nance: American?
NWTI: No, where your family is from?
Nance: Um, America? We’ve been in this country since the mid-1880s
NWTI: (obviously getting frustrated) Well, where did they come from?
Nance: Let’s see, Germany before the civil war, England, but we aren’t sure when, we think in the 1700s, and my one grandfather is a bastard, so we don’t know his heritage, although we strongly suspect French-Canadian.
NWTI: I’ll put down German.
You see? This isn’t easy. Seriously, both of my grandmothers came from German families. The one side was easy to trace back to the civil war and that person even decided to fight with the Union. My one grandfather was British. We really aren’t sure when his family came over. There are hints that it was in the 1700s, but we aren’t sure because so much of the German sides are covered and not so much on the others. And then there is Grandpa.
Grandpa was born to a single mother. She signed a name down for the father, but her mother was certain that she had never slept with him. Based on Grandpa’s looks, she was pretty sure who the father was. His mother left the hospital after giving birth, without him. Her mother and sister later collected him from the hospital. His aunt and uncle raised him for many years with brief periods when his own mother would show up, take him to live with her for a while and then drop him back with her sister.
He turned out to be a great guy. I am sure this was his Aunt’s influence.
So you see, it is not easy to answer when someone asks: "what’s your ethnicity?"
Fun in the rain! February 1, 2007
Posted by spacemom in : Travel , 5 commentsAh- Soleil and I are leaving on a plane soon! To Rainy Florida!
Yippie!!!!
Hey, at least it will be fun and friends and such!
BYE!
