OK, here we go again. Got out of the habit of writing and lost motivation for a while. Recently I've been really busy with school and work. Going to school and working full time eats up most of my days. Seems I'm always worrying about the next assignment and don't seem to do much else but study or put off studying. I've been thinking about this for a while though and I think I need to try a little harder to post at least occasionally.        As you can see by the new addition to the side bar I have been doing some posting on Twitter. It has sort of got me back into everything. There are so many interesting people on there to meet if you just give it some time. A lot of my followers, and those that I follow, are 'space' related. There are more people out there that are interested in the space industry than I thought. It's not just space related though. There is an ever expanding universe of things related to Twitter. It takes a little effort to weed thr

One of the weather guys on TV made mention of needing an ark for the rain that was to come. The weather people down here are notorious for not predicting the right thing. This time though he turned out to be right. Our street has over a foot of water in it right now. That's not to bad considering there are some parts of the county in waist deep water or worse. In the eight years that we have lived here our street has never flooded at all. Our rain gage broke so I'm not sure how much rain has fallen at our house but I think it is probably in the 10 to 12 inch range by now. Some areas have gotten twice that amount. The Melbourne Airport was closed because there were fish washing up on the runways. Jen found a picture on one of the news sites of a catfish swimming along the street gutter. It has rained almost steadily for the past three days. Sometimes it slows just enough so that we can let the dogs out to pee but it never lasts that long. Right now it is pouring and I think an a

It has been a long summer. I took two classes this summer, Speech and Trigonometry. The trig class was online. I had Speech class two nights a week from 6pm until 8:40. The entire rest of the week was devoted to math. It seemed that all I ever did was math. It didn't help that it was summer term which is several weeks shorter that a regular term. I got an 'A' in Speech of course although I'm sure that it could have been much more fun than it was. Our teacher wasn't very good. There was almost a revolt toward the end of the term but we lost our nerve. It's probably for the best. I managed to squeak out a 'C' in trig. That's all I was shooting for. I needed at least a 'C' in order to get reimbursed from the company. That was also the last math class I should have to take. There is only one more class I have to take to complete my Associates degree. I still need a physical science so I chose astronomy. It was going to be Chemistry but I figured

Only ten more shuttle launches to go after this one. Yesterdays launch was flawless with perfect weather. It is always exciting to see a shuttle launch. I was poking around on the NASA web site and came across a page that described in detail what happens during the launch countdown. The countdown actually begins about four days prior to launch. This is taken directly from the NASA website . The Countdown Clock is one of the most-watched timepieces in the world. On this page, you'll learn how the countdown operates, and what milestones to watch for during our Live Launch Coverage. Image to left: Spectators gather on the grounds in front of the countdown clock during a Space Shuttle launch. Credit: NASA Here are some of the key events that take place at each milestone after the countdown begins. Note: Event times and lengths are approximate and subject to change. T-43 hours and counting The Shuttle Test Director performs the traditional call to stations and the countdown clock is act

Jen and I went shopping today at a bunch of outlet stores in Vero Beach. We had stopped there once before but couldn't spend much time looking around. Today we hit every store that we thought looked interesting. There are quite a few clothing stores. That is really a good thing because I am in need of new clothes. Taking me shopping is usually a very painful experience. I am kind of picky and really cheap when it comes to buying clothes. For some reason I feel like I am wasting money buying clothes. I'll spent some real money on tools, but if a t-shirt costs more than $10 it might as well cost a thousand. Being that incredibly cheap means my closet is full of a bunch of old t-shirts that either cost around $10 or are at least 5 years old. In short, I have a closet full of rags. I've been doing better lately, and today I actually bought 8 new shirts. None of them were over $15, but they are nice polo or button up shirts. Clearance is a great thing. All those new clothes and

Our builder came over this evening so that we could re-re-revise our building cost estimate. I think we might have just about got it. Finally. We had to cut out some things and figure out what we really needed to do right away and what could wait and be done over time. It will also mean that we will have to do a little more work ourselves than we planned to. My shop is down to to just drywall on the ceiling. Actually that is what I wanted from the beginning. I have seen a lot of really interesting ways to finish the inside. It will take a little longer but this will really let me set up the shop the way I want. We are so ready to get started. Keep your fingers crossed that in a couple of weeks we will finally start moving some dirt around.