Saturday, October 29, 2005

Hurricane Wilma Refugees

I made it back from Japan! It was a great experience, but really odd. There is so much wierd stuff in foreign countries. Just look at the vending machine pictures in the previous post. They hot drinks in a can in the machines. Wierd, I tell you--wierd!

So we had another hurricane. Her name was Wilma. She blew down lots of trees in the apartment complex and knocked out power for 95% of South Florida. After a few days of camping at home (and hearing that some parts of the area would be without power for a month) Jen and I packed up the cats and became Hurricane Refugees. We travelled north to Titusville and stayed with Robert and Karen Ward. It was nice to have a warm shower and internet access :-) We've gotten power back in our part of Ft. Lauderdale and are heading back down. We should be fine, but if you have the urge to send money or food, go right ahead!

Monday, October 17, 2005

Japan Update

Sorry for not posting any updates for a week! I was extremely busy being the MC for the program and trying to keep everything on track. The 2005 Space Generation Congress went extremely well, with all of the delegate working groups presenting their projects on Sunday afternoon. We have several great ideas for improving web-based interaction and capabilites to encourage other people or groups to learn more about space exploration. The "Inspire Space" team challenged all 100 participants to return to their high school and give a presentation on space exploration to inspire the next generation of space pioneers. To help, the group will assemble presentations and tips on how to speak to large groups.

Ok, so we also had a lot of FUN! Saturday night was Japanese Cultural Night. I chose to go to a traditional Japanese tea ceremony hosted by our Japanese Event Manager, Yusuke Muraki. HE had been going to classes for six months to learn how to perform the ceremony! It was a great insight into the Japanese culture and a tasty experience. Afterward we went to an outdoor food booth and had famous Hakata Ramen noodles! Trust me, they are much better than anything you will ever find in the grocery store.

Below are some additional pictures of Japan. More are available at the SEDS Gallery.



Tuesday, October 11, 2005

Konichiwa

I've made it to Japan--though not without drama! Flying on stand-by tickets is always fun, but flying standby in a foreign country is insane. If not for a friendly Japanese guy also going to Fukuoka, I would not have made it at all! Thank you kind stranger!

Things No One Will Believe I Did in Japan #1: ate penne noodles with salmon on the plane ride over.



Things No One Will Believe I Did in Japan #2: took off my shoes and put on slightly-too-small sandles every time I came into the hotel. No exceptions! It's the standard rules.

Below is a picture of my room on night #2. Ulf and Sarah are monkeying around. Ulf is sporting the hotel-provided sandles. The bed behind them is a bunkbed built for 6! We'll see how that works out... But it is a large room with a table (foreground) on a raised platform. You can sit on the mats and put your feet down the hole under the table! It's like being at summer camp--but none of us understands what anyone is saying or any of the writing. Still, we are helping each other and learning a lot. It is great to finally get to work together in person after spending so much time talking online! The final pieces of the conference are pulling together. Tomorrow should just be getting ready for moderator training on Wednesday.


PS--Being in a timezone 13 hours different from home after 26 hours of traveling takes a bit out of you. Trust me on this one...

Friday, October 07, 2005

Week in review - Preparing for departure

The past week was a whirlwind! I downloaded all of my knowledge about the NASA flights to Sarah and Robert. I was tracking down parts, sending out engineering reports, and printing out modification orders like crazy.

In the middle of the chaos, on Wednesday all of Operations went to KSC for a meeting about our use of the SLF in November. We discussed out operational requirements with the various NASA departments and then got to go on tour! We ate at the KSC-HQ cafeteria (cheap!) and then drove out to the SLF Midfield Site where the new Control Tower and VIP/Press Area is located. Then we drove down the 15,000 ft. runway! That was really neat :-) We also saw the cargo staging area near the Mate-Demate Device used to take the Orbiter off of the 747 carrier aircraft. Then we went over to the Apollo/Saturn V center and got to see the large second-floor conference room we will use for training. Awesome! We ended the day with no unanswerable questions and got a press release about ZERO-G using the SLF the next day.

Monday, October 03, 2005

My idea... making someone else rich!

For the past year or so (maybe longer) I've been tossing around the idea of a keyboard with programmable LEDs on each key. I figured gamers would love to have a totally customizable keyboard, but that wasn't the real market. Serious cash would be made with international machines. (But gamers would still think it was cool and have an awesome freeware program to modify the keyboard for any game any way.)

A big problem with making an interface with numbers or letters on it is that most languages use different symbols that don't have an equivalent in other languages (example: ñ ). So, how do you use a machine built for another language? Sure, the software can show any language on the screen, but you need to be able to input the language first. I've seen a friend use a Sharpie to write Korean characters on her laptop keys to remember what was what when she was writing home. Horribly inefficient and ugly to boot.

The answer was to have an input device that adapted to the user. Of course, you could just use a touchscreen, but those don't give you any tactile response (that feeling of pressing in a key so you know you hit it). Most people don't like using a touchscreen for very long. The better way was to integrate a high-res LED into each key of a keyboard with a standardized layout that would accommodate any language.

Imagine: you walk up to an internet terminal in downtown Tokyo and hit the US flag on the keyboard;instantly the keyboard displays the same standard layout you see at home. A Russian walks up next to you and hits his flag; and he gets his standard layout as well! Given the choice between this and either (a) touchscreen keyboard, (b) some wierd mixed-language keyboard where I have to hunt-and-peck or (c) this elegant LED keyboard... well, I'd choose "c" even if it cost more!

Well, just because I didn't get around to making it doesn't mean it's not a GREAT idea! And there's still money to be made marketing it and putting it out in the hands of the consumer.

Wedding Weekend Whirlwind

This weekend we headed up to Daytona Beach for Brian and Leona's wedding. Jen and I were in charge of Robert and Karen's baby girl , Anna, because they were both in the wedding party.

Friday I got to play with the sound system as a stand in for the music guy. Then we all went to Harbor Inlet and had dinner. My mom and dad happened to be in Daytona this weekend as well (total coincidence!) so they came over for a while too.

As it got late, the boys headed over to Brian's house and played poker for a few hours. Brian and Leona have great decorating skills, and they do themed rooms just like me and Jen! I stayed at Brian's place; the couch was comfy but leather. I kept sticking to it and nearly yanking my skin off when I tried to roll over!

Karen turned Anna over to Jen before I got back to the hotel, so I was in charge of watching the baby while Jen got a shower. Bad move. I let her sit on the chair while I was polishing my shoes. She was looking at the colorful fabric and cooing--until she somehow pulled a somersault off the chair and into the floor! I freaked out (just a bit) but she was ok. She cried for a while, but a nap helped.

After all of the excitement, we were late getting to the ceremony! It was at the Chapel in the Garden in Port Orange. We used to live just down the street from it, but we'd never been inside (no reason!). The place is very picturesque with fountains, walkways, and tons of little spots perfect for photos. The chapel itself is cozy with extremely squeaky floors. Our mutual friend (and new notary) Matt Cross performed the ceremony beginning with lines from The Princess Bride:

"Mawidge...mawidge is what bwings us togewer today...Mawidge, the bwessed awwangement, that dweam wiffim a dweam..."

No kidding, he did it. And it was the funniest thing! Almost as funny as the fact that everyone stood when Leona walked in, but no one was told to sit down. Ever. The whole ceremony was scripted out and they forgot that part! It really didn't matter as it was a short, sweet ceremony.

Afterwards I helped the picture guy (Kaare's job, but he and Laura and Elizabeth were absent!) get all of the non-wedding party people's pictures [yes, it's odd, but nice] while Jen played with Anna. At the reception we got to see all of out APO brothers and dance to good Howl at the Moon songs. Then we picked up APO brother Isabel and her boyfriend Ray and all went to Howl and danced the night away! Afterwards we ate/played at the Denny's down the street :-) Drunk people are fun to watch!! (I was DD.)

Sunday morning Jen and I had brunch at Aunt Catfish's. It was nice, but too filling. Jen and I both had to take a nap at Robert and Chale's before going home! Then we got stuck in an hour of stand-still traffic due to a tractor-trailer truck catching on fire.

We made it home safe despite rain and had a wonderful time overall!