Well, we have been busy! Seems like we can't go a single weekend without something exciting happening.
June 14-16 Shannon flew into town after interviewing for a job at Delta in Atlanta (she got it and will be living with my parents until she finds her own place!). We all hung out and had a yard sale at Paul and Susie's house on Saturday. We hit a birthday party for some old ERAU friends. It was a quick trip for Shannon so we enjoyed every minute!
Last weekend (well, Thurs-Mon) we were in Pennsylvania for a reunion weekend! We flew into BWI and stayed with Bill and Lynn in Hershey. On Saturday, the whole family loaded up and went to Knoebels family amusement park in the mountains for the annual Schuck Family Reunion. Knoebels is a unique, family-owned park that does not have an admission price! You can roam about freely and buy tickets to go on each ride (sorta like at the county fair). They have a wide variety of attractions ranging from a swimming pool to bumper cars to world-class wooden coasters. We had a fun time grilling out with the Schuck family, playing in the nearby creek, and hanging out in the park.
On Sunday, Jen's friend Lisa from Girl Scouts came over for lunch. The girls talked all about Lisa's wedding next year where Jen will be a bridesmaid. We followed Lisa out the door to see some other Girl Scout friends. We trekked an hour or so to the 10-year reunion of girls that took trip to Kenya together. (Jen can elaborate on the details of what they did, and even show you a video!). The two other 'girls' that made it both had two kids in tow. WOW! From the stories, almost everyone has kids now! We also saw some of the adult leaders from the trip including Tom and Marti who came to our wedding.
Monday we headed home, but not before stopping off to see Jen's grandma and grandpa! They had lots of stories and pictures from the house in Virginia Beach. Seems like there is a lot of construction going on around there. We might just have to take a trip up and see what all has been happening since we were last at the beach!
While you are waiting for our pictures to be uploaded to the Picasa site, check out the improvements to Google Docs, fill out some family history at Ancestry.com, or tune in for the latest episode of the SpaceTaskForce podcast.
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Friday, June 22, 2007
Random Musings
I'll skip the formal blog entry and any justification or organization for this list:
- [link] transcript of Stephen Hawking's presentation about his life before his ZERO-G flight
- [link] a cool space-themed t-shirt from Amorphia Apparel
- [link] a paper airplane shirt from NekkidTees
- [link] lunar politics tee
- [link] hilarious flight attendant t-shirt from Defunker
- [link] Facebook. I'm addicted, and you should be too.
- [link] a comic about stoplights
- [link] NPR space podcasts
- [link] awesome pic of a kid looking at Earth
- [link] the place I keep all my bookmarks, tagged for easy searching
Friday, June 15, 2007
Mr. Bailey goes to Washington
[cue the patriotic music]
"Ladies and Gentlemen of the 110th Congress, I beseech you to support the exploration and investigation of outer space!!!"
Ok, perhaps it was not that dramatic, but talking to Congressional staffers with the Space Exploration Alliance this week was a LOT of fun! I flew into DC on Sunday and got some basic training with the other Blitz participants. Then it was off to George and Loretta's place for a cook out!
A big THANK YOU to George and Loretta for allowing me to borrow their couch for a few nights. It is always a blast to hang out with the space honeymooners!!
Monday and Tuesday were spent running all over the Congressional office buildings talking to different staffers with long-time space nut Gary Barnhard. Gary is a great guy that knows a about solar power satellites as well as political stuff. We discussed several points with each of the staffers and got fairly positive responses. The meetings I learned the most from were the two toughest: a staffer from TN that was most concerned with science (not exploration) and the Congressman from TX that liked space but was unimpressed with NASA. In both cases, it was most important to listen and respond to their concerns instead of just hitting our talking points. All of the lobbying and meetings with numerous space groups over the past few months seem to have done some good as the House subcommittee increased NASA funding by $290 million!
You can read our press release (and my quote!) here: http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=22839
Going home is usually the least-noteworthy portion of a trip, but this time was an exception! I got to DCA (Washington-Reagan National Airport) via the Metro and went quickly through security. I arrived at my gate to find rampant flight delays and cancellation. After about 3 hours of juggling, US Airways finally dropped my flight and had us reschedule for the next morning. My friend Brett lives just down the street from DCA and was kind enough to pick me up and let me crash for a few hours on his couch. THANKS, Brett! My other option was to sleep on the hard floor of the airport with a thin airplane blanket (many other people had to do this!). I love the small, efficient operation of DCA (especially the easy Metro access), but Orlando has everyone beat with the nice cushy couches and excellent food court.
Traveling is fun, but it is nice to be back at home again for a few days!!
"Ladies and Gentlemen of the 110th Congress, I beseech you to support the exploration and investigation of outer space!!!"
Ok, perhaps it was not that dramatic, but talking to Congressional staffers with the Space Exploration Alliance this week was a LOT of fun! I flew into DC on Sunday and got some basic training with the other Blitz participants. Then it was off to George and Loretta's place for a cook out!
A big THANK YOU to George and Loretta for allowing me to borrow their couch for a few nights. It is always a blast to hang out with the space honeymooners!!
Monday and Tuesday were spent running all over the Congressional office buildings talking to different staffers with long-time space nut Gary Barnhard. Gary is a great guy that knows a about solar power satellites as well as political stuff. We discussed several points with each of the staffers and got fairly positive responses. The meetings I learned the most from were the two toughest: a staffer from TN that was most concerned with science (not exploration) and the Congressman from TX that liked space but was unimpressed with NASA. In both cases, it was most important to listen and respond to their concerns instead of just hitting our talking points. All of the lobbying and meetings with numerous space groups over the past few months seem to have done some good as the House subcommittee increased NASA funding by $290 million!
You can read our press release (and my quote!) here: http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=22839
Going home is usually the least-noteworthy portion of a trip, but this time was an exception! I got to DCA (Washington-Reagan National Airport) via the Metro and went quickly through security. I arrived at my gate to find rampant flight delays and cancellation. After about 3 hours of juggling, US Airways finally dropped my flight and had us reschedule for the next morning. My friend Brett lives just down the street from DCA and was kind enough to pick me up and let me crash for a few hours on his couch. THANKS, Brett! My other option was to sleep on the hard floor of the airport with a thin airplane blanket (many other people had to do this!). I love the small, efficient operation of DCA (especially the easy Metro access), but Orlando has everyone beat with the nice cushy couches and excellent food court.
Traveling is fun, but it is nice to be back at home again for a few days!!
Monday, June 11, 2007
Roo Wants a Facebook Account
I joined Facebook last week. I'm really excited about it, but I haven't been very attentive to it. Jack says he wants his own page, but he's not old enough yet. Poor Roony.
We just spent the last week being wined and dined by Disney. We're trying to get a hotel contract signed for our ISDC 2009 Orlando bid. We spent Wednesday and Thursday nights at the Coronado Springs resort. Then Friday and Saturday nights we spent in a huge corner suite at the Rennaissance near SeaWorld. I definitely recommend bidding for a conference--you get all kinds of goodies from the hotels--wine, presents, free Disney hopper passes.
Thursday night we saw a cool movie--The Wonder of It All. It was an independent documentary about the moonwalkers. Edgar Mitchell (Apollo 14) was there in the theater. He answered some questions afterwards. I sure hope the filmmakers can get the film out to wider audiences. It is really well done.
Friday was the STS-117 launch. I worked the blast console. I'm in training for when Amber is out of town in the beginning of July. There is a Delta II launch that I'll need to do the launch day blast models for. It was scary to be on the console at first, but it's fun.
Saturday we spent at Disney--Epcot and Magic Kingdom--with Teresa, Robert, and Brett. We had tons of fun, but I let out a sigh of relief Sunday morning when I dropped Tim and Brett at the airport. I had all day Sunday to relax and unwind from such a busy week.
Tim's in DC lobbying congress. I'll let him tell you all about it when he gets home.
We just spent the last week being wined and dined by Disney. We're trying to get a hotel contract signed for our ISDC 2009 Orlando bid. We spent Wednesday and Thursday nights at the Coronado Springs resort. Then Friday and Saturday nights we spent in a huge corner suite at the Rennaissance near SeaWorld. I definitely recommend bidding for a conference--you get all kinds of goodies from the hotels--wine, presents, free Disney hopper passes.
Thursday night we saw a cool movie--The Wonder of It All. It was an independent documentary about the moonwalkers. Edgar Mitchell (Apollo 14) was there in the theater. He answered some questions afterwards. I sure hope the filmmakers can get the film out to wider audiences. It is really well done.
Friday was the STS-117 launch. I worked the blast console. I'm in training for when Amber is out of town in the beginning of July. There is a Delta II launch that I'll need to do the launch day blast models for. It was scary to be on the console at first, but it's fun.Saturday we spent at Disney--Epcot and Magic Kingdom--with Teresa, Robert, and Brett. We had tons of fun, but I let out a sigh of relief Sunday morning when I dropped Tim and Brett at the airport. I had all day Sunday to relax and unwind from such a busy week.
Tim's in DC lobbying congress. I'll let him tell you all about it when he gets home.
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