Rocket Man

It's just my job five days a week.

Sweet Home Californie

Back to the log cabin in California. Florida is already a mirage. Total days in Cocoa Beach this year totaled 146. Oi. As far as I know the hangar queen is progressing nominally. Sha-weet. I got numerous calls and txts while stuck in FL. Mostly from the wif, but also from my most wonderful nieces.

However, I did receive a special note, with pictures, addressed specifically to me and hand delivered by Mrs. LK from my numba one nephew. Maraming salamat sa pamagkin ko. I love you Justin.


For anyone that gives a poop the following pictures describe what I have spent the last 6 years of my life making sure worked and were ready to be catapulted into space. The satellite on the left is a depiction of the three satellites I had a hand in launching in the past two years. The satellite on the right, though similar, is what I hopefully will be working on for the next 5 to 6 years. Go Wideband!

Just Not Much Going On

Well I've been here in Florida for 35 days now. It's been mostly hot. Unseasonably so according to the locals. There were a few cool days a couple weeks back, but it's been mostly sweat inducing weather.

Mrs. LK came out, well, I guess it would be two weekends back now. That was nice. We went out with my work folks one night and just like the Hilton staff they were way more impressed with her than me. Oh well. Just more confirmation that I picked a winner and luckily was able to trick her into sticking with me. So far. Woohoo!

Work didn't interfere too much except on the last day. I ended up having to go to work at 10 PM on Tuesday, then not actually work until 1 AM, pause, resume at 7 AM, bail out back to Cocoa Beach to pick-up the wife at 9:30 AM, drive back out to Orlando airport, hug, kiss, say goodbye, drive back to Titusville to pick up my stuff that I had left earlier, get back to Cocoa Beach about 12:30, eat something, try to stay up to at least a normal time, fail, fall asleep, wake up way early. Drag ass through the next few days. Oh well.

In general in regards to work it has been going relatively smoothly. Nothing show stopping at this point. We've officially been delayed, but at this point it's only a day so I don't even really think that counts as a delay. Who knows though with both the shuttle and another private satellite on the range at just about the exact same time we'll just have to wait and see. I've learned over the last two previous campaigns not to rely on any date to stay fixed while here. No matter what, something will change. Or a bunch of things. Just kinda go with it and come home when it's all done.

Well I guess that's it.

Lima Kilo out.

Way Behind

Man, I'm updating about as often as Rosanna at this point. Oh well. So I've got some pictures of the air show that was going on outside the window of my original room at the Hilton Cocoa Beach a couple weekends back. Scott, one of the bartenders, down at the pool bar had mentioned that an F22 was supposed to make an appearance that day so when I saw, and heard, this sucker fly by the first time I thought that's what it was. After a closer look it turned out to be an F/A18. Still really cool.








Kinda glad I didn't get the room upgrade until after that show. With that said a few days later a small suite opened up on the 7th floor and they moved me into it. Nothing fancy, but it's nice at least having the option to spread out a bit even if I don't. First things first. Fill the fridge with the essentials. Beer. Soda. Water.


And a few pics of the room.





That's about all I've got at this point. I had a couple of days off during the first two weeks and the schedule is looking to loosen up a bit. We'll see.

Leaving On A Jet Plane

So once again off to the land of infinite humidity and heat. Oh and rocket launches. Heading over to LAX to board the C5 once again bound for Florida. Scheduled to return November 20th, but we'll see how that goes. Last time it turned from 50 days to 75 almost without blinking. Hopefully good luck is coming with me.

Cheers everyone.

~lk

Gone! Baby! Gone!

The rocket has left the building. Woohoo! Coming home on Monday and I can't wait. Yesterdays were NOT smooth leading up to that awesome climax. The actual trip into orbit went extremely well. The satellite separated from the rocket with no issues. It's signal was picked up at tracking stations successfully. Lastly they were able to talk back at it. Only time will tell, but for now it's been a trying yet successful mission.

Can't wait to see all of you that I haven't seen in forever.

I'm on my way!

Scrubbed!

Totally weak.

Update: Well when I left work tonight it was rescheduled for no sooner than Friday. I get to the scrub party (this is the party where all the booze and food that was already purchased to celebrate a successful launch is instead consumed, because well it's already been purchased) and it's announced that we will NOT launch any earlier than the 26th.

Even more weak. I'm starting to really dislike Florida.

Update #2: Based on what is coming up that is out of our control, other launches, the Shuttle coming home, etc., it is looking less and less likely that the 26th is a good date. This just gets worse and worse.

T-20 Hours

We got to go out to the launch pad again this time for pictures with the rocket. The satellite is enclosed in the fairing at the top. Wish us luck. We'll need it. It's currently pouring rain outside. Hopefully the storm will blow out by tomorrow night.

More Of Not Much

Still hesitant to declare anything until my feet are firmly planted back in California.

BUT, I was told to reschedule my ticket home for the 16th of March.

Please keep your fingers crossed. I miss home. :)

Poop Bounces Amazingly Well

Well this isn't going to be the novel like a couple posts back was. I can't go into details in a public forum like this, but ask me the next time you see me and I'll give the skinny...

and then I'll have to kill you.

I really stepped in it with the "all is calm here" post. The very next day the world turned to shit. Pretty much everyone got caught in the shit storm that rained down from on high. The CJP was absolutely correct in his comment regarding the "Nice shot". For those not in on the nice shot phrase it goes something like this. During our days of disk golf we had a rule not to comment on someones throw until that throw had come to rest. The reason being that if said shot was in flight and a positive comment was made that disk immediately found the nearest tree, lake, street, backyard, etc. You get the idea. Don't jinx the shot with a comment. Superstitious? Sure, but you know what, it seemed to hold true. We've been following that practice ever since regardless of the venue whether it be sports or whatever. No comment until you've got the win under your belt.

I broke the rules with my post which then resulted in the next two weeks of hell on earth in lovely Titusville. The very next day all hell broke loose and we haven't contained it yet nor do I see containment in sight. Our customer is now calling all the shots and the scrutiny of every last thing that we do started then and with all probability will not cease even after this stupid flying electronic rock is floating around the planet.

Since that day I've broken down crying to my wife on the phone from all the stress. I've stayed home "sick" once. Mentally ill counts, it really does. We've been working six days a week and figuring on seven and then rejoicing when we actually get a day off. Like today. Oh rejoice on high. I've contemplated, obviously not seriously, driving into embankments in order to escape having to go in. The sleeping, well lack of sleeping, man has that been fun. It's a bitch when you roll around in bed playing the events of the past few days or the next few days over in your head uncontrollably when all you really want is the oblivion of sleep in which to forget it all.

The one bright spot in it all was Mrs. LK coming out last Thursday night. So good to have the love of your life there just to be there. Just having her here has made the past four days bearable. And now she's at the airport or on her plane heading back home. Alone again. Thanks for being here honey.

Ok so this is turning into another novel. I guess that's what happens when I can't post regularly and stuff is happening. To answer some of the comments. 1) I didn't get the wipes sent, but bought my own. Hotel remotes are nasty. 2) The size of that fan was fucking huge! The shit splattered all the way back to southern California, hit and then bounced all the way back. I refuse at this point to say how good, bad or ugly things will be in the future out of abject terror that it will get worse. Remember me fondly.

Bet You Don't Have One Of These

...runnin' around your workplace. Maybe not even in your state. Well almost none of you anyway. So this email was in my mailbox at work today.


All,

I was up at Merritt Island National Refuge, FL just east of Titusville taking some nature pictures today. Titusville is just north of where our work is. I just finished taking the first attached landscape picture and decided to cross the road to see what the view would be for another shot and met up with the hungry fellow in the second attached picture. Needless to say I declined to join him for lunch. I figure he was about ten feet long. I am not 100% positive of the measurement. I didn't have a measuring tape on me :).

Jose


If I don't come back do me a favor and outfit yourselves with some alligator shoes, belts, wallets, purses and full sets of luggage.

Sixteen Tons And What Do You Get?

So yesterday completed over two weeks of time intensive tasks at work. Starting a couple of weekends back I pretty much have been at work every day for long hours. I did manage to take a half day this past Wednesday and a full day on Thursday to try and recuperate for the testing that lasted NINETEEN HOURS IN A ROW on Friday.

While not everything went as smooth as everyone would have liked my team and I executed superbly on a really complex set of tasks. We basically did a rehearsal for launch day where we set up our satellite as if it was sitting on top of the rocket. We step through setting up and verifying all the important systems required to keep the sucker safe and alive on its journey from Earth to orbit. Ultimately we need to get our duration down to under 10.5 hours, but this run, which took 15, was already 4 hours better than our first try. Put it this way if we hadn't had the problems we did I have no doubt we would have been done in nine hours or less. My team is that good. As it was the problems that occurred helped us better plan for crap that could happen on the real day.

It was long day and I wasn't all that excited while it was going on. There is lots of interaction between our launch and mission control teams and there can be a lot of dead time waiting for someone else to do there bit and move to the next step. At the end of the day though looking back on all that had gone right and gone wrong I was really excited about how our team worked together as a team to solve those problems and stay focused on the task at hand. We'll have a bunch more rehearsals, not soon thank dog, and I can only see us getting better and better. It's days like yesterday that keep me coming back to this damn job.

So now since I worked so many hours last week I have a choice. I can either go in to work next week and every hour I work will be overtime. Or I can take the 80 hours I've already worked in basically a week just stay the hell away.

I'm opting for the second choice. :)