I am now working full time with the Constellation program, the new vehicles NASA is developing. Though I did manage to fanagle my way onto working the current Shuttle flight (STS-127). The work I am doing is still in the aborts realm, but it is quite a bit different working with a capsule vehicle versus the Shuttle. The work I am doing resides in one of the computer simulations for the new vehicle. I have worked on a few different tasks, but the bulk of my work is with...yep you guessed it, computer programming.
I am also working actually on-site at Johnson Space Center now directly with the NASA civil servants on the team. I am in an office on the unsecured side of the Mission Control building. I still do spend a few hours a week back at 600 Gemini though.
So, that's about all there is to say about that for now. If you have any questions about the new program, NASA, or anything space-y, feel free to ask away in the comments, or send me an email, and I'll see what I've got for answers.
You can read through a pretty good overview of the Constellation Program on Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Constellation
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
The Mystery of the Levitating Egg
So, as many of you know, I have two cockatiels. And, as many of you are well aware, they want to be parents. We have had almost every crazy experience you can think of concerning the issue, including (but not limited to) having an egg laid on my chest, having both birds fall in love with me-- wait, Daisy was in love with me, Toto was more in love with just my feet--, and delivering a baby via C-section, or whatever the bird equivalent is. Two years ago, Daisy laid 23 eggs before we finally put a heat rock in so the babies would survive (Daisy and Toto haven't mastered the whole incubation concept). So, we had two little babies (one via C-section) and they grew up to be spoiled, obnoxious, and LOUD creatures that drove me so crazy that I finally dumped them on a friend of mine, who actually quite enjoys them. Go figure. Unfortunately, only hours after the little ones moved into their new home, Daisy and Toto were looking for a suitable nest.
"No way!" says Mondo, "Make 'em stop!"
Unfortunately that's impossible. So guess what? We have eggs again. We didn't give them a suitable nest, but it didn't squelch their spirit, so they finally started a clutch on the floor. The eggs have not developed, as Toto and Daisy still forget to incubate them, but I've left them in the cage in order to keep Daisy from having to lay more.
So it was one morning that Toto and Daisy were loudly expecting breakfast when I discovered that one of the eggs was missing. Upon further investigation, it was discovered to be resting peacefully in the food dish. The food dish, mind you, that sits six inches above the nest. How could this happen? In my experience, eggs do not simply sprout legs or wings and move themselves to higher locations. Eggs are also spherical in nature, not lending to an easy grasp for a bird with sharp beak measuring about one third the egg's size. The only other creatures with the capacity to move the egg were my husband, who had a good alibi for the time of the incident, and the dog, who could have lifted the egg, but definitely couldn't have gotten the cage open to do so.
It was a huge mystery for over a week. Mondo and I decided that the most likely scenario involved aliens with very large ears. We went on vacation, (see previous post) and on our return trip received a phone call from our neighbor/pet sitter. She'd been unable to reach us when she was with the birds, but explained that Toto had an egg attached to his belly, and she was unsure what to do. Since we got home before she had a chance to come back over, we got to solve that one. Sure enough, Toto was moving another egg. Lots. He was pacing, climbing, squawking and calling as if nothing were out of the ordinary, and an egg was bouncing about just in front of his legs. Humorous sight, actually.
Turns out that if you leave eggs out long enough, they'll rot. And when a bird tries to move a rotten egg with his sharp beak, the egg can puncture and ooze. And since said bird is incubating said rotten egg, the ooze dries and attaches itself to the bird's feathers. Oops.
And you'd think after all this, I'd remove those rotten eggs, but I haven't and probably won't... They don't stink as far as I can smell, and honestly, spoiled rotten eggs are SO much better than spoiled rotten baby birds!!
"No way!" says Mondo, "Make 'em stop!"
Unfortunately that's impossible. So guess what? We have eggs again. We didn't give them a suitable nest, but it didn't squelch their spirit, so they finally started a clutch on the floor. The eggs have not developed, as Toto and Daisy still forget to incubate them, but I've left them in the cage in order to keep Daisy from having to lay more.
So it was one morning that Toto and Daisy were loudly expecting breakfast when I discovered that one of the eggs was missing. Upon further investigation, it was discovered to be resting peacefully in the food dish. The food dish, mind you, that sits six inches above the nest. How could this happen? In my experience, eggs do not simply sprout legs or wings and move themselves to higher locations. Eggs are also spherical in nature, not lending to an easy grasp for a bird with sharp beak measuring about one third the egg's size. The only other creatures with the capacity to move the egg were my husband, who had a good alibi for the time of the incident, and the dog, who could have lifted the egg, but definitely couldn't have gotten the cage open to do so.
It was a huge mystery for over a week. Mondo and I decided that the most likely scenario involved aliens with very large ears. We went on vacation, (see previous post) and on our return trip received a phone call from our neighbor/pet sitter. She'd been unable to reach us when she was with the birds, but explained that Toto had an egg attached to his belly, and she was unsure what to do. Since we got home before she had a chance to come back over, we got to solve that one. Sure enough, Toto was moving another egg. Lots. He was pacing, climbing, squawking and calling as if nothing were out of the ordinary, and an egg was bouncing about just in front of his legs. Humorous sight, actually.
Turns out that if you leave eggs out long enough, they'll rot. And when a bird tries to move a rotten egg with his sharp beak, the egg can puncture and ooze. And since said bird is incubating said rotten egg, the ooze dries and attaches itself to the bird's feathers. Oops.
And you'd think after all this, I'd remove those rotten eggs, but I haven't and probably won't... They don't stink as far as I can smell, and honestly, spoiled rotten eggs are SO much better than spoiled rotten baby birds!!
Sunday, July 19, 2009
2009 MN Trip
We had another adventurous trip to MN this year. We shrunk it down to a week, and what a jam packed week it was.
We headed North on July 3rd with our packed up Prius, our audio books (book review at the end), and no pets!? That's right, Yahtzee and the birds stayed home alone during this trip. Our most excellent neighbors were willing to visit our house and give the pets some attention. We're still not sure if the pets actually missed us...but we sure missed them! We broke up the drive into two days, and spent the night in Omaha, NE. We decided on sleeping in and enjoying continental breakfast, then taking a dip in the pool before we left. When we headed for the pool, we found out that it was an outdoor pool and that it was wicked chilly!
Monday was a day for hanging out at the Johnson house, and all the sisters were there. There was gardening, croquet, catching frogs, playing with dogs, and fishing.
We headed North on July 3rd with our packed up Prius, our audio books (book review at the end), and no pets!? That's right, Yahtzee and the birds stayed home alone during this trip. Our most excellent neighbors were willing to visit our house and give the pets some attention. We're still not sure if the pets actually missed us...but we sure missed them! We broke up the drive into two days, and spent the night in Omaha, NE. We decided on sleeping in and enjoying continental breakfast, then taking a dip in the pool before we left. When we headed for the pool, we found out that it was an outdoor pool and that it was wicked chilly!
We got into Detroit Lakes for the 4th of July, and grilled out at Mondo's parent's house before heading to the beach to enjoy the fireworks.
We also got to meet the newest member of Kayla's family, Oscar Meyer the miniature wiener dog!
Then it was time to get a move on. Sunday involved the flea market, church, and then a Johnson family reunion of sorts for Grandma Karen's birthday party. This also coincided with the Fertile Fair, so there was lots of fun to be had. We got a ton of visiting in with family we'd seen recently and family we hadn't seen in years, some of them Mondo (and sometimes even Lady) hadn't even met yet! Then, we accompanied the little ones to the fair to enjoy the "cool MN weather" :-).
Monday was a day for hanging out at the Johnson house, and all the sisters were there. There was gardening, croquet, catching frogs, playing with dogs, and fishing.
Tuesday allowed us more time to spend with our nephews, with a short break to do some prep work for the library program on Thursday. For the evening we headed over to Moorhead to have dinner with Erika et al. Then, we finished off the evening by heading over to visit JR and the boys.
Wednesday was a day for lounging at the Kostrzewski house. We introduced Kayla to the fun world of Guitar Hero and we all had a good time. We also fit in some work for "Juan K Technical Support & Graphic Design", as Mondo worked on fixing up the computers and Lady helped Kayla out with a new logo. We finished the day off with some old school N64 gaming with Kayla & Jeb.
Thursday had two main events... Mondo's space talk at the library and Kostrzewski family pictures. In the morning, we put the final touches on the presentation and the slide show and got ready for the talk. Dotz was worried about not having had enough publicity for the event... but she needn't have worried. In a room that is supposed to hold 50 people, the final count totaled 166 people of all ages. Apparently we set a new record for library attendance (and Dotz, feel free to correct our numbers in the comments). It was a huge success, with great questions coming from the kids and adults. We even talked to people afterward who were disappointed they missed it, and hoped we'd be doing it again soon. The craziest part about it was that several kids had to get Mondo's autograph after the talk. Mondo is a bit sheepish about that point, but as long as it means they are getting excited about space, then who is he to argue?! As soon as the mob cleared out of the library, we hurried off to beautify ourselves for Kostrzewski family pictures. We finished Thursday evening off with carrot cake baking, and watching Jeb play softball.
Friday zipped up on us quite quickly. This was our last day up in DL, and we had quite the to-do list on our hands. Juan K Technical Support was at it again, there was a bakery run, we met up with a couple of Lady's friends (Hi Betsy and Allison!), had lunch with Dotz and picked strawberries, then back to the Kostrzewski's for Leroy's big party, which included grilled deliciousness, cotton candy making, badminton, beanbag toss, and other fun. Talk about an action packed day!
Then, it was Saturday, and it was time for us to hit the road again...with our new hose reel (from Leroy) prominently displayed in the back seat. We made it to Perry, OK before we decided to call it a night.
We got back to our house at 4pm on Sunday, which was a big deal considering we usually get in pretty late. Our pets were ecstatic (we were happy to see them, too!), our house was actually pretty clean since we'd gotten that done before we left, and it was time to get back to life as unusual!
Welcome to our new blog!
Hey Everyone,
Well we have decided to try and get everyone back in the loop of our lives in a fashion where we can hopefully keep y'all up to date more continuously. Hence, welcome to our blog.
Now, if you are a bit confused as to why it is called "The Gecko's Life Theater", let me try and shed some light. John's online tag has been Mondo Gecko, paying homage to the great skateboarding lizard of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles lore, for some time. It carried over nicely to his joining the Xbox 360 world as TheMondoGecko. As Maren joined the gaming fray, she adopted the name Lady Gecko. And, there you have it, we are now also known as the Gecko's. Though I suppose the fact that our house is always covered in geckos and lizards, and we seem to always have baby geckos getting into the house and running around may have something to do with the name as well.
So, after that long winded origins story, I hope you are still enticed to join us on our crazy trip through life. There is also a commenting feature with the blog so that you can leave us your thoughts on our life and hopefully share a little about how yours is going. We see this venture as a two way street.
We hope you are all doing well, and that you all can enjoy many smiles with us.
- The Kostrzewski's aka The Gecko's
- Mondo, Lady, Yahtzee, Daisy, & Toto
Well we have decided to try and get everyone back in the loop of our lives in a fashion where we can hopefully keep y'all up to date more continuously. Hence, welcome to our blog.
Now, if you are a bit confused as to why it is called "The Gecko's Life Theater", let me try and shed some light. John's online tag has been Mondo Gecko, paying homage to the great skateboarding lizard of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles lore, for some time. It carried over nicely to his joining the Xbox 360 world as TheMondoGecko. As Maren joined the gaming fray, she adopted the name Lady Gecko. And, there you have it, we are now also known as the Gecko's. Though I suppose the fact that our house is always covered in geckos and lizards, and we seem to always have baby geckos getting into the house and running around may have something to do with the name as well.
So, after that long winded origins story, I hope you are still enticed to join us on our crazy trip through life. There is also a commenting feature with the blog so that you can leave us your thoughts on our life and hopefully share a little about how yours is going. We see this venture as a two way street.
We hope you are all doing well, and that you all can enjoy many smiles with us.
- The Kostrzewski's aka The Gecko's
- Mondo, Lady, Yahtzee, Daisy, & Toto
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