No Sleep For Me

At the sound of the tone the time will be: 5:05am.

Crap. I've been awake since 3. This never happens. I can usually fall asleep within minutes and not stop until my f'in alarm wakes me up in the morning (no doubt I could sleep a few more hours longer). Not tonight. Nope. I fell asleep around 9:30 on my couch, woke up a half an hour later to relocate to my bed and only managed to squeak another four hours of sleep. I hate nights like this. It's going to be a long, tired Friday.

I seem to have a lot on my mind tonight. A matter of personal reflection. It was another one of those "what makes me me" moments that have always had a tendency to crawl in my head and grab hold of the part of my brain which prevents me from sleeping and enjoying myself in general. Knowing who I am shouldn't be this difficult. I know who I don't want to be and I know who I would like to be in the future, but defining the here and now is the most difficult thing I've ever tried to do.

I'm reading a book on improvisational theater right now. Given my background in engineering and NASA and all things non-artistic you'd think this was a grand departure from my normal endeavors. You'd be right (except for that improv class I took last year). It really is a fascinating book though, pointing out what tends to be the more obvious points in life that we overlook because of what we've been taught. Namely, spontaneity is one of the greatest talents we possess. Truth is, everyone possesses it. We just tend to suppress it because of social anxiety, the fear of looking stupid, or the belief that anything outside the norm is unacceptable. The outcome, of course, is just a bunch of boring people following the herd that we call adulthood. I know, it's not really that simple. People express themselves in a variety of ways and no one is a closed up as this theory would have us believe. Still, I think we all have in us at least a small touch of doubt when it comes to fully opening ourselves up to people. I know I'm certainly guilty of that and that's really where I'm trying to go to with all this. I know who I am. I've had just about 30 years to figure that out. I like who I am and although I've never doubted who I was as a person I have had to figure out what it was about myself that made my who I am. I know that may sound silly but in a world full of uniformity and conformity it hasn't been easy to figure out why I never stand in with the pack. Because of this, because of not knowing where I fit in with the world I've had a difficult time expressing myself in a manner that would make sense to anyone. In a world with a million voices, how do I make mine heard?

I have a bizarre mind. My attention span is like that of a four year old child until I hit a certain point, a level of concentration, and then the world around me ceases to exist. Anyone who has seen me work knows that I can become incredibly focused and determined (a little too much sometimes). And I love to work. That's not to mean that I like to be at work. Those are two different things. Going to work is a means of making a living. It helps that I enjoy what I'm doing but given the option of working for a living or just receiving a paycheck for no reason, I'd probably choose the latter. Life fascinates me, along with all the ideas and gadgets and mysteries and problems that come with it. I say that because I'm also fascinated by solutions and ingenuity. Everything can be broken down into a problem with symptoms and ultimately a solution. Some problems are just a little more complicated than others. Given enough time, however, nothing has proven to be unsolvable. I realize how engineering-ish that sounds but I believe it to be absolutely true. This, of course, gets me into a lot of trouble in terms of settling on any one particularly thing to do with myself. There are so many! I have the hardest time focusing my brain on any one. I want to do this. I want to do that. I want to learn this. I want to try that. I'm very proud of my inquisitiveness but, really, a lot of the time I'd be happy to be able to focus on one thing that made me happy and go with that. The side effect of this is restlessness. There's never time to relax because there's always something else to do. Something else to think about. Something else to solve!

I put up my wish list not too long ago. It's not difficult to realize that the "things" I want are not things at all, but obstacles I'd like to overcome and ideas I'd like to investigate. Material possessions dropped from my interests a long time ago. In themselves, they are useless. I love my camera not because of its hardware, but because of what I can create from it. I can't imagine living without my iPod, not because of the "cool" factor, but because of all the emotions it provides me through the music stored within it. Things are things and emotions are emotions and it's a tragedy when the two aren't separated.

What gets me into trouble is not a lack of determination but the fact that people aren't problems to be solved. I know how incredibly obvious that is but it's a paradigm that my brain doesn't readily admit. I ask a lot of questions but I like getting to the bottom of things. People have no "bottom". They are who they are. Getting to know someone is exactly that and shouldn't be used as a front to analyze their brains. I'm always looking to explain and, as a result, I can sometimes miss the person that I'm trying to connect with. It's something I'd like to change and improve upon. Perhaps if I thought of it as an obstacle to overcome, I could reason out the cause and come up with a solution. Or I could just shut my brain off and be. Not think. Just be.

Sounds like something to figure out to me.

Tight lipped

The tongue is an amazing thing. For one, it's just a large, slimy exposed muscle stuck in our mouths. Possibly the least sexiest of all muscles it's arguably one of the most important. It helps us eat, talk, and a few other things that don't need to be mentioned though are guaranteed to make life more enjoyable. Sometimes it can be eloquent, other times bumbling, and sometimes when it's most needed it can be aggravatingly silent. Words need to be spoken in certain situations and when they are not, well, it can leave you kicking yourself. Hard. In the ass. Because you didn't say something you wanted to say. My fingers never seem to have that problem which makes me wonder where the disconnect is occurring.

I have never been good at talking about myself. I'm modest to a fault and I know my history, my story and I find it much more interesting to listen to other people tell me about themselves. Especially if they like talking about themselves (to a certain extent, at least). Despite the fact that I know the other person may be thinking the same thing I still have trouble opening myself up and sharing what is within me. It's something I'd like to change but in the interest of reality I'd be happy for the smallest advancement.

That's how it is. I wanted to write a little something and that's what came out. Go figure.

For the past week I’ve been forced to trick my body into believing it should be awake at hours it has no desire to witness. As I hope everyone is aware, we are in the middle of the current space shuttle mission. We have Discovery (STS-120 for those of you keeping score) docked to the International Space Station so that a new module (code name: Harmony) can be delivered and installed. Things are not going so well which means the mission is actually getting media coverage. Go figure. I’ve been assigned to what has to be the most boring shift and I find myself working from 7:30pm to 4:30am, a time period which is half filled with the crew sleeping. The other half, well, varies from mind numbingly dull to somewhat interesting. Only 6 more days to go (out of a total of 13). I need a vacation.

The following is a list of things I want to do (or just want):
-Establish a RAID array on my computer to improve my back up system, which currently doesn’t exist. I’m not entirely sure what this means yet but I read about it in a magazine and I’m oddly intrigued.

-Beef up my home media system. That somewhat ties in with the first bullet. I want to figure out a way to improve the quality of media coming from my computer to my home entertainment system. I’m not going to think about this one too much yet. Part of this goal involves taking a large chunk of my CDs and ripping them onto my computer in a lossless format. I currently have them all my music in the lossy MP3s format (this includes music that did not come off a CD via iTunes or other undisclosed sources). Seeing how I really can’t hear the difference between MP3 and anything else, I’m not pushing this one too fast.

-Take an improve comedy course. This one is in the works. I’ve started attending shows at a tiny venue in mid-town Houston. Each show consists of three to four troupes of varying experience and skill. Some are a lot of fun to watch and others, well, let’s just say they’re earning valuable experience. The ring leader, the founder of the show, offers classes. I figure what’s the point of trying to be funny unless you can pay a lot of money to do it? Classes are supposed to start in the beginning of December. I’m looking forward to it.

-Become a master photographer. This will take time. It’ll start by the acquisition of a flash and a couple new lenses, along with learning more technique and getting more use out of my camera. I’m going through a creative dry spell though, having grown tired of simply taking landscape shots. I need to brainstorm and think of something else I can express through photography. This is a work in progress.

-Find a new job and get married. I’d say the former is more likely than the latter but since neither look like they’re going to happen any time soon, I’ll just bunch them together and call it a day.

Is this asking too much?

-Red Rocks Park, Denver, CO

An Idle Mind Does Wander

It's been a not-so-great week. In fact, I'd say the past month or so has been a collection of peaks in a otherwise uneventful and monotonous life. If I was being honest with myself I'd admit that this has been going on for longer than a month. But I'm not being honest with myself because denial is always the easiest way of dealing with just about anything and I'm nothing if not easy. You know what I mean.

The highlight of the most recent past is my recent trip to Denver where I got to witness one of the most incredible things left to us in this world: Red Rocks Park. Right, and some great friends of mine got married also. In fact, two of my closest friends here in Houston and I had the honor of being part of the wedding. Someone has to park cars, right? Though were nice enough to let me be a groomsman and in an impromptu move on the Reverend's part I ended up holding a bucket of holy water for a good five minutes which I'm sure reverted back to plain tap water as soon as it touched my hands. I'm not saying I'm cursed but my relationship with God has had worse reception lately than my AT&T cellphone service. Actually, that's being nice about it but I'm not here to discuss my religious beliefs. I'll leave that for people holier than me with more desire to connect with an all powerful being. For now, I'll just wallow in my disbelief and wonder how any omnipotent being would allow the most watched sitcom on TV to star Charlie Sheen. I'm reading a book right now (which I'll save for another discussion) about God in general which raises a very good argument: despite the claim that God is all knowing and all powerful, it is logically flawed for the Almighty to actually be all knowing and all powerful. Discuss (and if you're curious as to why this "can't" be, ask me and I'll be happy to try to explain it).

The return from my trip to Denver was, to say the least, sorrowful. Not that anything particularly bad happened in Houston other than the fact that as soon as I stepped off the plane I was dismayed to realize that, in fact, my four day absence wasn't enough time for Houston to stop being a shit hole. Go figure. I've only been to Denver twice and I've loved it both times. That's not to say that I got that same gushy feeling of destiny like I did when I visited Boston for the first time in my adult life just prior to college graduation. But still, how can I not love a city that puts so much emphasis on conservation especially since everything surrounding the city (like the Rockies) begs you to not spend any actual time within the city? It's a city full of people who admire good health, good environment, and good beer. As a comparison, Houston's focus is on chicken fried steak, oil refineries, and Bud Light. As the Astros are used to hearing: strike three, you're out!

I've had my share of illnesses in my relatively short life, the most recent of which I won't bother going into since it really falls under the category of "chronic disease" and is none of your business. Unless I've already told you about it, then in that case, it is your business and I send my apologies for being so snippy (which is not a side effect of the disease and is only the result of me being confined to my apartment for the week...I'm getting to it). On Monday I left work at the normal time feeling like Death was taking up residence in my chest cavity. It was only until half way home (about 2.5 minutes into my 5 minute commute) where Death decided to finger that part of my brain that controls nausea like it was, well, something you'd finger because you like it. Never have I gotten sick so quickly (in recent memory) which, fortunately for me, had just about passed by morning though it's taken me all week to fully recover (almost there). I hate being sick because it confines me to my already too small apartment and it gives me a horrible, manic feeling, something I compare to being stuck in a really small and secluded dwelling, like a cabin, with a intense inner burning feeling, like a fever. Someone should come up with an expression for that...

Which brings me to today when I'm just about to crack because I realize how much I've been cramped up in my place and how secluded I've actually become and, surprise surprise, I really don't like that. It's a terrible feeling of loneliness that I would only wish upon my worst enemies. And Mitt Romney. I just don't like that guy. It all hit me while I was folding socks that had been sitting on my bedroom floor for at least a week and half, six of which had no apparent mate and would be forced to submit to a life of widowhood. As I'm wont to do while folding laundry, I started thinking of my upcoming annual review at work which, as we all know, if the ultimate test of worthiness is any corporate worker bee's life. Despite my high profile, super exciting job (sarcasm?) I too fit into this mold. What would my boss ask me? "So Dave, what do you think of your performance over this last year? What did you accomplish? What do you wish to accomplish over the next year? Blah blah blah blah blah...." It's the same questions every year though, admittedly, my answers have changed since I've been able to mature in my job since I began and I've experienced some great personal and professional growth. I'm grateful for that and I hope I've made that obvious in the past. However, I started wondering what I would say this year. Truth is, my position has just about run itself dry. On the large checklist of "things to do before I leave" there are only a handful of boxes that remain unchecked and an even smaller set that I know are even possible given the way my company and our contract work. What, then, is my incentive for continuing and what will I say to my boss when he asks me about my plans for the next year?

This really isn't a story about my annual review. I couldn't give a rat's ass about that because its role in my life is to determine if I get a raise of 3.2% or 3.4%. I'll survive either way. It's the bigger picture that gets me. I have no incentive to really exceed (other than that "personal satisfaction" garbage which is only great in the Land of Fairies and Lollipops...the corporate world has a way of minimizing the joy in it). In fact, the entire corporate structure is intended to keep the status quo and only allows for bouts of greatness in critical situations or when no one is really paying attention. What's so ironic about this is that so many of us trained for this, lived our lives in a manner that brought us to this very point, that we are prepared to doing nothing but great work and are stuck in a system which doesn't allow for it. I've always hated the question "what do you do?" because none of us should be defined by the work we do. Truth is, though, in an idea world what you do for work is what you love and is a large part of who you are. Ain't no shame in being defined that way. It's just criminal that too many of my peers, colleagues, and friends have inspirational creativity and intelligence and are not being given the tools or resources to take advantage of either.

I'm not asking for a world that rewards great work. I tend to believe that anything gained out of financial incentive is the work of an ulterior motive, however noble the creator may be. The accomplishments we make should be the result of nothing more than our desire to make the world better. We should break free from the desks that keep us from standing and be allowed to explorer. Each of us is capable of so much and if current conditions don't allow for the expansion our of minds then the only thing to do is change our current conditions. Life is not here for us to squander. Contentness is not good thing, for it makes us idle. We need to find our interests and run with them, failing or succeeding, it doesn't matter as long as we taste as much as we can before we no longer can.



It wasn't until I was folding that last set of socks, an overly worn set of argyle, that I realized all this talk of "we" and "us" should have been replaced with "I" and "me". I have no power over anyone else, just me. If I did, no one would wear socks with sandals and the word "desirement" would be outlawed. If I'm feeling like this then perhaps it is time for me to start making some changes. Leave Houston? In time; that trip is unavoidable. Baby steps, perhaps. Which direction those steps are in I have yet to determine but maybe, just maybe, it will be the curious mind that wanders. And that wouldn't be such a bad thing.

A balmy fall evening in my living room

It's just about the beginning of October and the weather in Houston has finally transformed into that wonderful phase I like to call "the end of summer". Most places in this country have already gone through that transition but here in Houston we like to be different. Winter? Who needs it? Leave that snow for all the pansies up in the north that can't stand the heat. Unfortunately, I'm one of those pansies. Right now the Fall air has reached a comfortable temperature somewhere in the mid-70s. My apartment, on the other hand, is still hovering in the mid- to high-80s. "Why is that" you ask? It's for no better reason than my air conditioner broke. Good times.

This is a boring post. Thanks God no one reads this thing anymore. There's so much to write and a brilliant topic that popped into my head and silently slipped out my ear and is hanging around my apartment somewhere. As soon as I find it I'll be sure to throw it your way.

Still here

Thinking a little these days. So much has happened in the past 7 months, I don't even know where to start. So much is going to happen in the next 7 months I don't know where to start. This is turning out to be one of those sleepless nights due to an overactive mind and despite an over-exhausted body.

Plus, I've delved into the world of Linux and it's totally kicking my ass. That's completely off topic but it's still a pain in my arse. Chew on that.,

Enough is enough

As everyone knows, I work here at the Johnson Space Center at the southeastern reaches of the hot and humid city of Houston where the motto is, "I reckon' it sure is hot and humid outside". I'm not particular proud of this fact but it's something I've learned to live with over my three and a half years working here. It's not always where you are, but who you're with and working here at NASA means I've surrounded myself with some incredibly unique and incredible people. These are the people that make me proud of what we all do here, people whose intelligence is only outweighed by their heart and dedication. We work hard here, earn less than we're worth, and put up with interminable beauracracy because we have a passion for the space industry and an overwhelming desire to get our astronauts in space and to keep them healthy. Because, really, everything thing we do here, all the procedure writing and console support, is done with the goal of making our astronauts happy. We wouldn't be anything without them and this fact is not lost on them. Of the astronauts I've had the pleasure to meet and work with, not one of them is blind to the fact that we bust our butts for them and the appreciation we get from them because of this is second to none.

As I grew up, I always had a fascination with space (like many young children) and astronauts were surely up on a pedestal in my little world. I carried that reverance throughout my life, even bringing it with me the day I started working here. It wasn't until I finally got to start working with these astronauts that an incontrovertrible truth finally dawned on me: despite the aura of mystique that surrounds them, astronauts are only human. And, like any human, they sometimes make mistakes. I'm sure by now you've all heard about one of them and I'm just appalled by the media coverage this is getting.

NASA has numerous space probes travelling through the cosmos, a space shuttle launch every three months, and a space station that has been in continuous operation for 7 years. I rarely see a mention of any of these in the evening news. I've seen astronauts pull off amazing feats performing space walks and the only mention they get is an over-exaggerated headline of a 'toxic leak' which had little effect on anyone. Sadly, the most media exposure they get is when one of them has an emotional break down and gets involved in some rather unfortunate events. It's a tragedy, really, and I'd expect the media to jump on this one, but the extent and nature of the coverage has left me even more disgusted with the news than ever before.

Although I have not had the pleasure of working with Lisa Nowak, I know she is a highly respected member of the NASA community. Why she would take this course of action everyone is still trying to figure out and no doubt the answers will come slowly and, even then, the whole story will probably only be known by a small group of people. Despite the limited amount of information that is known at this point, the media outlets are overloading the airwaves and front pages with 'coverage', basically rehashing the limited known facts repeatedly, delving into her professional career, and interviewing neighbors who, as expected, have nothing to say other than they didn't see it coming. I've seen computer generated mapped routes between Houston and Orlando, news segments dubbed 'Space Oddity', repeated reference to the diapers she wore during the car ride (interesting fact: astronauts wear them during shuttle launches and spacewalks), and that demeaning mug shot. There have been psychological profiling, endless speculation, and *gasp* shock that an astronaut could do something like this. Yes, I admit it's strange. No, not strange, unfortunate and very sad. It's never easy to see a family member (we're all part of the NASA family around here, in a non-sappy way) go through something like this but it's almost as hard seeing her name get dragged through the mud without any shred of fact being released about the case.

No doubt drama like this occurs throughout the country on a daily basis. I rarely hear about it on the news. This case is different, of course, because it involved a fall from a pedestal. Same thing would have happened if a movie star tried to pull this off. I can accept that. What really pisses me off, and this is what it comes down to, is that the only time these brave people get recognized for anything is when they mess up, as all humans are bound to do. Looks like Letterman did a top ten list on how you know if an astronaut is trying to kill you. Funny? Maybe. Appropriate? Definitely not. Leave her alone. Please.

With all that's going on in this world I would hope that Americans have more vital issues to follow than this little soap opera scenario. But that's just American society, isn't it? Forget about the war, there's some good dirt on a semi-famous person. It's the same old story. Perhaps Lisa Nowak isn't the only person guilty of bad judgement.