We're in a critical period at work... our instrumented all-terrain vehicle must be to the NASA shipping dept. by next Monday if it is to make it to the Arctic field test site in time. They're talking about chartering a cargo flight from Yellowknife. At t he same time, the ATV in question isn't ready to test... parts still await assembly. And the entire wireless network and ATV needs to be tested... otherwise, there is little use in shipping a non-functional system to the literal middle of nowhere.
So, w hat's hindering the process of assembly and testing? Well, the building in which the ATV lab sits was closed today by people wearing bunny-suits... performing chlorine fumigation. The building is one of several detected to contain Legionella, the bug t hat causes Legionnaire's Disease. Oh, and there are new signs posted that warn us that the settled dust contains lead... we've been working in that building for 4 years. Sigh...
One particular team member is a certified stresspuppy right now, to the poi nt of driving other folks out of the lab because he's stressing them just by being nearby...
Despite all of this, the VPN workaround addressing the firewall seems to be working, and the cameras were integrated with our ruggedized Rocky laptops. So progress continues. At this point in a project, I'm more of a cheerleader and troubleshooter than actually useful... most of the time, the best thing I can do is just get out of the way and let the team members do their respective jobs. They now know more about their respective pieces than I do...
Otherwise, I invited Lori, Jean and
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hopeforyou out for lunch in Mountain View -- kind of a NASA-poly gathering. Lori's sweetie S joined us... it was fun. Kind of strange and really cool at the sam e time... people that bridged two of my personal worlds, and to whom I could talk about either...
Speaking of which, after work I went directly to RA's Palo Alto dinner -- lots of noise, energy, and the usual good Chinese food. Lots of LJ folks there, p robably 20. I had the considerable pleasure of sitting behind
7patches and Jean, and in-between
patgreene (her first time ;-) and
lysana. Pat *really* liked the honey-glazed prawns, handled the noise well, and I think that she looked fabulous this evening (fond sigh). But then coffee afterward was cut short when the KidsPark beeper went off -- one of my kids (David) had gotten in a shoving match with another kid, kicked someone, and had obtained a nosebleed. Just as we were discussing parenting tactics with
p3aches's hubby C...?
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jimweasel and a vaguely-familiar dark-haired woman were there, but they were ensconced on a couch, intent on each other. So I hung out, drank my coffee, looked at the new artwork (esp. the Rodin-Thinker-like wire sculptures above the bar) and left 15 minutes later. Saw a meteor on the way home, a brief greenish fireball. 
