Productive and fun :)
Mar. 5th, 2004 05:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jayAfter a string of dull or nearly-useless air traffic project trips, this week has been an excellent contrast. Honeybee is both more competent and motivated than the FAA or its contractors... and on this Mars drilling automation project, they're clearly working for me rather than being a peer organization elbowing for dominance. And while it still seems a bit weird to find a robotics company in Little Italy, I'm getting used to it.
But that's all window dressing. This week worked because of Honeybee's cooperation, and Howard's support plus team members in California loyally dialing-up WebEx at 6:30am PT... and because Pascal Lee was here Wednesday and Thursday. He and I essentially planned this summer's field season, redesigned the camp, and then changed the drill deployment so that it would work...
Pascal drove down from Cornell University (he has a temporary teaching appointment) Wednesday after his lecture, picking me up at Newark airport. After wandering around downtown Manhattan, I checked into my hotel and then we headed uptown for dinner. We settled on the selection of papers for this autumn's Acta Astronautica dedicated issue. We traded tactics on managing KS (a colleague)... caught up on personal things and our families... then figured out how to defuse a potential issue between NASA and CSA. And came up with a budget for this summer's Haughton-Mars Project, cobbled as always from bits and pieces of funding. And set out a plan for meeting with the new Exploration Office guys... finally, back-of-napkin changes to the new central camp hub that will link the four large work tents into a star architecture, a vaguely cathedral-shaped floorplan. With skylights and a central meeting area. And we talked about support personnel needs.
Thursday, it was Honeybee's show... but they did very well. The drill hardware has evolved rapidly in just 3 months, and drill fabrication begins next week. I found a "whoops..." issue regarding accelerometer placement (no, one doesn't get accurate structural acceleration measurements by putting the sensor on a flexible IC board soft-mounted to the metal structure...) but otherwise it was tight and precise and thought-out on several levels. It helps that these guys have built flight hardware recently (the RAT on the Mars rovers). The current incarnation of this drill was set up in their downstairs highbay (an old muffin bakery, with faint fruity scents still extant ;). And It was drilling into limestone, comparable to Devon Island rocks. Prof. Hanagud resolved the vibration sensor A/D channels available per each drill string segment. And I brought Honeybee a bag of Haughton Crater breccia-soil, as well as a typical chunk of pumice-like highly-impact-altered gneiss, for testing the drill bits (e.g. chilled soil, layered with ice). We adjourned at 5:30pm and everyone was smiling.
NYC no longer seems to continually trip my threat-scanning buttons the way it used to back in the 1980s... sure, I'm aware on the street, but it is cleaner and better policed and generally reminds me now more of wandering around European cities (say, Madrid or Paris). Even given the language barrier ;-)
And the intensity of the place feels good... I find myself energized and more aware.
Apart from our scheming, Pascal and I had huge 4-lb lobsters at The Palm on Wednesday night... my whole per-diem in one meal, but that was worth it. And I stayed at a swank hotel (Ritz-Carlton) in a mini-suite with a waterfront view... although it would have been more fun if I could have shared this with someone,patgreene or someone else. Walking around the city... I kept visualizing rosefox, in her element in her jacket. Passing by her old school.... or even the toy shops on Christopher St near McNulty's.
Last night I had dinner with Elissa, a good friend who lives on the Upper West Side, and we went, dressed up, to a place with Creole food and a 12-piece ensemble playing big-band music. Getting on the wrong subway train, on the way there, I had to transfer 4 times.
She lives in a lovely building with an actual human elevator operator in a little red suit. I appreciate her energy and wit and we caught up on lots of things going on in our lives. Someday I must take her swing dancing. :)
No net -- on this trip, I got around Manhattan without a map. That works OK on the subway, but this morning I was briefly lost on foot in Greenwich Village, while going to McNulty's coffee and tea store (which has been there for over a century, looks it, and smells... almost orgasmic.)
At my meeting today with Honeybee, we held a telecon with Ames procurement over the contractual terms. The Honeybee lead misinterpreted something said by the procurement official, responded, she didn't quite hear him, she responded, and the whole thing nearly went off the rails before I deftly changed the terms being used to describe the deliverables and then defused the issue. Probably saving two months' delay and a separate contract for the second drilling unit if it had gone on. So I was happy and they Honeybee lead thanked me effusively (after the telecon was over ;).
On the way back last night... I couldn't help but notice the tunnel bracing and changes on the 1 train as we passed under ground-zero, which is just a few blocks northeast of my hotel. And in Battery Park, I saw the WTC globe sculpture... considerably more banged-up than when I'd last seen it, but it is surprising to me that it survived at all!
Overall, a very good trip.
But that's all window dressing. This week worked because of Honeybee's cooperation, and Howard's support plus team members in California loyally dialing-up WebEx at 6:30am PT... and because Pascal Lee was here Wednesday and Thursday. He and I essentially planned this summer's field season, redesigned the camp, and then changed the drill deployment so that it would work...
Pascal drove down from Cornell University (he has a temporary teaching appointment) Wednesday after his lecture, picking me up at Newark airport. After wandering around downtown Manhattan, I checked into my hotel and then we headed uptown for dinner. We settled on the selection of papers for this autumn's Acta Astronautica dedicated issue. We traded tactics on managing KS (a colleague)... caught up on personal things and our families... then figured out how to defuse a potential issue between NASA and CSA. And came up with a budget for this summer's Haughton-Mars Project, cobbled as always from bits and pieces of funding. And set out a plan for meeting with the new Exploration Office guys... finally, back-of-napkin changes to the new central camp hub that will link the four large work tents into a star architecture, a vaguely cathedral-shaped floorplan. With skylights and a central meeting area. And we talked about support personnel needs.
Thursday, it was Honeybee's show... but they did very well. The drill hardware has evolved rapidly in just 3 months, and drill fabrication begins next week. I found a "whoops..." issue regarding accelerometer placement (no, one doesn't get accurate structural acceleration measurements by putting the sensor on a flexible IC board soft-mounted to the metal structure...) but otherwise it was tight and precise and thought-out on several levels. It helps that these guys have built flight hardware recently (the RAT on the Mars rovers). The current incarnation of this drill was set up in their downstairs highbay (an old muffin bakery, with faint fruity scents still extant ;). And It was drilling into limestone, comparable to Devon Island rocks. Prof. Hanagud resolved the vibration sensor A/D channels available per each drill string segment. And I brought Honeybee a bag of Haughton Crater breccia-soil, as well as a typical chunk of pumice-like highly-impact-altered gneiss, for testing the drill bits (e.g. chilled soil, layered with ice). We adjourned at 5:30pm and everyone was smiling.
NYC no longer seems to continually trip my threat-scanning buttons the way it used to back in the 1980s... sure, I'm aware on the street, but it is cleaner and better policed and generally reminds me now more of wandering around European cities (say, Madrid or Paris). Even given the language barrier ;-)
And the intensity of the place feels good... I find myself energized and more aware.
Apart from our scheming, Pascal and I had huge 4-lb lobsters at The Palm on Wednesday night... my whole per-diem in one meal, but that was worth it. And I stayed at a swank hotel (Ritz-Carlton) in a mini-suite with a waterfront view... although it would have been more fun if I could have shared this with someone,
patgreene or someone else. Walking around the city... I kept visualizing rosefox, in her element in her jacket. Passing by her old school.... or even the toy shops on Christopher St near McNulty's. Last night I had dinner with Elissa, a good friend who lives on the Upper West Side, and we went, dressed up, to a place with Creole food and a 12-piece ensemble playing big-band music. Getting on the wrong subway train, on the way there, I had to transfer 4 times.
She lives in a lovely building with an actual human elevator operator in a little red suit. I appreciate her energy and wit and we caught up on lots of things going on in our lives. Someday I must take her swing dancing. :)
No net -- on this trip, I got around Manhattan without a map. That works OK on the subway, but this morning I was briefly lost on foot in Greenwich Village, while going to McNulty's coffee and tea store (which has been there for over a century, looks it, and smells... almost orgasmic.)
At my meeting today with Honeybee, we held a telecon with Ames procurement over the contractual terms. The Honeybee lead misinterpreted something said by the procurement official, responded, she didn't quite hear him, she responded, and the whole thing nearly went off the rails before I deftly changed the terms being used to describe the deliverables and then defused the issue. Probably saving two months' delay and a separate contract for the second drilling unit if it had gone on. So I was happy and they Honeybee lead thanked me effusively (after the telecon was over ;).
On the way back last night... I couldn't help but notice the tunnel bracing and changes on the 1 train as we passed under ground-zero, which is just a few blocks northeast of my hotel. And in Battery Park, I saw the WTC globe sculpture... considerably more banged-up than when I'd last seen it, but it is surprising to me that it survived at all!
Overall, a very good trip.
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no subject
Date: 2004-03-06 05:49 pm (UTC)I've always noticed that when I go there, I'm exhausted by the end of the day... just BEING in that city takes more energy that being other places.
:)
glad it was good for you.
I'd go swing dancing with you someday..... if you wouldn't mind teaching me a bit. My social dancing skills were mostly honed doing folk dancing.. which means I think that I"m more familiar with a 'polka' sort of move.... and that was (gasp) 20 years ago!.......well, maybe sometime, eh?
I love manhatten.
Date: 2004-03-06 07:43 pm (UTC)