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Floridian health monitoring
Sitting on the apron at Orlando airport, waiting for a thunderstorm to clear so we can leave for Washington-Dulles, where I will hopefully meet ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
geekchick for dinner before heading home this evening. Normally I'm a devout Continental/Northwest flyer with upgrade privileges, but I'm forgoing that for United coach this time in order to set up the rendezvous... three hours there is worth seven hours in the back of airplanes :-).
Wednesday I flew in via Minneapolis, meeting NN en route. Arriving in Cocoa Beach, the elderly Holiday Inn was partially flooded after 2 weeks of heavy rains. After going through 3 smelly, mildewed rooms, I gave up, checked out and the NASA travel office found me a room at the Doubletree... same price, but much cleaner, newer, and with an ocean-view balcony.
Business here was concerned with the Space Launch Initiative, whose purpose is the design of a next-generation Shuttle-equivalent. There are two separate SLI programs -- one which develops the onboard vehicle health monitoring (TA-5), and another which is developing the ground maintenance and checkout system (TA-4). Yesterday's 10-hour meeting involved putting both programs in one room (at a KSC contractor's office) and looking for overlaps and areas for cooperation. The first 5 hours devolved into a turf battle -- as we discovered that both TA-4 and TA-5 were separately supporting R&D in vehicle diagnosis. While TA-4 thought that TA-5 was going to provide services for them, such as health monitoring software for the ground checkout equipment itself. Lots of initial posturing. By the end of the day, we had reached compromises in most areas. Yawn. Necessary in order to avoid redundant efforts, but bureaucracy-in-action.
Yesterday was also a day when our host company was giving out layoff notices -- in the conference room next door. Cycles of them, waves rolling out clutching yellow 8-1/2x11 envelopes. Some laughing. Others looking crushed, others scowling. The whole building was wrapped in plastic sheeting, except for the doors (for painting?). We visitors all had "must escort" visitor badges... someone must have called security down on us, because after lunch we were collectively lectured by security. No more unescorted bathroom trips, even though it was only 20m down the hall. I was particularly singled out because I had dared (gasp!) to use a lobby convenience phone near the receptionist -- without being pre-cleared. Given that I was trying to get over a ton of equipment shipped to the Arctic that day, participate in two other meetings remotely, check on team members' health and prevent NASA-Ames from scavenging-away my project budget, I had good reason to try to find a telephone, somewhere...
But then yesterday evening, the lovely folks in the Central Florida poly group set up a group dinner at a local beachside bar, followed by a moonlit beach walk. That was worth the 10 hours of tedium :-) . They've been terribly hospitable each time I've visited the area (smile). There's one particularly admirable quad -- they live together in a beach house, have worked out finances and communications issues, well-balanced dynamics, collectively cute (grin) and they have a positive attitude and idealism. A refreshing lack of cynicism and jadedness, and a commitment to community- and movement-building. My virtual hat's off to them...
This morning, I went body-surfing until 10am, then headed to the airport... still waiting here at 2:45pm. But the storms are lifting and we'll be off momentarily. Well, maybe
geekchick for dinner before heading home this evening. Normally I'm a devout Continental/Northwest flyer with upgrade privileges, but I'm forgoing that for United coach this time in order to set up the rendezvous... three hours there is worth seven hours in the back of airplanes :-).Wednesday I flew in via Minneapolis, meeting NN en route. Arriving in Cocoa Beach, the elderly Holiday Inn was partially flooded after 2 weeks of heavy rains. After going through 3 smelly, mildewed rooms, I gave up, checked out and the NASA travel office found me a room at the Doubletree... same price, but much cleaner, newer, and with an ocean-view balcony.
Business here was concerned with the Space Launch Initiative, whose purpose is the design of a next-generation Shuttle-equivalent. There are two separate SLI programs -- one which develops the onboard vehicle health monitoring (TA-5), and another which is developing the ground maintenance and checkout system (TA-4). Yesterday's 10-hour meeting involved putting both programs in one room (at a KSC contractor's office) and looking for overlaps and areas for cooperation. The first 5 hours devolved into a turf battle -- as we discovered that both TA-4 and TA-5 were separately supporting R&D in vehicle diagnosis. While TA-4 thought that TA-5 was going to provide services for them, such as health monitoring software for the ground checkout equipment itself. Lots of initial posturing. By the end of the day, we had reached compromises in most areas. Yawn. Necessary in order to avoid redundant efforts, but bureaucracy-in-action.
Yesterday was also a day when our host company was giving out layoff notices -- in the conference room next door. Cycles of them, waves rolling out clutching yellow 8-1/2x11 envelopes. Some laughing. Others looking crushed, others scowling. The whole building was wrapped in plastic sheeting, except for the doors (for painting?). We visitors all had "must escort" visitor badges... someone must have called security down on us, because after lunch we were collectively lectured by security. No more unescorted bathroom trips, even though it was only 20m down the hall. I was particularly singled out because I had dared (gasp!) to use a lobby convenience phone near the receptionist -- without being pre-cleared. Given that I was trying to get over a ton of equipment shipped to the Arctic that day, participate in two other meetings remotely, check on team members' health and prevent NASA-Ames from scavenging-away my project budget, I had good reason to try to find a telephone, somewhere...
But then yesterday evening, the lovely folks in the Central Florida poly group set up a group dinner at a local beachside bar, followed by a moonlit beach walk. That was worth the 10 hours of tedium :-) . They've been terribly hospitable each time I've visited the area (smile). There's one particularly admirable quad -- they live together in a beach house, have worked out finances and communications issues, well-balanced dynamics, collectively cute (grin) and they have a positive attitude and idealism. A refreshing lack of cynicism and jadedness, and a commitment to community- and movement-building. My virtual hat's off to them...
This morning, I went body-surfing until 10am, then headed to the airport... still waiting here at 2:45pm. But the storms are lifting and we'll be off momentarily. Well, maybe