Happy Birthday to me and some other stuff I haven’t gotten around to posting…

Happy Birthday to Me! I am now twenty-three! so far I’ve gotten lots of Facebook birthday greetings, a card with the usual present from Grandma, a card from my Mommy with a purple post-it note promising my gift when i come home to visit in a few weeks, and a very nice email from my Daddy with some attached songs. Also, after four months working here, our nifty space camp uniform flight jackets have finally arrived. and its to warm to wear it.

So what am I doing for my birthday? Well I got a call from Dad this morning a little before 9am my time (10am for most of my family) wishing me happy birthday. After hanging up I got back in bed only to receive a voice mail from Mom, I guess she called while I was on the phone with Dad. Funny how they were both at work and call me at about the same time. The rest of my day so far has been spent watching some PBS show about life on a Naval Carrier, funnily enough called “Carrier”. Luckily PBS has joined in the genius of CBS, NBC, ABC, and other TV networks and posts episodes of certain shows online for free, otherwise I would have missed a lot of this show. I hat having to share a TV with 30 other people.

I went out to lunch with my friend Kathy, we went to a Mexican restaurant called “Casa Blanca” for good Mexican food. Definitely beats the nachos we get every Wednesday for lunch in the cafeterias. I have to work this evening for about 4:15 to 9pm and then I think I am going out with a bunch of people. Don’t know where they are taking me or if they even know.

This past weekend was the first time I was ever scheduled for support. Support is exactly like it sounds, they are the counselors who help out when team leaders need it. They help out with sims, rocket launch, make sure all the supplies needed for rockets and other stuff are in the classrooms, make sure classrooms are clean and they got hunt down team leader when one of their kids forgot to take med and take that kid to the sickbay so the counselor doesn’t have to take the whole group there. Well, I did all of about 15 minutes of support when Hainey (one of the weekend supervisors) comes up to me and asks if I would take one of the Pathfinder teams cause someone called in sick. I said yes of course so instead of supporting I was supported. I had a pretty good team. it was the first Pathfinder I’d had in about two months and I’d almost forgotten how to build rockets and do graduation speeches. Oh, my team also won best mission patch, it was the description I know it.

I’m Scheduled for Atlantis Station all this week. Atlantis is on of our four (almost 5) orbiters that we use for missions. Station (our version of the International Space Station) is one of the places you can be during the mission, the others being the Shuttle and Mission Control. The ids in Station get to conduct experiments and flip lots of switches, and the older ones have to fix problems. On Monday and Tuesday only 2 of the 5 teams actually had people in station so I mainly hung out with Ashley in MOCR (Mission Control). And helped her when she was tiered of listening to kids with the biggest speaking part struggle over words like “Space Shuttle Main Engines.”

Well, I am sure there is more I could say but I have to be at work in an hour and kind of need to get ready. Hope to see many of you when I’m home in May!

16 days till my B-Day…

Here are some of the things I would like for my birthday.

Target Gift card

iTunes Gift card (so I can get the August Rush Soundtrack… it is awesome)

August Rush DVD

TV DVD’s (NCIS season 2+. Numbers, Stargate SG-1, & Stargate, Atlantis… all seasons)

Money

If you want my address so you can send me a present, please Email me… or I will be home in Greensboro the week of mothers day… Later, I got to go work soon. Love you all!

Storms, Scheduling Screw-ups, Shows, Simulators, and Stuff…

STORMS: Everyone who knows me well knows that I can get freaked out by storms. Weirdly enough, they never really bothered me when I worked at camp during the summer, maybe because I had to take care of the campers or something. So why, when I am freaked out by storms, tornadoes especially, did I move to Alabama where we have had TWO tornado WARNINGS in the three and a half months I’ve been here? Good question… It could be the fact that I had no idea that Alabama had so many tornadoes when I moved here.

So why am I telling you all of this? Because yesterday afternoon, right as I was about to Smash Brothers with a bunch of people, one of the managers came into the ward room and, in a very calm, no hurry tone of voice… “I just thought you all would like to know that we are under a tornado warning.”

We all kind of stared at him for a second before someone asked “is that the one where we need to take shelter immediately?” At his affirmitive we all headed over to the ground floor of hab 2 which is mostly under ground, (I live on the second floor of hab 2). We got to sit in the hallway for about 45 minutes before they told us we could go. You will be glad to know that there was no freaking out on my part. Weather that was because I knew I was underground or because it was the second time we’d had to do that I don’t know. I do have to say that this time was a lot better… For one thing I wasn’t woken up by loud banging on my door just hours after puking my guts up; for another, I had my laptop and I didn’t have any kids I had to keep an eye on. Any way, today was a bright, sunny, clear day after yesterdays storms. Though it did cool down quite a bit.

SCHEDULING SCREW-UPS: The last couple of weeks have been a little slow on the hours so I have been picking up more when I can. Last Saturday I ended up working at the climbing wall all day. The woman I was working with had another job that she was scheduled to work as well as being scheduled here today. I told her I’d take her hours if I wasn’t working. I was going to check my schedule before I said yes for sure but I thought I had it memorized so I ended up not double checking. I had it in my mind that all I was scheduled for this past week was corporate camp on Monday and Tuesday. Last night one of the supervisors came up to tell me what time I needed to show up for the birthday party I was working. I told him, with a confuesed look on my face, that I was working something else. He went to double check then I went with him to look again, and sure enough I was scheduled to work a b-day party. Thing is I’d already had a manager sign of on the other thing for which I’d get more hours… oops. I think they got support to work it instead, which is fine with me. I was saying just a few days before that if i got another b-day parthy that I would give it up. So that takes us to…

SIMULATORS: Or more commonly know as RIDES. Today I worked Lunar Lander, a little kiddie ride for those under 8 years old, under 54 inches, or to short to ride Space Shot. Business was a little slow in the morning and it is in the shade so it was a bit chilly. I had almost no stop kids after I got back from my lunch break. I started off counting how many kids came through but a lot of them ride it several times so I lost count after 15. I had to run it last Saturday while someone had their lunch break and thought I broke it myself for a few minutes. Turned out I had just forgotten about the foot peddle you have to press along with the green button.

Part of my duties of running the ride is telling kids who are to old or to big to get off the playground that is right their. It can be fun some times, especially when teenage boys are being stupid and playing on little shuttles that are for 3 year olds. There are other rides for them, Space Shot and G-Force. I am supposed to be able to run those as well but they are the only ones that I have not yet been certified on yet.

SHOWS: Now that the writers strike is over msot of my favorite shows have started back up. Even though I have a TV and satalite available to use, it’s the TV for 50 some people and you nevver know if someone else is watching something, plus it can get a bit noisy in the ward room so I can’t always hear whats going on. Luckily CBS and several other networks have most of my favorite shows online. I watched the newest episode of NUMB3RS last week. It was pretty good. That reminds me, as soon as I finish writing there is another episode waiting for me online. NCIS also has new episodes playing again. The newest episode was on of my favorites. I love it when Tony is the one to figure out what is going on .

I’ve also seen some great movies the past two weeks. 21, which is now in theaters. It’s about a really smart college kids who needs money for med school so he joins a group that goes to Vegas to count cards in black jack. He ends up getting a bit addicted to it. I did not want to see it at first but it was great, I really enjoyed myself and have been trying to play this card counting came online ever since.

I go The Game Plan from netflix. It was a silly and sweet Disney film. It’s about this star NFL player whose daughter, that he didn’t know about, shows up on his door step. He has to learn how to take care of someone other than himself, a small someone at that. He ends up falling in love with her and his life is changed.

I also go August Rush. An absolutly terriffic movie. I would love to own it, (my birthday is in 18 days! Hint, hint.) From the preview I thought that Robin Williams charecter would be a good guy so I was kind of surprised when he wasn’t exactly. Here is the netflix synopsis: After cellist Lyla (Keri Russell) and guitarist Louis (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) share an enchanted night together, circumstances rip them apart, and the child produced by the union is raised by a caring stranger (Robin Williams) who nurtures the boy’s musical talent. Determined to find his parents, the boy, known as August Rush (Freddie Highmore), relies on music to draw his mother and father to him. Terrence Howard co-stars in this magical drama.

I also so a movie called The Feast of Love. It was a great movie with a terrific story line. Starred Morgan Freeman and Greg Kinnear (little miss sunshine). The only thing I didn’t really like about the movie was that it showed a bit more skin than I expected or that you usually get in a movie.

STUFF: I’ve been playing a lot of Smash Brothers on Joe’s Wii latly. I actually came in 1st twice (of four) the other day. I am usually 4th.

The schedule that I have been awaiting has finally come out. Whats so great about this schedule? It says I have a meeting on Sunday the 20th. A meeting about Deaf Camp, which means that I’ll have one of the four Deaf Camp teams the fallowing week. I am so excited! I’ve wanted one of the Deaf Camp teams since I heard about it. The kids will come with interpreters which is a good thing cause 1) I wasn’t fluent when I was taking sign last year in school and 2) I haven’t practiced in a year. I’m going to look through my sign books before they come so I can at least say (sign) a little. Did I mention that Deaf Camp is the week of my birthday? (April 30th in case you’ve forgotten.) Hmm… guess I better start thinking about what I want.

I also signed up for Advanced Academy Training. AA is the high school program. I like working with high schoolers, you can be more sarcastic. They also get cooler, more in depth missions and they get to scuba dive in the neutral buoyancy tank. I hope I get it. The training for that starts a week after mothers day so hopefully I will get to make it home before I start up with that training.

that’s all for now… later!

Funny Video

A funny video, you should watch. Especially if you like Star Wars.

Charlie Duke, Astronaut

Cesi, one of the people I work with, sent me a video of Charlie Duke, the Apollo Astronaut that came to speak at our Counselor Graduation. In this video he is telling us a story that we routinely tell the kids. It was so cool to, not only have one of the Apollo Astronauts come talk to us, but to hear on of my favorite stories from the lips of the person it was about. So, without an further blabbering from me…

Finally!

Finally! Picture posting on WordPress just got easier! To commemorate this day I have posted several pictures of me from when I came to Space Camp at 14, (8 years ago) enjoy! More pictures to come soon.

And here is a Picture of me and Jeremy waiting to see the shuttle launch. (Dec 1998, STS-88)

Moon Dirt, Shuttle Landings and Some Other Stuff…

When you think of a Space Camp Counselor, you would think that most of what I do is working with kids and basically normal camp counselor stuff. While most of my job is that, there are also many times where I don’t have my own team; like when I’m helping to run missions, or if I’m on support (which I have not yet done) or, like yesterday, I work a birthday party where I am basically a glorified gofer. Then sometimes, when there are not that many teams here so people need hours and they (the people who decide this kind of thing) want to fix up the place a little before we do get over run with kids, we get but to work doing some other stuff. The past two weeks a group of people got put to work putting a fresh coat of paint in the Hab and MCC floor. This week, instead of painting, a bunch of us got to help set up for the Moon Buggy Race that is taking place on Friday and Saturday.

The idea of the moon buggy race sounds exciting, the obstacles (now that their set up) look really cool. Its just the whole act of actually having to set them up. The obstacles are made out of wood and tires hammered/ tied down to more wood. The Facilities guys would dump a bunch of pugmix on top and we would have to spread it out and shape it so where ever there is a tire it looks like a crater and where the wood is it looks like a ridge. Basically we are trying to make it look like a very bumpy ride on the moon. The pugmix stuff (which, I’ve been told’ is used under asphalt when building roads) is gray with lots of rocks and other stuff so it does kinda look like moon dirt. its also kinda thick and hard to maneuver… I broke the garden rake I started out with.

I Spent most of my Monday doing this (10:30-3). We’d get one done then have to wait for another load of pugmix… the bobcat only goes so fast. Even better, we were told to arrive at 9 so we did a lot of waiting around. We even managed to fit in a ride on space shot while we waited.

Later that afternoon, after I had been of work for a while, I decided to lie down for a little while and it turned into a couple of hours, and ended up playing an early April fools on my self. I woke up a about 8 pm, missing dinner (I’m glad I still had some chines in my fridge). When I woke up I saw the 8 and for a minute I thought it was 8am and that I had to get up and ready for work… hehe. A couple of seconds later I woke up fully and realized that it was 8 pm and I still had more than 12 hours before I next had to be at work.

I did get up with plenty of time to get to work today, once again a day with no interaction with the public. I am scheduled to work Corporate Camp next week so I had to get trained on what to do. They will be thrown a ton of anomalies and have one of the coolest missions ever. I can’t wait till may when I can get trained for Advanced Academy (high school program) and have involved missions all the time. I get to train flight deck. Yippee! for most missions, even thought the kids get to use the joystick and try to land the shuttle, the joystick doesn’t do any thing. They will land no matter what. This corporate group gets to land manually. So, when we were done for the day I got to go practice landing since I’ve never done it before and it’s easier to teach when I’ve actually seen or done it. I did manage a (mostly) successful landing. The only problem was that my landing gear wasn’t down, but then that is the pilots job and I didn’t have a pilot in the orbiter with me.

Other news… after 2 weeks, my room mate is back. Don’t know how long she’s going to be here before she moves out of the Hab but she is here for now. Umm… don’t really have any other news at the moment… I will get some pictures of the obstacles up as soon as I upload them.