FMC 3.0

No, I’ve not said that recently. Or ever. It was something in a dream I had the other night. No, I can’t tell you why, mostly because that’s the only part of the dream I remember. It certainly stuck with me. I’ve decided that if I ever write a book, or a movie, or something, that’ll be the line that does it for the hero. I mean, how much more romantic can you get?

Continuing on the lines that have come right out of right field and are out of context - I had a girl kiss me hello the other day, and then later say “let’s make a baby.”

Okay, breathe. It was Sydney, and she was referring to the LEGO Quattro’s that’s she still playing with even now. That was after the LEGO man and the LEGO dog (which apparently I didn’t build properly, or at least the way James does.)

Oh, here’s the Ice pics from the other day:

I find it interesting that Newark is a total whiteout type environment, and Dover is completely snowless. Amazing the difference 47 miles will make.

It was uneventful for me. But then, it always is. I didn’t get anything, but that’s fine. I did get accused of sending a VD gift, which I wasn’t expecting.

The weather here sucks lately. I can handle cold. The snow has been pretty tame. It was the ice that was a pain in the ass this week - even spent a night in Newark so that I didn’t have to make the commute. That too was uneventful, except for all the drinking in the hotel bar. They had no idea what they were getting themselves into when they gave us free drink coupons.

The only upside to the ice is how pretty it makes things. Trees gleaning white. Buried cars looking like their stuck in time (and not just in place.) Wednesday as I came out of the hotel I could have pulled a perfect ice shell of my car off Nighthawk. The drive was slow, but not too bad. Last nights freeze was kind of a pain though, but it all melted today.

Should be a quiet weekend - just a haircut and vampire appointment tomorrow, and then time to prep for the onslaught of the Odyssey craziness of the next three weeks.

Did I mention I broke my glasses? Right at the temple. I’m gonna just get a new prescription, since my eyes don’t seem to be up the challenge they were before. But that’s gonna have to wait a few weeks to have time to do it. Oh, and one of my brakes squeaked the other day. Looks like an actual repair (as opposed to maintenance) may be in my future.

I have pics of ice covered trees at the office, but they’re locked away on my phone, so you’re gonna have to wait. That’s if they even are worth posting - they are camera phone pics.

Yes, I realize the other of my least favorite anniversaries came and went on the first of the month, but life has been busy. It’s weird for one organization to have so much tragedy remembered over the course of a week. It’s almost like the last few days of January and the first few of February are cursed for NASA. Wait, I just realized I forgot to mention what the heck I was talking about. January 28th is the day Challenger blew up on liftoff back in 1986. February 1st is the day Columbia broke up on reentry in 2003. The other tragedy to fall in that time frame is Apollo 1 - which burned up on the pad on January 27th, back in 1967. The first phase of the moon project took the lives of three astronauts. It’s amazing they made it to the moon less than 3 years later. Considering the Challenger disaster grounded the shuttle fleet until the ’90s, and Columbia’s destruction put the entire shuttle program in doubt.

However, the program goes on, and this week Atlantis rolls to the Vehicle Assembly building to get tanks and rockets attached before it rolls to the launch pad. The window for its launch opens on March 15th (speaking of ominous dates…) I wouldn’t mind it getting delayed a day or two, that’d be a heck of a birthday gift.

Round 1 of Odyssey Judge’s training is over. One more training date, and then the tournament. I’m not as stressed out this year as last, but there can always be glitches.

The Super Bowl was a bit of a letdown - the outcome was what I expected, but I had anticipated Grossman actually doing some playing. Guess I was wrong. And the one thing everyone looks forward to, the commercials? Half of them were commercials I’ve seen before. Not a whole lot of originality this year.

Oh, the one downside to my weekend - I had a real life spontaneous problem on Saturday just before training started when my glasses broke on me. Not a screw popping out or anything like that - actual breakage of the metal. Well, some quick thinking, and some masking tape, and I was back in business. Of course, little is geekier than tape on one’s glasses. At least it’s not on the bridge.

Anyway, here’s hoping its a relatively quiet week. And to hoping it goes by quickly - I’m rather looking forward to the Christopher Moore book signing next weekend.