Happenings...

Its been a while since a "real" blog post! Things have been surprisingly busy in the real world around here... especially considering the impending doom. For those of you who are not avid NASA Watch followers, big changes are coming in NASA's direction, especially here in Huntsville. There have been numerous articles in the Huntsville Times but this story is finally getting some big time press.

The President decided to cancel Ares I, the rocket that was supposed to replace the Shuttle, despite Congressional opposition. Additionally, the head of NASA, Charles Bolden, alerted all the prime contractors that they would be responsible for cancellation liabilities. In Dept. of Defense contracts, contractors regularly account and budget for these costs. However, no NASA contractor has ever been held responsible for them so naturally none of them budgeted for them when they bid for the contracts. Long story short, many contractors, including Jacobs Engineering, the company that provides engineering support at MSFC, have an impending budget deficit and therefore have to lay people off.

So needless to say, this has made things interesting around the office. Last Thursday, we found out that this coming Tuesday about half of the contract would be let go. Our group appears to be relatively unscathed but most people are still pretty worried.

Unrelated to that, there have been quite a few ISS issues popping up which of course people need answers about yesterday, so thats been keeping me busy.

As for training, the days I've been able to stay awake have been a lot of fun. Lots of running, hard swimming with the kids, and HIT training on the bike. If I could only get some more sleep...

Anyway... race in the morning! Lubbock is... well... West Texas. But luckily, I'm not here for sightseeing, I'm here to GTWD!