Too Darn Hot

Originally uploaded by Geof F. Morris

This is the temperature gauge on my WRX as I pulled into my driveway. It’s been 100F+ every day for a week, but this is the first time it’s been 104F after driving around for a bit and moving air across the thermometer.

I am so thankful that the air conditioner in my house is working. The system at work is unable to keep up with the thermal load being thrown at it: I start the day at 74F or so, and after noon, I’m above 80F. Suffice it to say that I come home sweaty every single day. Feh.

Now, it’s time to settle in and watch STS-118 go to orbit. My group at TBE built the carriers for Battery Charge/Discharge Unit and the Control Moment Gyroscope that are riding on the External Stowage Platform-3 at the rear of the Endeavour’s payload bay. [If I lapse into acronym speak: TBE built the BCDU and CMG FSE flying on ESP3 attached to the ICC. ]

Go, Endeavour, go! I need something good today after an otherwise craptacular one.

I sometimes wish that I cared less about what I do for a living. It sure would make the disappointment easier.

That said, I really don’t want that. I’d rather passionately care and obsess about this stuff, waking up in the middle of the night thinking about stuff, than just punching a time clock.

If you find yourself in a dead end job, you’re probably wanting to switch chairs with me. I tell you this: each situation has significant negatives that turn that suck knob to 11.

As the anniversary of D-Day dawns for yet another year, Dad is thankful that he got married on such a major historical day, making his anniversary terribly easy to remember.

Many, many, many, many, many more, y’all!

Jessica off-handedly mentioned it yesterday, but today is the Kings’ fourth anniversary. One would think that such a date would be easy to remember for me, seeing as, well, I was kinda there, but it’s made far easier by the fact that they got married on the same day, six years later, that I graduated from high school. Chances are that you don’t have to be an MSMS grad to figure out that I graduated high school a decade ago. Oi. No wonder I feel old today. [Couldn't have anything to do with driving 1400 miles last weekend.]

But anyway … happy anniversary to some of my favorite people.

While waiting for a telecon to kick off:

1. I sold Darlene last night. When my folks bought that truck, it had 28,303 miles. When I titled it over to my friend last night, it had 191,061. Ten years, eight months, and five days. Plenty of good times. Most of those 160k+ miles were solo, though. I’m very much a solo road-tripper, and it really only sat two anyway.
2. I have scheduled my nervous breakdown vacation for the week of 2-6 Jul 2007. Unless something really, really exciting crops up, I will probably spend it at home, sleeping in every day and generally not doing crap. Oh, and not taking any calls from work. I counted it up earlier this morning, and outside of all the family stuff I did in January, the last time I had two consecutive open-for-business days off was last May. The last time I’ve taken a full week off? Four or five years ago. Yeah, I’m due.
3. Oh, yes, I recognize that I’m copping out by taking what’s certainly going to be the easiest week to have off as a NASA contractor this summer. Before you swear at me, my response is that I’m so covered up right now that I’m taking that week off purely because it won’t be so damn painful when I come back from vacation. Nothing sucks worse than being out of pocket for a few days and coming back to everything on fire. [See also: last week.]
4. I have dropped ten pounds in the last three months. I need a long string of quarters like that in a row, but I’ll take it.

Telecon time.

My dumb ass left my cell phone at the office. This after leaving a key piece of recording equipment here at home, necessitating my trip home in the first place. I’ve also lost my Bluetooth headset for my cell phone in the last week and left everything up and running at work one night [with my door open, no less].

I swear, right now, I’m lucky to not walk into landmines or something.

Being largely out-of-town for more than a week does leave a feed addict like me with, well, quite a backlog. I must say, I wielded a pretty strong scythe to get down to zero this time, but I’m there now. Sadly, NNW still doesn’t do this as swiftly as FeedLounge did. I miss FeedLounge’s Ui but not its craptacular performance.

The best thing about resolving not to Really Try and Read all this stuff? I missed almost all the early bitching about the iPhone. [Yes, based on what I saw in the Keynote, I'll buy one; I'm already a Cingular customer, so I'm used to their rates and it's not going to be a huge cost increase over my Treo 650. Plus, it'll be something other than my Treo 650, which is a good thing. I keep waiting for Unit #3 to die on me.]

“I kept reading your updates from the road and was thinking, ‘Man, he’s got to be really tired.’ ” And, well, I guess that I am, in a lot of ways. But I’m ready to get back to things.

Other than, of course, getting back up with my alarm clock in the morning. I haven’t been beholden to my alarm clock for a week-and-a-half. The last time I could say that, I was a college student home for the summer after his first year off at school. Phew.

There’s so much that I want to write about the last couple of weeks that I just assuredly won’t do, because … well, some of it’s really personal, and some of it’s just hard to put into words, and on both scores, navigating those shoals usually leaves me without the desire to post at the end. But man … I have been sustained by your concern for me. It’s been a blessing.

Back to the grind in six hours.

Well, I am home. Feels pretty good to be here, even if I feel like crap. My ear’s getting better, albeit slowly … and it’s definitely time for some ibuprofen and another round of drops. More later when I have had some more sleep…

Well, we had the funeral and committal yesterday in Delphos. Funerals are for the living, and we certainly needed it, even if we didn’t want it.

Afterwards, we started making the drive back, having decided to do so late on Wednesday night. Unfortunately, my right ear started to bother me yesterday—another blasted ear infection. I figured that I could make it until I got home—which I would do today [on Friday], a day early, because we’re only seven hours from west Tennessee—but after a couple hours of sleep, it’s obvious to me that I won’t make it that far without serious complications. My right ear canal is, unfortunately, swollen shut by this moment [0130 EST]. Unfortunately, both aren’t closed, so I can still hear the chorus of snoring Morris men in the room.

I’ve looked up a doc-in-a-box in Beavercreek, and I’ll be waiting on them to open at 0800. Joy, joy, joy.

The drive up today was largely uneventful, even if I didn’t get a good night’s sleep last night. Despite the fact that I’m the one who drove most of the way, I’m the one who’s wide ass awake right now. [I'm also the only one under 30 and the one who loves to drive, so that probably has a lot to do with it.] Despite the fact that I’d really rather not be making this trip, I’ve enjoyed the driving. The rest … well, the rest is what it is. We do what we have to do as family and the community of believers. There’s nowhere I’d rather be given the circumstances, but … I really don’t like the circumstances. [I hope that all makes sense.]

We’re going to drive down to the Dayton area tomorrow afternoon and hopefully see some old friends tomorrow night. I think we could use some friendly faces that aren’t so tired and grieving. Yes, these friends will grieve with us—look how you’ve all grieved with me—but a burden shared is a burden made a tiny bit lighter, and Lord knows that this is a very heavy burden.

Until tomorrow.

Well, the drive from Madison to Jackson was largely uneventful. Well, save for the nasty wreck on US 72 west of Tuscumbia and east of the state line: three fire trucks, five or six state troopers, and a medical helicopter with blades going full-blast, waiting for a passenger to be put on board. I slowed down, said a quick, quiet prayer, and kept on going. It wasn’t worth dwelling on, but … sadly, someone in North Alabama got some really bad news tonight.

I’m about to shut my folks’ machine down and hit the couch—Another night on a couch!? cries my back; Shut up, you! cries my brain—and get ready to drive in the morning. I want to leave at 0600, because even though Google Maps’ routing me through Indianapolis [hi, Rick] does save me an hour, I don’t know what we’ll need to do when we get to the area, and I want us to be there to help Judy [Cindy's mother] and the rest of the family do whatever’s needed.

Prayers for safe travel would be appreciated. I’m refusing to let either my father or my brother drive any.

Well, I got back to Madison about a half-hour ago. I still feel like I’m driving, but that’s probably because I only stopped once on the drive home [and then only because I needed some cough drops and my cold medicine out of the trunk].

Driving is something I’ll be doing a lot of the rest of this week: I’ll work tomorrow, then drive to West Tennessee tomorrow night. We drive to Ohio tomorrow, have the second funeral on Thursday, and then drive back from Ohio to West Tennessee on Friday. Sometime over the weekend—probably Friday, but it’ll just depend on how I feel—I’ll then drive back home to Alabama. Yes, that’s a whole lot of driving. The only way to cut any off of it would be to meet Dad and Doug in Nashville, and while I could pull that off and find a place to drop my car off, I’d rather not make Dad do any more driving than he has to at this point. We’re all pretty tired, but I’m the only one under 30.

Again, thanks to all who’ve sent notes of support. They mean a lot.

Well, Doug’s posted the plans that we have to date, so there’s not much need to repeat them here.

I want to thank all of you for the outpouring of support. It’s been a buoy in a rough storm. For those who’ve left comments of support and those who’ve written more private notes, I want to publicly thank all of you. I’ll try and respond to everyone, but as you’d expect, my time is pretty limited.

Based on the plans that we have to date, I’m going to be here in the Pine Belt through the funeral here, then drive home Monday night so I can check in with the office on Tuesday. I’ll head to my folks’ place in Tennessee late on Tuesday, where Dad, Doug, and I will head up to Ohio first thing Wednesday morning. You’ll note that Mom’s not going, and that’s just because the trip would be too physically demanding on her. [As you may or may not know, Mom had a severe stroke six years ago and simply has limited mobility.] So while we’re on the road with all that, I’d appreciate some prayers of concern for her—for her spirit certainly is willing, but her flesh is weak. So it is with all of us in our own ways.

Folks have asked how I’m doing and how Doug is doing. I’m doing pretty well; yesterday was very hard, but today’s been a lot easier. I attribute a lot of that to the outpouring of support y’all have sent. Doug is doing as well as can be expected, but presently he’s very tired. I hope that you’ll join me in a prayer for him to have some rest in this time. Cindy’s family, especially her mother, are also doing as well as you’d expect—it’s still all very much a shock and doesn’t seem real … but it is.

Enough rambling. Doug’s not the only one who needs some rest tonight. Thanks, y’all.

Evening, y’all. Thanks for all the well-wishes and heartfelt words. They mean a lot right now.

I am here in my brother’s apartment, where I’ll spend the weekend with him. Plans are still up in the air, but we should finalize things tomorrow. When I have more information for you, I’ll share it.

God bless.