Hello jet lag my old friend
I've beaten my 7am wake-up call by at least 2 hours. It makes sense, I suppose- last weekend I was in Virginia seeing a godson off to boot camp, and in Virginia right now it's nearly lunch time. When the sun comes up over Kawaihae Harbor in a few hours it will do so with the intensity of the summer sun on the desert side of a Pacific island, so I shouldn't be too worried about being awake for the work day.
I didn't travel much the 8 years I was with NASA. A few trips to Langley (and, I found out after I booked my first flight there, not -that- Langley) and a couple of drives to local radar sites and control towers. I worked for some brilliant people and did some brilliant things, but all from a darkened, air conditioned office that they called a lab despite there being few of the accoutrements I would consider necessary for a laboratory.
I traded that for a workshop, attached to a manufacturing floor. At some point in the next week I'll be flying over a harbor in a small plane with an antenna jury-rigged to the exterior, talking to a fleet of robots in the water and testing how much data I can really suck up during a fly-by. It's heady stuff. I'm nervous as all hell. Not because there's a wrong answer, but because I'm the one giving the answer, my first answer to a question posed by my new compatriots. I want it to be a proper answer so they'll ask me more questions and harder ones.
Hello, jet lag, my old friend. I see you've brought some old familiar insecurities with you. Let's sit a while and catch up. It has been a while.
I didn't travel much the 8 years I was with NASA. A few trips to Langley (and, I found out after I booked my first flight there, not -that- Langley) and a couple of drives to local radar sites and control towers. I worked for some brilliant people and did some brilliant things, but all from a darkened, air conditioned office that they called a lab despite there being few of the accoutrements I would consider necessary for a laboratory.
I traded that for a workshop, attached to a manufacturing floor. At some point in the next week I'll be flying over a harbor in a small plane with an antenna jury-rigged to the exterior, talking to a fleet of robots in the water and testing how much data I can really suck up during a fly-by. It's heady stuff. I'm nervous as all hell. Not because there's a wrong answer, but because I'm the one giving the answer, my first answer to a question posed by my new compatriots. I want it to be a proper answer so they'll ask me more questions and harder ones.
Hello, jet lag, my old friend. I see you've brought some old familiar insecurities with you. Let's sit a while and catch up. It has been a while.