Tag: fambly

Hannah & David

Holy moly, aren’t they adorable? That *might* have something to do with why I took so many photos that it took me two and a half months to get them all processed (over 900 altogethr) and the decent ones (423) uploaded. (If you want to see them all, they’re here.)

First, a couple shots from Hannah’s PA wedding shower back in April:

(There are a few more on Flickr, but I forgot to get out my camera until people had started leaving, so I mostly just took pictures of Hannah and Lydia 🙂 but Hannah has a bunch of lovely pictures – including some of other people on her blog!)

Roadtrip Day!

That Wednesday, I got up obnoxiously early, loaded up the last bits, took a little detour into the city to pick up Hannah’s friend Jess – who had arrived from Perth, Australia the night before – and headed up to Massachusetts! Being July 3rd, we expected the traffic would probably be less than pleasant and could add an hour or two to the drive, so we left plenty early to try to avoid as much of it as possible.

Of course, that didn’t really work at all, and it took us a solid 10 hours (and three full-stop traffic jams) to get from Philly to northeast Mass. I was very happy to have Jess along to keep me company and we had lots of quality time to get to know each other! Fun fact: her parents and mine got married in the same church, just a couple years apart! (First Presbyterian in Bethlehem, PA! Small world!)

We got up there just in time to head straight to the nail salon, where Hannah’s assorted womenfolk were gathering for manicures and pedicures. (It was conveniently located right next to a coffeeshop, where we acquired some much-needed chai before settling in.) Apparently I didn’t take any pictures there – must have been too ~~tired~~ busy laughing and relaxing and catching up with Hannah and her family and meeting her Massachusetts friends and the ladies of David’s family!

Oh, and being indecisive about what color I wanted. They used this fancy nailpolish/gel hybrid concoction called Shellac, which you could layer to make additional colors… so of course I ended up asking for a combo they’d never tried before! It worked out just like I hoped! (Taken at the end of the trip, still impressively unmarred):

(Actually, it still looks pretty good, if a bit grown out, 2+ months later! The fingernails lasted about a week.)

Afterward, a few of us headed over to Hannah’s adorable little apartment and ate delicious wraps from a local place they love, and hung out a while. We were all pretty wiped, though, so before too long we said TTFN and I headed off to find my home for the week – Hannah’s dear friend Willa’s attic guestroom:

I could not have asked for a better place to stay! Willa, her husband Rennie, and their daughters Camilla and Fiona are all super hospitable and awesome and treated me like family. When they say “make yourself at home,” they really mean it. And their home is pretty much my dream house. 🙂

Rehearsal Day 🙂

The next day, a number of us had “secret plans” – rehearsal for the epic flashmob song & dance extravaganza that Hannah and David put together with the help of choreographer-extraordinare, Greg, to surprise… well, everyone coming to the wedding who wasn’t in the flashmob!

Once we’d sung and danced through “Life’s A Happy Song” (from the most recent Muppet movie) enough times that everyone was feeling reasonably comfortable with it – and thoroughly silly and tired – we dispersed. The wedding party headed to the actual wedding rehearsal, and I wandered off to find new shoes to wear to the wedding, since I’d forgotten it was on grass and only brought heels (and sneakers, but not ones I wanted to wear with a pretty dress)!

Then it was time for the rehearsal dinner / 4th of July picnic at… one of David’s relation’s houses.

(I lost track of whose was whose!)

We ate, we drank, we chatted with Hannah and David and their families and friends from various times/places…

Hannah sang a song she’d written (for David, though she didn’t know that when she started writing it!)…

Siblings and cousins toasted and roasted…

The small ones were adorable…

And a good time was had by all. 🙂

This is a really long post! Go to Page 2 to keep reading!

September 22, 2013
Thirteen Things I’m Thankful For
If I tried to list everything I’m thankful for, it would end up being either really abstract (silliness, grace, love, freedom, etc.) or downright molecular (oxygen, water, carbon…)

(Also, infinitely long… moreso because I’m a super-analytical, detail-oriented perfectionist, than actually because I’m grateful for that many things. I mean, I am, but what would really kill the list is the precision and thoroughness with which I would list them, and 2 feet of text later I’d give up, having only described the things that I’m thankful for that are presently on my desk.)

I’m obviously incredibly grateful for the big things like my home and my job and those abstract and molecular things, and most of all, family and friends and puppy obviously top the list, so we’ll skip them for this list, and I’ll attempt to avoid listing components and prerequisites and broad categories, SO…

Thirteen specific, tangible(ish), pretty random things that I am particularly grateful for at this relatively arbitrary moment in time! Alternately titled,

“13 Assorted Nouns Lauren Gets Inordinately Excited About.“

(in no particular order, just as they come to mind. ):
1. My dog, Rocky.
  Ok, I just said I wasn’t going to list the dog, (twice, since he is also family… or maybe thrice since he’s also my friend!) but he is fuzzy and cuddly and delightful (and in snuggle range as I start typing this post), so apparently he’s getting included anyway. He’s a Bichon Frise, almost 12 in human years, and an impressively good communicator for someone who neither speaks words nor writes. Sometimes he’s a bad dog, but mostly he’s just a big fluffy pile of love and adorableness.
2. Apple Soy Chai Lattes
  A couple months ago, I discovered Burlap & Bean offered apple among the many flavor syrups available to add to your coffee or whatever beverage. I thought, “Hmm, I bet that would be good in chai…” and holy hello was I right! It instantly became my “usual”! It is also amusing to see the baristas react, as I seem to be the first to think of it (there, at least), and they’re all intrigued, always saying, “Ooh, I’ll have to try that!” and today one guy told me he finally did, and confirmed it is absurdly delicious. Also, the one girl calls me “Apple Soy Chai Girl,” which makes me smile!
3. Crochet/Knitting
  I sometimes say my attention span is as long as my yarn. My Grandma taught me the basics of crochet when I was like, 6 or so, and I figured out how to knit a few years later, so I’ve been making things with yarn long enough that it’s second nature– the simple repetitive motion only occasionally requires conscious thought, but keeps my hands busy while I pay attention to other things (teachers/presenters/tv/conversations/etc.). It provides a point of focus — a sort of tether to reality, keeping my scatterbrain from wandering — and you get a scarf or something out of it! And I’m the sort who mostly makes up my own patterns, so the figuring out a project/design is a fun, half art/half math puzzle to solve!
4. Graph Paper
  For the aformentioned design puzzling, not just for crochet projects, but for sketching out layouts and all sorts of ideas!
5. Comfortable Shoes
  Almost every day, I wear either my tan sneakery shoes or my black sandals. The sneakers are barely sneakers… soft lightweight almost sock-like sort-of running shoes with elastic instead of laces. The sandals are near-magical slides which I’ve worn pretty much nonstop when its warm-ish for the last 5 years, including a month in Taiwan where we walked way too much, and they’re holding up really well, and perfectly molded to my feet. Every time I wear any other shoes, I’m reminded of how awesome these two pairs are! They feel less like shoes, and more like hugs for my feet.
6. NASAtweetups and such
  NASAtweetups, CSAtweetups, NASAsocials, rogue tweetups, really any gathering of “people from the internet” is bound to be a good time! I’ve written about this before, but I’m especially and specifically grateful to NASA and CSA (and other space agencies doing the same that I haven’t been to yet) for hosting us spacetweeps, educating and entertaining us — and showing us how amazing both the universe, and mankind’s endeavors to explore it, are. And generally making field trips for grown-ups a thing that exists.
7. Electric/Heated Blankets
  The heat in our house doesn’t really reach upstairs (which is confusing, since I was pretty sure heat rises), so a blanket that actually produces heat is very welcome in my bed!
8. Netflix/Hulu/TV on the internet in general
  I love tv, but I can never remember to watch current shows when they air, so I’d miss at least half the episodes if that was the only option. And since I’m all about character development and the long-term plot, I can’t stand seeing episodes out of order or missing them, so I’d pretty much just never watch anything good until it came out on DVD. And since I’m broke, that wouldn’t happen either. So Hulu and individual networks’ steaming video (and occasionally filling in the gaps with sources of questionable legality) are miraculous for keeping up with current shows. And if it’s too old for Hulu, it’s probably on Netflix or will be soon. I can mad marathon all previous seasons of as many shows as I want (and movies too) for a very reasonable $8 a month (which I have now roped my parents into paying, since the whole family started using my account)!
9. My Car, Neil
  I like him. He is cute and shiny and blue and has a cd player and everything works! But I’ve already rambled on about that a bit too… it’s nice having a car that isn’t perpetually breaking!
10. Tote Bags
  There is something to be said for purses and computer bags and cases for various things — consistency and organization and such. But I’m a big fan of simple tote bags. Like one giant-ass pocket you throw everything you need in, sling it over your shoulder, and off you go! Any shape/size/color/design you want, they probably make that tote bag, and if not, you can get one printed! And they’re cheap, so you can keep a bunch handy! And if you spill something on it, or something leaks inside it, just throw it in the wash and dump your stuff in another one. Plus, unlike more structured bags, which stay pretty much the same size whether they’re empty or full, a simple cloth tote bag only takes up as much space as the stuff inside it! *magic*
11. Connectivity
  Ok, this is getting dangerously close to that abstract territory I said I’d avoid, but it’s simultaneously astounding and easy to take for granted, so it’s worth a mention. It’s tangible in smartphones and tablets, anyway. So many places have WiFi, and cellular data networks are finally getting fast enough to be worth using, so the internet is accessible pretty much anywhere, any time! And with technical connectivity comes human connectedness. A certain amount of paradoxical disconnectedness too, but things like Twitter and Skype and Wikipedia and Coursera and Trello and a thousand other sites and apps connect me with people and books and knowledge and tools in every area of human experience and the world geographically! Clearly, I’m a nerd about these sorts of things (and all the things!) but it makes me happy!
12. Ukulele!
  I got a cheap but decently nice uke off eBay a thousand years or so ago, and mostly it has sat on a shelf collecting dust, but lately I’ve been playing it more, and while I still suck, it’s fun! Small enough for my stupidtiny hands to handle easily, and only four strings to keep track of, so I’m having better luck learning than on guitar. I wrote a song for/inspired by Rachel’s sweet kiddo, Gwenny, about a sassy pterodactyl, and managed to figure out a suitable chord progression for it! And theoretically, some day, I will know more than 4 chords! It’s fun!
13. Cup-a-noodles
  Yes, instant ramen in a styrofoam cup. For 50 cents or less. I am poor and like hot food at work. Don’t judge me. Mmm salty chicken-flavor noodles of cheapness.
November 22, 2012
So, I bought a car…?!
Ok, it was a bit ago now.

It’s weird, because family doesn’t buy new cars.

We acquire a vehicle every few years, but they’re never new. Literally, the last (and I believe only) actually-new vehicle my parents bought was the minivan they got when I was 18 months old, and we kept it until I was 10 or so. Usually we buy them cheaply off my grandparents when they buy new cars, or from friends, or the interwebs, very occasionally from a used car lot.

And of the four cars I’ve driven regularly for various periods of time in the 8 years I’ve been driving, none of them have ever:
- been officially/legally mine.
- been mine before anyone else in my family.
- been newer than 10 years old when I started driving them.
- had less than about 90,000 miles on them.
- had a CD player, except the one that was mostly my younger sister’s, but we shared it the year we were at college together. (And one didn’t even have a tape player. Or a ceiling, for that matter. Just bare metal!)
- been driven by anyone else in the family (and usually not anybody else, period) after me
I drive them until the cost of keeping them going is more than their worth, at which point they were, respectively: relegated to a junkyard, sold for $250, donated, or – in the case of the last one – still sitting useless in front of our house.

So imagine my shock when, upon the last one’s abrupt demise (at a stoplight on my way to church!) the parents actually encouraged me to buy a legitimately new car! We looked around for used ones, briefly, but the parents decided they were done passing their old cars onto me, and we weren’t finding anything not-completely-horrendous-but-just-crappy-enough for me to afford with the few thousand I could scrounge up, and the “nicer” used cars we were seeing weren’t nice enough to justify borrowing the difference.

So when my cousin, who recently started working for a Nissan dealership, mentioned that a brand new Versa was only a couple thousand more than those disappointing “nicer” used cars, I was intrigued. If I was going to have to have car payments just to get anything that wouldn’t die on me within two years again, the thought of having slightly higher car payments for something new and reliable, with a warranty – that nobody else had ever owned – sounded pretty darn good.

The more I thought about it, the better it sounded, and the parents (to my great surprise) agreed, so Daddy took me up to have my cousin show me what he had in mind. I thought, if I got anything new, it would be the super-basic Versa sedan, but when we got there, my cousin revealed that the cooler-looking hatchback version, normally $3k more, had a special deal going right then, bringing it down to a negligible difference! So we took one out for a test drive, and I was pretty much convinced!

We looked at the sedan and the different colors and packages they had handy, but it was pretty obvious that I was destined to leave with the bright royal blue hatchback, and it even has a remote to lock/unlock the doors, a Bluetooth phone hookup thinger, and an iPod connection (might have to buy an iPod now). So fancy! Ok, in the grand scheme of modern cars, not really. But for me, very fancy!

We went inside crunched some numbers, determined I’d only be mostly broke for the next few years, and signed my name a few thousand times. And then I left in a car that was mine. And terribly spiffy. And had single-digit mileage! (Of course it was up to 76mi. by the time I got home, since my cousin lives an hour away!) All in all, a slightly bizarre/surreal experience, but delightful!

And after a month and about 1000 miles of commuting later, I’m pretty thrilled with this lovely little car and have named him Neil. I initially wanted to name it Steve (the previous ones had all had guy names: Juan Excalibur and Loredo (both named by friends… don’t ask) and Charlie), but it didn’t quite feel right, so I thought maybe this one was a she-car.

But then another spacetweep announced she was naming her own new car Neil, in memory of Neil Armstrong, who just passed away, and it seemed kind of perfect. I was hesitant to copy the name, but she assured me she didn’t mind, and the longer I drove the car, the more it seemed to fit!

After all, I don’t know anyone named Neil who isn’t awesome! Neil Armstrong, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Neil Patrick Harris, Neil Grayston, Neil Gaiman, my neighbor Neil McCrossen… and now, my car. 🙂
September 27, 2012
Airplanes and an Oxymoron

“Family Vacation”

As I figure it, a trip has to either have a reasonable expectation of being relaxing, or be exciting in some way, in order to count as a vacation. (Preferably with elements of both, but let’s not be picky.) Not that I don’t love my family, but we don’t do particularly well together in confined spaces for extended periods of time, so on the whole, it isn’t exactly tranquil.

As for exciting, they once again chose New Jersey as the site of our mostly-yearly temporary migration, so that was pretty unlikely too. Not that I have anything against New Jersey either, but I’m not a beach person and boardwalks have long since lost their novelty, so going “down the shore” (when there are so many places we haven’t seen yet, and several we’re always saying we should go back to, yet never quite manage to) is just kind of lame.

Not very relaxing, not very exciting… it’s not so much “vacation” as “let’s move to New Jersey, and then move back home a week later!” :/ Oxymoron. But I got my exciting vacations in already with the NASAtweetup trips, and at least we’re staying in a different town than usual (Cape May instead of Ocean City), so I’m not fighting them on it this year.

My dad did end up discovering a couple actually-fun things for us to do this time! Both involving airplanes. The first being the NAS Wildwood Aviation Museum, so while my mom and the sistercreature went to the beach again, we went to check it out!

The outside of the museum

The inside of the museum

As you can kind of see there, the hangar is just crammed with planes and helicopters and other really interesting exhibits, including “All Available Boats” (about 9-11 rescue ops), a whole area about the Coast Guard, and a ton of historical stuff from WWII, when it was an active Naval air combat training station. Very neat stuff! And I got a hat.

The next day, it turned out, was the Atlantic City Airshow, “Thunder Over the Boardwalk” featuring the USAF Thunderbirds! Not that Cape May is all that close to Atlantic City, but we figured it was worth a little drive.

And oh, it was! I got so many pictures. And almost all of them are awesome. Narrowing it down to a reasonable number to post was quite the challenge.

A biplane. Upside-down.

Thunderbirds!

So much flying awesome. 🙂

Also, Cara and Quinn came down to hang for a few days!

I think he's afraid of the sistercreature. (As well he should be?)

Well, I still wouldn’t call it “relaxing”, but this family vacation definitely had more of my sort of fun in the mix than usual. And by “my sort of fun,” I mean airplanes and books. Got lots of reading done too.

The parents weren’t planning on coming home until Sunday night, and I’m driving out to Harrisburg on Monday for Jessss’s wedding (and need to do laundry sometime before then), so when my Grandma and Aunt Carol came down to join us at the beach for the day on Thursday, I decided to hitch a ride home with them. So now I have the house aaaaaaaaallll to myself for a few days!

August 19, 2011
“I’m old, let’s have a party!”

…or something to that effect.

Pop (my Dad’s dad) decided to throw a big fancy shindig and invite pretty much everyone he knows. No particular occasion, he’s just glad to be 92 and still kickin! We are too, so very nearly everyone came out for a random afternoon of family fun!

There was music!

Uncle Joe’s crew

Sweet little Lyla

Smile!

It was great seeing everybody! A rare occasion to get everybody together, especially when it wasn’t for a wedding or a funeral! We should do it more often! (Weddings and random gatherings – not funerals.)

July 17, 2011
#NASAtweetup 134Redux, Day 2: Launch Day!

Apparently, I fell asleep as soon as I got into bed, without managing to turn off the light, or take off my glasses… or set the alarm… But miraculously woke up right on time anyway. (Right on time being like, 2:30am!) I got ready, snagged some coffee my aunt had very kindly made for me before she went to bed, loaded my junk into the borrowed minivan, and headed off to KSC one last time!

There was no “twent” this time, but there are two sets of bleachers on the press site that we were welcomed to use, so I claimed a spot on the one that had very convenient desky/tabletop surfaces for each bench row, and set up camp for the morning. Then around 5 we went down to the road to see the AstroVan coming through… again.

We waved, and definitely saw a hand inside the van wave back! 😀

Best of all, after dropping off LCC-bound folks, they continued on in the right direction! No U-turn this time! Yay!

It was odd being out and about in the middle of the night and there being so many people around, including a whole mess of news crews gearing up for the launch. Even stranger, and totally awesome, was there being programming for us tweeps at that hour! After the AstroVan pass, we were instructed to go to the press briefing room where we had waited out the storm, for a presentation on STORRM! (heehee.)

The metal box you see in the front there is the STORRM module (Sensor Test for Orion Relative navigation Risk Mitigation… basically a nifty new docking camera/navigation sensor system), a twin of which is flying on Endeavour to test it out. The folks on the dais told us all about the history of the program and the technology, a lot of which is the software analyzing the data from the cameras and sensors, and the tests they’ll be doing on STS-134.

We got to chat with them a bit after, and watch Endeavour’s crew suiting up on NASAtv too. By the time we left, the sun was coming up, and the shoreline was filling with tripods claiming front row spots.

The next couple hours were spent charging batteries, acquiring/consuming breakfast and coffee, keeping tabs on NASAtv and the interwebs for the status of the crew and shuttle preperations and the weather forecast, and mostly just hanging out, getting to know the tweeps around us (including Nina and Chris, who got engaged in front of the countdown clock the morning of the first launch attempt!).

The weather looked questionable at times. There were a couple of technical glitches, but they were all fixed or determined to not be a problem. I listened to the radio on the bleachers as long as I dared, started my cellphone recording video and propped it up, and headed out to the shore to find a spot to watch the launch!

T minus 3 minutes, 59 seconds

One last shot of Endeavour on the launch pad.

3…2…1…

I had had to leave the tripod behind, as it was too big fit in either of the bags I took on the plane, so I crawled through the line of tripods and sat under the rope at the edge of the shore, and propped my camera on my knee. I didn’t want to just watch the launch through the viewfinder, so I focused, used the live view screen to frame it with the launch pad at the very bottom of the frame, and when the time came, just held down the shutter button hoping for the best.

Of course, it didn’t really work, and the angle drifted over and up before there was anything to see, so I got a bunch of pictures of clouds… but then the buffer filled, so I let up for a second, picked it up, and blindly started shooting just holding it against my collar bone… and I got one lucky shot!

It was… insane. Amazing. Seemed so much faster than I expected, especially since the cloud ceiling was so low. The countdown hit zero, the smoke began billowing out, Endeavour started to rise, the rumbling crackling wave of sound hit us, and then zwoop! right up and disappeared into the clouds, making them glow for a moment before punching through, the column of smoke trailing it cast its shadow across the cloud layer, and off to space!

Zoomed/cropped version

The smoke plume

The smoke begins to clear

Immediately, like a kid coming off a roller coaster, all I could think was,

“Can we do it again now?”

Once confident the shuttle was out of range and wouldn’t peek-a-boo through the clouds, and the roar subsided, folks meandered back to listen to the radio coverage or watch NASAtv as Endeavour dumped its SRBs, jettisoned the external tank, and completed its 8 minute journey to Low Earth Orbit.

Mr. Pink-tie-and-sneakers says *le sigh*

”So, uh, what now?”

The countdown clock was counting up, but most people stuck around for a while, letting the traffic from the crowds watching from the causeway, visitors complex, or other sites clear out first… and perhaps moreso, processing the amazingness we just witnessed.

We talked, tweeted, took a preliminary pass through our pictures, and watched and rewatched everyone’s videos. I, for one, was just kind of stunned. Endeavour broke my brain. In a good way. A very, very good way. It’s disappointing that the clouds cut our view so short, but so so amazing that I got to see it at all. I can’t wait to come back and see STS-135 launch (because clearly, that has to happen now!) but it’s so sad that it will be the last shuttle launch ever. I demand a hundred more launches! But I’m so grateful I got the chance to see one from so close!

Like I said, brain = broken.
(Like how a power surge can fry your computer? The awesome overload of NASAtweetup has fried my brain.)

We hung out a while, chatting about random things, and intermittently spurting incoherent babble involving space shuttles and amazingness, and eventually people began to disperse. By the time I figured the traffic was probably manageable, my uncle’s launch responsibilities were wrapping up, so we met up in the VAB parking lot and I followed him home a back way, and traffic was surprisingly light, even for an alternate route several hours after launch!

The rest of the trip was pretty low key (not that anything could have compared anyway!) We went out for post-launch-lunch… and then a few hours later, my aunt got home from work, and we all went out to dinner. Tuesday, I did wash so I’d have something to wear home, got a bit of work done, and met up with Nina and Chris for dinner, which was lots of fun!

Then Wednesday morning it was off to the airport and home… with a 90 minute layover in Memphis that turned into several hours, because the plane we were supposed to be leaving on got ridiculously delayed at its previous stop. Delta was a class act about it, and handed out $25 vouchers when we finally did leave, but it still made for a nasty-long day. From the time we left my aunt & uncle’s house to when I finally walked through my own door was about 14 hours, for what is normally just under 2 hours in the air on a direct flight. For an extra 4 or 5 hours, I could have driven home and saved $175. >.< Oh well! Travelsuck does not diminish the awe of a shuttle launch, nor the awesome that is NASAtweetup! See you at 135, tweeps! 😀

THE END.

May 19, 2011
#NASAtweetup Day 0: NASAroadtrip!

Well, as you may have guessed, from the proximity of my location in the last post to my destination, and there has been no report of my tragic death by car crash/explosion/alligator (pretty much the only thing that could have stopped me), I did make it to the NASA tweetup at Kennedy Space Center. Having left home (Philly-ish) just a little after 4am, we were safely around DC, into Virginia, and heading away from the traffic by the time rush hour hit, so we made really good time. It was roughly 1000 miles of this: but I didn’t particularly mind, as it’s pretty, I’ve always liked roadtrips, and Daddy’s good company. 🙂

We made a slight detour to stop in Charleston, South Carolina, to meet up with a tug from my Dad’s company that was docked there, so he could get some of their paperwork and safety training updated. It was a nice little break from the car, and the crew was incredibly nice and hospitable.

I had half expected to spend that stop sitting in the car waiting for Dad to finish what he needed to do, so it was a very pleasant surprise to instead spend it in their cozy air-conditioned galley, chatting with a very silly and entertaining bunch of guys, full of rough-and-tumble charm (with varying degrees of “rough-and-tumble”), who I would happily hang out with again, with or without the pretense of Dad’s work. I was honestly disappointed when we had to get back on the road, but we wanted to get to my aunt/uncle’s before it got too late.

With about 2 hours there, and a few shorter stops throughout the trip for fuel (caffeine and gasoline) and potty breaks, we still made the whole trip in about 18 hours, arriving in Cocoa a little after 10pm.

Next up: rest up, then tweetup!

April 27, 2011
Can you believe it? – a #NASAtweetup post

This is a re-post of one I wrote on the 134tweetup group blog. The original is here.

Endeavour! Image credit: NASA.gov

In less than 90 hours,

(assuming the weather holds…)

we get to see this beauty →

fly.

Think about that for a minute. Take a moment to contemplate how awesome it is that this gorgeous machine, with its six occupants, will soon ride a “controlled” explosion out of our atmosphere, while we watch, close enough to feel the sound of liftoff, to go meet another amazing bit of technology and its occupants in orbit and do science.

We, collectively, as humanity, are pretty darn impressive sometimes. We, individually, as tweetup participants, are all sorts of fortunate to have this opportunity.

[And then, as this was my first post on 134tweetup.com, I introduced myself.
But this is my own little corner of the blogosphere, so that would be silly.]

I’ve grown up with the shuttle program. Well, it’s got a few years on me, so it’s kind of like I’m the awkward, not-nearly-as-cool kid sister watching the shuttle doing its awesome “big kid” stuff from my stroller… wait, that actually happened. I have family in Cocoa, FL, close enough to have a pretty decent view (even from itty-bitty height) the couple of times when there happened to be a launch scheduled while we were visiting.

I was always a space geek… the kid in the home-made spacesuit that my mom sewed from one of those silver thermal blankets with a plastic pretzel tub over my head. 🙂 I remained a space geek, and a geek in general. The one who dragged Dad to the Space Center on the days of vacation when the rest of the family went to the beach.

Rocket Garden at KSCVC

Discovery on the pad, through binoculars

The VAB through a tour bus window

Somewhere along the way I discovered Twitter, and promptly followed @NASA.

In 2009, NASA started hosting “Tweetups” (twitter + meet-up = tweetup, in case you missed that). That summer, the first one at NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC was held, with the recently returned crew of Space Shuttle Atlantis mission STS-125… and it just so happened to be on my birthday. Figuring it was destiny or somesuch, I signed up, and more-or-less informed my dad that we were going to DC for my birthday, to meet astronauts.

He was a little confused at that, but once I explained, he agreed. He’s been following the shuttle program since its beginning, and NASA’s various missions since he was pint-sized, so he was equally excited. So we spent my 21st birthday roaming the Air & Space Museum, hearing all about STS-125’s adventures in space with the Hubble, and meeting some cool “tweeps”, astronauts, and the occasional astronaut tweep. (See below left.)

@Astro_Mike! (Mike Massimino) & @ohlauren (me)

with Andrew Feustel (also on STS-134) & Mike Good!

When @NASAtweetup announced there would be a tweetup at KSC for the STS-134 launch, I didn’t really figure on going… I mean, Pennsylvania and Florida aren’t exactly neighbors, and I’m not exactly rolling in money… but I thought, “What the heck, I probably won’t get in anyway,” and registered just in case. Then I got an email that started with “Congratulations”… o.O

And suddenly, it all became clear. I have family to stay within the area. My job is portable. I have just enough gas money and don’t mind long drives. I have a chance not just to see a space shuttle launch, but to see the second-to-last NASA shuttle launch probably ever, from as close as anyone not somehow involved in the mission is ever going to get. (Not to mention all the other assorted tweetup awesomeness.) So with that realization, and a blinding flash of whimsy, I sent in my confirmation and started making plans.

When I told my dad, he informed me he was coming along. We called the relatives to give them a heads up on impending visitors, and got him a ticket to another launch viewing site. Heck, we’re still sorting out the details for getting home, but we’re going. Driving, of course, like the crazy people we are, leaving in the awkward hours of Wednesday morning that are still basically Tuesday night and driving straight through. The way things are looking, I’ll spend more time in the car than in Florida, but I don’t care!

Tweetup participants check in at KSC in less than 60 hours.

Endeavor launches in about 90 hours.

ARE YOU PSYCHED YET?

I am!

April 25, 2011
The grey skirt: a tale of sheer bullheadedness.
Mom likes to talk at me when I’m trying to work. A month or two ago, she was asking if I wanted to go see Mary Poppins in Philly with her and Daddy.

At that moment, I really didn’t care much either way, because I:
- was trying to work.
- am mostly indifferent to the alleged allure of Broadway/Philly-wanting-to-be-Broadway shows. I like plays and musicals well enough, but I just don’t get that excited to see a story I already know acted out, unless I know some of the cast.
- don’t plan that far in advance if at all avoidable.
But they need to get out more, and I like to encourage them when they’re willing to go into the city for fun (they both work within the city limits, but seem to have an aversion to going downtown otherwise, which they like to deny/blame on each other) so I said, “Sure, why not?”

I figured for the price of the tickets, it must be a nice venue, worthy of dressing up a bit, probably digging the dress slacks out of the closet. But yesterday, mom feels compelled to point that out.

“No jeans or sweatpants.”

Of course, I took that as a challenge.

The show was tonight, and I babysat earlier this afternoon, so I was wearing sweatpants, and if you add my extreme fondness for this pair of sweatpants to yesterday’s “just because you’re 22 doesn’t mean I trust you to dress yourself” comment, there was no way I was taking off these sweatpants.

However, contrary to my mother’s opinion, I do know how to dress properly, and do know better than to go into a nice theatre looking my usual around-the-house hobo self.

Paradox resolution: the grey skirt.

The grey skirt is long. Floor-skimming long, and heavy enough that it drapes nicely even over a not-nicely-draping extra layer. And it’s shiney-ish and pretty– perfectly respectable evening-out-wear, paired with the black tank I was already wearing, a nice black cardigan, and cute black heels. Also, perfect sweatpants camouflage. o/

The show was pretty good too, by the way. 🙂 (And there were totally people wearing jeans.)
March 31, 2011
.._. ._.. .. _… _… .. _.. _.. _.__ .___ .. _… _… .. _ ..__..

The sistercreature has returned to her regularly scheduled habitat. She didn’t say goodbye. Should I be bothered? I’m not particularly, but I feel like I should be.

_ …. .. … .. … ._ …. ___ ._. .. __..___ _. _ ._ ._.. ._.. .. _…_._._

Around 2am, I realized I was frakkin hungry and needed actual dinner, but I was sick of the same 4 leftover stew-type substances I’ve been living off the plast* few weeks, so I went scavenging for something different.

I found some frozen meatballs which looked tasty, and a thing leftover macaroni and cheese, which turned out to be the gross pre-packaged overly-creamy-but-completely-devoid-of-flavor kind, but I already had it warmed up, so I dumped some salsa on it and ate it with the meatballs as a slightly bizarre but inoffensive approximation of pasta.

*Plast = when my brain combines “past” and “last” and likes it that way cause they mean the same thing in this context.

_ …. .. … .. … __ ___ ._. … . _._. ___ _.. . __..__ _… .._ _ _.__ ___ .._ _._ _. ___ .__ ._._._

Why is my room so freezy? Bedtime, yes?

January 31, 2011