13A Wrapup

To wrap-up the 13A mission, a bunch of people on the 13A team went to Boondoggles for a couple drinks after the Plaque Hanging Ceremony. It's quite an honor to hang the mission plaque in the NASA circle. It goes to the team that stuck out during the mission as contributing the most towards achieving the mission objectives. Turns out, the ADCO team was selected and Molly hung the ISS plaque as the mission lead! Here you'll see a picture of the ADCO's that were present at Boondoggles.

Cory, Erin, Ann, Kevin, Todd, Molly, and Christina.

Here are our shift team pictures:

Molly's shift


Mike's shift

13A Complete

With ISS Flight 13A now complete, Molly and I are working on getting back into our routine. Molly was the flight lead for her group (ADCO), and I was just filling in for the ODIN team in the MPSR (supporting position). Of course we were on different shifts, so that was challenging. Also, as you may or may not know, we ran into some significant problems during the mission. But we came out of it and we're back into a good configuration... with the addition of two more solar arrays to boot! Here are some pictures:



In other news, a week before the flight my brother Joe, his wife Lisa, and their two boys Zach and Addyson came to visit. We had a great time!








Like I said, we all had fun, and if I don't say so myself, they had a killer tour of NASA!

Goin' Green

Well, Molly and I decided it was time we take energy and environment conservation more seriously. I wouldn't say that we were exceedingly wasteful - at least not compared to other Americans, but that's just not good enough. This isn't about saving money either. We just want to see what we can do to make our impact a little less. Here are some of the things we've done, and maybe some others we're going to do.

Replace Incandescent Light Bulbs with Compact Fluorescent Light (CFL) Bulbs.
I went through the house and replaced 54 Incandescent Light Bulbs with CFL Bulbs. What a pain in the rear! A CFL uses approximately one-fourth the wattage of an incandescent bulb producing a similar level of illumination, and they last 8,000 to 10,000 hours. This equates to a definite non-zero reduction of energy. I can't find a reference, but I had read once that lighting makes up about 10% of the overall bill. So, we perhaps shaved that 10% down by 75%. It was a decent initial cost to replace them all, but it was not too bad. We picked up the CFL bulbs at Sam's Club for about $10.50 for a package of 8 bulbs.

Reusable Grocery/Shopping Bags
We were looking into reusable bags that we could purchase, and we were about to narrow it down. Well, I was working and the conversation came up with a friend and colleague of ours, Christina. She just recently made the same purchase. So, we decided to go with the brand that they just purchased and raved about. ACME Bags EarthTote™ - Heavy Duty Reusable Shopping Bag

Turn down the temperature on the water heater.
This one was triggered by the pending arrival of the little peanut (Sept. 1), but it makes good energy sense too. Our house has two water heaters, of which we hardly tax one of them with two of us here. There really is no need for the water to be so hot that it can scald you. We're going to be playing with this one for a while until we can find the right temperature. Perhaps we could turn it up when company comes in to visit. According to the US Department of Energy, For each 10ºF reduction in water temperature, you can save between 3%–5% in energy costs.

Wash and Rinse Clothes in Cold Water
"Most of us are unaware of the full extent of energy required to wash our clothes. A staggering 85-90% of this energy is used by the water heater. Only 10-15% actually goes to running the washing machine." From TerraBlog. We actually wash most of our clothes in cold water, but this will be a reminder.

Unplug Unused Electronics
According to the DOE, Many appliances continue to draw a small amount of power when they are switched off. These "phantom" loads occur in most appliances that use electricity, such as VCRs, televisions, stereos, computers, and kitchen appliances. In the average home, 75% of the electricity used to power home electronics is consumed while the products are turned off. This can be avoided by unplugging the appliance or using a power strip and using the switch on the power strip to cut all power to the appliance. Oh, and this includes little things like cell phone chargers, etc...

Possible Future Endeavour. Still researching this one.
Addition of Radiant Barrier in Attic
Radiant barriers are materials that are installed in buildings to reduce summer heat gain and winter heat loss, and hence to reduce building heating and cooling energy usage. The potential benefit of attic radiant barriers is primarily in reducing air-conditioning cooling loads in warm or hot climates. Radiant barriers usually consist of a thin sheet or coating of a highly reflective material, usually aluminum, applied to one or both sides of a number of substrate materials. These substrates include Craft paper, plastic films, cardboard, plywood sheathing, and air infiltration barrier material. Some products are fiber reinforced to increase the durability and ease of handling.

DOE Fact Sheet

Wikipedia Entry

So, any suggestions to further reduce our footprint? What are you going to do? Let us know!

Follow up Spoiler Post

Links to Wikipedia entries for the sources of all the spoilers.

Luke's Father - Star Wars

It was Earth All Along - Planet of the Apes

Verbal is Keyser Soze - The Usual Suspects

The Villagers Sacrifice the Policeman - The Wicker Man

Dil is Actually a Man - The Crying Game

Snape Kills Dumbledore - Harry Potter

The Kid's Therapist is a Ghost - The Sixth Sense

Kristin (gun) JR - Dallas

Tyler Durden isn't Real - Fight Club

299 Die - 300

Neo is the One - The Matrix

Rosebud was the name of his sled - Citizen Kane

The protagonists are the Others - The Others

The Killer's mother is a part of his split personality - Psycho

Soylent Green is People - Soylent Green

The Village is part of a modern nature reserve - The Village

Donnie Dies - Donnie Darko

His friends are all a part of his beautiful mind - A Beautiful Mind

Spoiler T-Shirt

I ran across this tonight and couldn't resist posting it. I find this t-shirt hilarious... I am on the night shift, so that could have some influence on my sense of humor. I'm curious if others will find it funny (or if I will when I'm not sleep deprived).

Dog Day Afternoon

Nothing like the Movie Dog Day Afternoon staring Al Pacino... On Friday I took the dogs out to Challenger Seven Memorial Park to walk the nature trails. We had a great time. It was nice to kind of "get away" from Houston without having to go very far away. It kind of reminded me of Kolomenskoye in Moscow (without the 16th century churches). For those that haven't been, it's like a country get-away on the edge of Moscow - a must visit if you're ever there. Here are the dogs taking a break in the shade.


Here they are taking yet another break in the shade.


Here is a short video clip from the day.

San Antonio Fiesta

Molly and I needed a break from Houston, so we went to San Antonio this weekend. It was really just about the only weekend we had available, and coincidentally it was "Fiesta" in San Antonio. We had never heard of it, but it's a big ol', well, Fiesta that they have every year. To be honest, every time I heard "Fiesta," I thought of "Festivus" (read Seinfeld)... It's just the way my mind works... Anyway, we stayed in the Ogé House Bed and Breakfast. It was really nice. Here is a picture we took one of the nights.

It's a mansion that was built in 1857 and is one of the 3 oldest buildings in San Antonio. It's in the King William District and for Fiesta they had the King William Fair. Here is a short video of the space shuttle and some flamingos we saw at the parade...

Oh, we did stop the the ol' trusty rusty Alamo. You always hear people say how they expected the Alamo to be bigger, but I find it quite impressive. Especially since it was built in the 18th century originally as a Spanish mission.

Professor Stephen Hawking

Today I had the honor of meeting British theoretical physicist Professor Stephen Hawking. Professor Hawking's book A Brief History of Time is what made him most famous to the general public. He has also done a cameo appearance on The Simpsons! Professor Hawking was getting a tour of the NASA Mission Control by Flight Director, Dr. Bob Dempsey. I arrived after they had completed their tour of the ISS Flight Control Room (FCR-1), but I went downstairs to see him off. I missed out on the photo op, but was fortunate enough to get to see him. I have to say, and a couple other people that were here feel the same way, it was pretty darn inspiring to be in the same room as someone with such an awesome intellect. Working in Mission Control we get random celebrities and professional athletes come through quite often. Unlike the times I have been here for them, this is the first time I felt a little, well, intimidated. I mean, this guy's been compared to Einstein! He has also done so much to further humanity in spite of his fight with Lou Gehrig's Disease.

Tour 18

Last weekend Molly's father John and I golfed at Houston's Tour 18 course - also known as "America's Greatest Eighteen Holes." Basically it's a course that every hole is a replica of one from a famous US golf course. For example, we just so happened to play on the opening day of the Masters, and there were 3 holes that were modeled after the Augusta National (11-12-13). So, we got to see how the pros did on the same holes we played. Admitingly they did slightly better than John and I, but playing this course really gives you a good feel about how hard those famous courses really are.

Here is our scorecard for the day. Like I said, it was quite the difficult course. I felt good to walk away from a hole with a bogey! Not to mention I only play about once a year anymore. It's also a pretty expensive round, but I'd say it's worth it once in a while.

 

ADCO's, Russians, and Outriggers

A group of ADCO's took their Russian counterpart to Outriggers. To any ADCO's that may read this that didn't make it, you were missed. Here are a couple pictures...

Group Shot


Moose sighting