Red Is A Flavor

Yesterday, I learned the diagnosis of my arm/wrist that I injured while snowboarding.  It is officially broken and I’m now wearing the first cast in my life.

While wearing it around the office, I’m finding two things interesting; people’s curiosity about it and their surprise when I tell them I broke it snowboarding.  The later truly amazes me.  I’m looked at in such a way that says “I should have known better”.

I am now 38 year old and I hurt myself doing something that I’ve wanted to do since I was a teenager.  What exactly is surprising about this?  The fact that I still chase my dreams and have refused to live with Adultitis (See Adultitis.org for Diagnosis and Treatment), or is it their inability to do the same?  Life is for experiencing that which I’ve yet to, without fear?  As we do not get a do-over at life.

I have now worked with the DoD in some capacity or another for nearly 15 years.  During this time I’ve met and worked with a wide variety of people.  Many I encounter are woefully unsuited/untrained for their tasks or are simply not goal oriented.  All too often I come across people that would rather stall or over-complicate problems just to delay the effort toward a solution. 

Occasionally, I encounter “stars”; ones that strike me as logical go-getters, solving real problem with real solutions and doing so in a way that is professional and 100% goal established.

Yesterday, after disconnecting from a conference call in which a couple of these people were participating, I found myself beginning to think of how I could convey to them how impressed with them and their handling of situations and personalities during the call.   But while doing so, I came to the realization that they both worked for the same contractor where a surprising number of others that I highly respect work or have worked;

Booz Allen Hamilton.

During my lifetime I’ve had a few pets.  Dogs, cats, even rats. Usually, I’d keep them for awhile, but would eventually have to get give them away because of some circumstance like housing, space, or behavior.  Each of these were merely “pets”.  While having to see them go hurt, it never emotionally hurt to my core, until yesterday.

The Beginning

In 1998 we were living in Bellevue, Nebraska.  I was still in the Air Force, trying desperately to get out early to go to school full time.  We had moved off-base with the anticipation of being civilian again.  Trevor was 4 ½ years old.  A year or so earlier we had gotten rid of our latest basset hound Dottie, which like our other dogs, she just have issues that we could no longer work with.

Jennifer’s birthday was approaching and she wanted another dog, so I told her to start looking.  Within a week she found a breeder in Iowa that had Lhasa Apso and poodle mixed puppies.  We new nothing of the coming “hybrid movement”, so it sounded like a small mutt to us.  It was a small and cheap (only $75); perfect.

Twenty-four years ago today, the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded in the skies over my home… For as long as I can remember, the shuttle program has been a way of life for me and my family. The Apollo missions to the moon ended ten months before I was born, and I was too young to remember the Apollo-Soyuz mission of Apollo 18. For me, the United States manned-spaceflight is, the Space Shuttle. My family has been involved in the US space program from basically, day one. My grandfather worked at Cape Kennedy during its earliest days. My father was the first person to have 30+ consecutive years at Kennedy Space Center. I have now worked in support of the space program for over nine years. In 1986, my father supervised the shuttle astronaut van and other large support equipment.

At the time we were not only bound to the shuttle program by our family’s livelihood. This particular mission was being utilized as the President Reagan’s catalyst to inspire kids everywhere to excel in math and science. There were handouts in classes, posters, and even TVs (unheard of at the time) being placed in classrooms around the country, to get kids involved and interested.

At 12 years old in 7th grade, I was the poster child for the target demographic that the “Teacher-in-Space” project was designed to relate to. It was like a perfect storm me and the kids around me in Brevard county.

“I still remember the cold that morning, it was bitter walking to school.”

When the launch was announced on the intercom, I was in Mr. Walker’s 5th period Algebra class, at Clearlake Middle School in Cocoa. His classroom had posters covering 90% of this windows, to keep students focused on the board. We all tried to see the launch as best we what we could out of the poster covered windows. I had just found a quarter-inch gap between two, when I saw it. I remember thinking “that doesn’t look normal.”

Moments after the launch we began heading to lunch, it was there when the reality of the situation really began hitting people. The downward spirals from the solid rocket boosters burning out was a tell-tale sign something definitely was not right. As the day when on, school administrators passed on more and more information to the students.

At home, this was the first time in my life that I had a “watch all the news you can” day. Ones like what would follow all to frequently later in life when watching events like the Oklahoma City bombing, Branch Davidians compound raid, 9/11 attacks or Operation Desert Storm unfolding.

A couple of days after the disaster, I drew a picture of the launch plume as I remembered seeing it so I would never forget. But the image of seeing the explosion through that ¼ inch gap in the window is so ingrained in my memories, it might as well of happened yesterday. Forgetting it is not ever likely.

I still have the drawing, in my office today.

Teacher in Space Project
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teacher_in_Space_Project

Now I know that roundabouts are something new to most American’s when they encounter them, but damn people use some common sense in regards to other drivers. Drivers on a roundabout near my house simply do not grasp that there are two lanes moving around that circle.

Lets go over the basic rules for a two lane roundabout…

1. The right/outside lane is for turning on the first or second exit after entry.
2. The left/inside lane is for any exit, except the very next one.
3. Do not change lanes within the roundabout
4. Yield to cars already in the roundabout

The second rule is where my peeve is…drivers assume that they can make an exit from the left/inside lane without regards or notification to the traffic in the right/outside lane. If you are in the inside lane, you are “supposed” to use your right signal to indicate to the drivers in the outside lane that you will be exiting, thus crossing that lane. I’ve seen it over and over, near accidents because the inside driver cuts off the outside driver because there was no signal.

Additionally, drivers continuuosly disregard rule three. DO NOT CHANGE LANES!!

Great video produced by Washington State DOT (should be required viewing for drivers) Click here to View