2008 starts with the (almost) 30 mile loop bicycle ride. I crank along nicely even when the strong wind is against me. It's a great ride to start the new year. And then I stay close to home again and just relax. Late in the afternoon I get out for a 40 minute walk as I feel my life unraveling. And into the early evening I cannot hold the tears back as they...don't quite flow freely...but sputter out.
On the first day back to work I get roped into many teleconferences related to the recent over-the-holiday tests and the upcoming test in Fort Wayne. And my trip is postponed 12 hours - thus instead of catching the red eye tonight I'll be leaving Thursday afternoon at 2 pm. I get home and have a great session with the weights. I lowered the weight for each lift just a bit and concentrated on slow, good form repetitions. And I sleep well.
On Thursday I stay at home and call into teleconferences. And then I drive to work - expecting to get on the 2 pm flight to Chicago. But I arrive at the airport to see that my flight is delayed 3 hours - meaning that I will miss the last connecting flight to Fort Wayne for the day. I now have two options: 1) Get to Chicago late and drive 3.5 hours to Fort Wayne in the middle of the night on iffy roads; 2) Get the red eye flight which gets me to the work facility by 10 am on Friday. I choose the latter. Thus I drive home and answer email from home. I walk into the backyard during the sunny part of the day and find my squirrel friend. So he gets some bread for lunch. I work from home for a while and feel like taking a nap, but I don't because I'll want to sleep on the red eye flight. After a reasonable session with the weights I head back to the airport. This flight is also delayed a bit but not enough for me to miss my connection. For the red eye flight I've taken some Kava root extract and I fall asleep on the plane and do not regain consciousness until the pilot says that we are on final approach into Chicago.
I wander around Chicago's airport for a while and get on the connecting flight to Fort Wayne. Once there I drive to the work facility, sit in on two more teleconferences, and then go to "the big meeting where I'm needed in person". The meeting is a sham - it's really just a checklist meeting and now I'm livid. I jumped on a plane and put up with this crap for THAT meeting? I let the responsible parties back at Northrop Grumman know how upset I am and they become upset when they hear, from me, that actual testing won't start until Tuesday. Now they are livid as they had been promised by this contractor that testing would start on Friday.
I strongly consider my options: stay in Fort Wayne and wait around until Tuesday or fly back home and return later. The latter option presents an interesting little scenario: Take the red eye from Los Angeles to Fort Wayne and arrive in Fort Wayne at 9 am on Friday morning, stick around for 10 hours, get on a flight back to Los Angeles at 7 pm, arrive at nightclubs by midnight, and finally make it back home in Long Beach for sleep by 3 am. But I finally decide to stay in Fort Wayne for the weekend.
On Saturday I sleep late because I've forgotten to enable the alarm clock in the hotel room. I set the desired wakeup time, but forgot to enable the alarm. But I needed the sleep. I head to work for the 10 am teleconference and then another 11 am teleconference. Afterwards I organize material for the upcoming test. As I drive back to the hotel I realize that the weather is not as warm as expected, so I do an hour of aerobics on various treadmills, stationary bicycles, and machines and grab a nice warm shower. Near 7 pm a NASA guy is waiting in my lobby and we head off to the Fort Wayne Komets ice hockey game. The Komets win 5-2. The Komets' mascot is some sort of bird - I don't know how a bird is a comet. But the level of play was pretty good.
On Sunday I sleep late and start working on scripts for the test. At 8 am Pacific time there is a phone call from work back in Los Angeles, "Can you be here in an hour? We're going to run the test now."
"I'm in Indiana."
"Okay, it might be an hour and a half. Can you make it?"
It takes a while to explain that they sent me to Indiana and they cannot expect me to be in two places at once. Or maybe they can expect it, but I can't make it happen. Oh well. I go out walking for an hour in dreary but reasonably warm conditions and get interupted by my boss at work. By the end of the ten minute conversation (while walking) I tell him that I am lost and do not know where I am (because I was paying attention to him). But I manage to find my way back to the hotel. And am promptly invited to a a teleconference which lasts about an hour. Later in the afternoon I use the hotel workout facilities and get in a geat workout.
Monday is another day of waiting at work followed by a 40 minute run outdoors. The January day in Indiana has bloomed towards 60 degrees F and it is still warm after the workday.
On Tuesday we arrive at work to find that the vibration test cell has a puddle of water in it from a leak in the ceiling. Oh this is going well! Another day is lost. But I get in a great workout with the weights in the hotel fitness center and work on more scripts at night.
We finally make a vibration run on Thursday. And a subsquent series of runs through Saturday morning gets us halfway trough he first axis of testing. Each day brings a number of teleconferences to attend and I keep asking, "Do you want us to run this test or do you want us to sit around in these teleconferences where you already know where I stand?" And I'm frustrated as people don't make a decision but expect both things to get done. On each night after work I get in workouts with the weights, or pure aerobics workouts, or combined aerobics/abdominal/lower back workouts. Friday night is a tough decision as my co-workers ask, "Do you want to go eat Thai food with us?"
I hem and haw and finally say, "I would love to go eat Thai food. But I have to get in a workout. I need to workout everyday to feel good."
Sunday and Monday are frustrating days at work as the contractor wants to proceed with testing even though there is no way the objectives of the test are even close to being met. Monday is espcecially tiresome and grueling as we have long discussions on the path forward. We finally come to some sort of agreement that will involve more delays a bit later. Thus on Monday, after making phone calls back to the home campus to explain the situation, I have a good workout with very heavy weights.
On Tuesday we get in the "agreed upon debugging run" and find that the response is not as much as different as expected. Thus it is back to the drawing board for the contractor. I get in another good workout on Tuesday night.