Something interest, insult or otherwise stimulate you?
Go back to the
Top
Go on to the
next month
Go back to
last month
Go back up to
Johnny's Journals
Go all the way back to
Bootie's
Monday, April 14th, 97: Hope the weekend was grand for you, no scrambling for tax forms like I did last year at this time. Friday, we were going to go to the beach house but the impending rain shy'ed us away. Instead we went to the local wine bistro with our friends Jill and Bob and Serena and Michael. It is a very cool spot and with the rare event of our friend Johann working at the bar, we had to make a showing. Johann is one of the young boyz Pamela knows that I can't believe is working. I envision him forever at play so its bizarre to see him functioning at a job. He was an excellent bartender. The U St. Wine Bistro is owned by Jamal who also owns the ultra-hip restaurant, Utopia. It is next door to the Bistro on the 1400 block of U St., NW. The 'Bistro is tres cool with excellent tapas. We then hung out at home and Chris-A-Thang came in to town and Johann joined us after his shift for more late night frivalty at our place.
Saturday was raining and cool the entire day so we spent it indoors. I saw that "The Tick" comes back to FoxKids next Saturday at 11:30AM Eastern time, so check your listings. Saturday night was still damp and cool so we just ordered delivery and I tapped at the computer.
Yesterday was sunny and cool but we stayed in, finished our taxes and then celebrated with a McDonald's meal. The biggest event Sunday was watching the X-Files.
I fly to KSC, FLA Tuesday night and return Thursday night. Hopefully it will be beachin' weather there.
Monday, April 21th, 97: Monday, Monday. Its in the evening now, after sundown. Happy Passover to those who celebrate it. I was blessed with the best Matzoball soup I've ever had this evening so I'm thankful. The gray day here has the city in a subdued mood which is fine because I'm right there with them all. I am just getting back in the groove after a busy work week this one past. For those of you who have been following along, I was down at Kennedy Space Center last week. We are processing some payloads for flight on the [Space] Shuttle later this year. I was down to ensure all the critical interfaces to the Orbiter are complied with. They complied with flying colors, always a good feeling. No one likes to find something wrong, especially late in the flow. Don't fret, we still look real hard for any hiccups and we hate to find them, but us crazy Dilberts love to fix 'em. Its the solving part that's the rub.
Those of you in Florida know that the weather in the fictional astronaut Tony Nelson's town of Cocoa Beach was rainy Tuesday and Wednesday but cleared nicely Thursday on my day of exodus. But as much as I enjoyed my stroll up the beach from my motel, or seeing how much Ron Jon's expanded to even now have a small park with my very own bank's ATM kiosk planted in it so I could avoid those nasty interbank fees, I wasn't there for the weather.
I go there to slip into a bunny suit and precisely controlled environment of the "Clean Room," that dust-free environment that our payloads demand to be in. How ironic it is that something as messy as two urns full of very famous ashes were sharing the space under the fairing of that OSC's Pegasus XL along with that Spanish spacecraft this week. I find it ironic how much Howard Hughes would have probably enjoyed the environment under which his company's spacecraft are assembled.
We were reading our payload for flight in the same building that will be used to build up the Space Station elements into their launch configuration. In typical government splendor, this new building's hallways were hopelessly circuitous with the rooms labeled with room numbers that made sense to those 25% of people that attended the training and certification course for decoding and interpreting the room numbers.
We were assigned floor space to work on the payload in the Space Station Processing Facility's Intermediate or I-Bay. This bay is adjacent to the much larger High Bay where they will assembling the Space Station elements for launch. I saw this building right after it was constructed. The High Bay was completely empty and cavernous then. Now it is nearly filled in with all the ground support infrastructure, poised to start the launch build-up sequence. It will be exciting to see to the Space Station elements coming together there. For a bunch of good ole' boys, those KSC folks do nice work. I joke with them here because they always poke funny jabs at us payload people, similar to the way we jab at our experimenters, that kooky bunch of scientists that, bless their hearts, give us engineers something to do. But those good ole' boys in Florida definitely make our PG boys seem real civilized and cultured-like. The buttcrack factor is about equal but that's where the similarity ends. Florida is a much wilder place in general. Here we have carp and chubs in the waterways, there they have crocs and 'gators.
So, after completing rounds of confirming TAS-01's Orbiter interfaces, I took off for the airport. On my way out the KSC gate, I stopped by the KSC visitor's center, Spaceport USA. I get such a great perspective on just how lucky I am to be working in this field when I visit there. I always try to take as many decals as I can there and hand them out to kids because I remember how much I loved putting stickers on my bicycle. I find adults chomping at the bit more for them than their kids sometimes.
Tuesday, April 22nd, 97: Surfing on to my e-pal Kathy's page and reading about travels to France reminds me of the holidays I so loved in Nice and Antibes and Cannes. A good friend of my wife and I who happens to be Charles Osgood's nephew is trying to line up his uncle's villa for all of us in August. It is near L'Hotel du Cap so I hope it works out. Check out this other nice hotel on the Cote Azure.
Ah, I love the laid back lifestyle there in the South of France. It makes up for the usual French attitudes. Pamela loves Paris and I have always have a great time there also but I really love getting out into the heart of France, those poplar-lined country roads, bicyclists everywhere and tourist menus that are such wonderful sensual experiences, sometimes I have to smoke afterward!
I've stayed in Paris in the 1st adrondissment right in Boalburg near the Pompadeau (you see my French is nearly non-existent, fortunately Pamela is fluent in it, after a couple glasses of wine, her friends sometimes break into extensive conversations, probably talking about us silly men, no doubt). I've stayed with buddies right on the "Ru(d)e de St. Denis" in two-star hotels above the "Cinema du Sex" and other seedy venues that line that stretch of the street; I love all the crazy action that neighborhood has in it. But I really enjoy just strolling along the Seine browsing at books for sale or taking in the many artists' work in rendering those memorable sights or peering in on the lives of the people who have barge houses tied along the bank. I can't wait to do all that with the one I love.
A few things I found in the South neat for a diversion was wandering through the streets of "Old" Nice, walking up to the top of the cap in Nice to see the Roman ruins on it and of course, seeing the Picasso Museum on the cap in Antibes.
I so love traveling in Europe. Being an avid BMW motorcyclist and road-riding bicyclist, the European mindset is perfect aligned with mine. My dream vacation is taking the month of July off and following the Tour de France bicycle race by motorcycle. Set up a picnic site and eat baguettes and fresh fruit in the mornings as the crowd builds, drink in that fleeting but oh so intense adrenaline rush as the breakaway speeds by followed by the peloton, then after the revelry, pack up and twist the throttle down the road to the next day's vantage point. Ah, the two-wheeled life!
But of course, the Cannes film festival would be so much fun! Pamela's aunt used to work as a VP in publicity at Paramount when she lived in LA so she always had great stories about the festival. Apparently all the folks from Hollywood become much more accessible there.
Wednesday, April 23rd, 97:: The weather was fab in FLA. Shuttle work came off without a hitch. Much late night plane switching in Atlanta, however. Back here the weather is the same, 50's and rain to be coming in. Laid around lazily this weekend and watched much A & E TV. Pam C. had a shoot for her show she's producing on wine so we went to Charlie's apt. up Conn Ave. Sat afternoon/evening for this. Charlie is this tres cool dude who owns City Bikes in Adams Morgan and an awesome Toaster Tank Beemer. His apt. is the ground floor of this building on Conn ave. in between Porter and Tilden with access to the back yard and Rock Creek Park National Park Service land and trails right out his door! It was fab! As always, many of those beautiful and fun TV gals to hang with. After the shoot, we all went up to Roma restaurant that is closing this week after being in business since I believe the 1930's. We took it out in a roar, as usual.
Have not seen from Ms. Jill for a few weeks now as she periodically reverts to here own doings until we can rouse her out. Such still waters 'til the wine starts flowing.
Things have been great with Pamalama and I, she has been very busy producing shows so we just zone out in front of the tube or the CRT in the evenings. Its been a cool Spring here, so not as much hangin' at the Fox and Hounds as I'd like.