Skimping is Rarely Saving.

It seems that NASA has decided to drop an upper-stage test of its Ares I rocket. There isn't enough money in the kitty to pay for the test stage and a new production stage. The decision was made to instead study the benefits of a live Stage I-Y test, which would fly on the Ares I-X Prime test flight.

This is a Bad Thing, because testing is always useful. Every additional data point increases our understanding of a system and the way it interacts with its environment. It's a shame that NASA lacks the funding to get another J-2X motor within a reasonable timescale. Perhaps they could hold a bake sale (just kidding).

I wonder if this missed test will impact the safety of the Ares vehicle. The Saturn never failed, but we also threw money at it like crazy. Given the cost of the entire Ares program and its precarious position on the Congressional chopping block, I'll be surprised if the Ares I-X Prime test is even carried out.

Sleep is the new stock options

To those of you who are parents, you will understand what I am about to talk about. Those of you who aren't parents will learn soon enough.

When there is a new baby in the house, those who already live there go through a period of adjustment. This period can take as little as a month and as long as several years, during which sleep schedules change, daily routines are altered, and everybody goes through some adaptation to live with the new little person. A side effect of these adjustments is often noticeable - parents with dark circles under their eyes for example.

The first baby is hard. The second is usually much easier, since the parents know what to expect. This lends a false sense of calm to the third child. We as parents tend to think that we have it all under control. Then the third baby descends into our midst. Sleep schedules are interrupted once again. In situations (like mine) where there is another child under the age of two, at least three sleep schedules are messed up. With the oldest child in second grade, there are fully four different sets of schedules, activities, and challenges working in my house.

What all of this means is that sleep has become an abstract concept, like a billion dollars or Santa Claus. When we do sleep, it's rarely for more than an hour or two at a time. These brief snatches of shut-eye aren't long enough to invoke N3 sleep. When we get up for the day, we find ourselves not rested and disheveled, feeling almost as bad as we did before we lay down for the night. Motivation has dropped, much like my ability to use only one voice when I write. Hallucinations happen.

Now, sleep had become insidious in its tricks. For example, last night I only got three and a half hours of sleep, and I feel surprisingly okay. Yet my cerebral mind tells me that I didn't get enough sleep and fights whatever energy I feel that I have. This means that even though I did get enough sleep, I don't feel like I got enough sleep, and I therefore am tired even though I'm not really tired. You know, I don't understand it either.

In any event, sleep has become something that sounds like options: you get nothing now and promises of lots later in return for never ending backbreaking work.

Cheers

Boeing might just make it

I found an article here describing how Boeing looks to be expanding their interests in non-government contracts. This is heartening news for me, as I would like to both work for Boeing someday and do work in the private sector.

I've heard a lot of scuttlebutt since the election about how Obama is going to gut the space program and how my chosen profession will go the way of the slide rule. Yet everything I have read about aerospace and aeronautical engineering tends to make me believe that my profession will not only survive but thrive amid these more difficult and less ambitious financial times.

I really think that there are many interesting problems to solve below orbital altitude. I can't wait to get started.

Cheers,

-- Zach

Silent Eagle

...sounds like a bad action movie title. What it is captivates me. Take your standard everyday F-15 strike eagle, put the missiles in the FAST packs, add a radar absorbing coating, and blammo - stealthy fourth-gen air supremacy aircraft. What's so cool about this bird for me is the fact that its mere existence signals a need for people with my schooling. Story is here.

We're going out of town for a few days. I have a bunch of trig homework to get done. Additionally, I have three kids. Hilarity shall ensue.

The downside to going out of town is that I have to delay my garden another week. I can't start seeds and then leave them to die. I don't have room in the car to take the seeds and their support equipment with me. The ground is too wet to plant. Oh well - at least the lawn is mowed (mown?)

I'm out of time. See y'all Sunday.

Cheers.

p.s. The F-15 is awesome :-)

Birthday and other

So Thursday was my thirty-second birthday! Yay, me!

The week upcoming is Spring Break, both for me and for my school-aged daughter. My to-do list for next week is tremendous:

• Get the house more in order. Clutter sucks the life out of me.
• Get back on my exercising routine. I haven't managed to string two runs together in a week since before the baby came.
• Dig two more beds for the garden. One will be a 4x4 for veggies, and the other will be 3x12 for squash and zucchini.
• Start seeds. I plan on using egg cartons for my seedlings and transplanting relatively quickly. The weather should cooperate.
• Get good at trig. Really good.

I also want to try to post three times next week. We'll see how it goes.

-- Namaste

p.s. Scribefire is awesome.

Conucopia of updates

So. I've recently become a father three times over. The new baby is big, perfect, and sleepy. This is my excuse for my abysmal update schedule.

I'm working on a post about the McLaren F1 and the Bugatti Veyron. It should be done soon-ish.

I have recently learned turbofan compressor blades (and fan blades too) go supersonic at the tips. This is interesting, because the sound deadening techniques result in a decidedly non-Thunderscreech sound profile. I suppose my next move is to research dissipation characteristics of supersonic shock waves.

Also on the agenda is gardening. I'll make a recurring feature about my garden and her trials and tribulations. Mostly because Oregon sugar snap peas are nummy.

Finally, I should really write about school, since I devote so much time and effort to it.

I'm out of time for today. Until next time...

Washer and Dryer

Or, how we've been drug into the 1950s.

Somehow, my family has managed to get by with doing our laundry Somewhere Else for the last six years. When we had one kid, we did laundry at the house of the family member we went to visit that week. When we had two kids, we did laundry wherever we were when we stopped moving (normally, that meant my FiL's house).

Kid number three is due Thursday.

So we finally decided to take the plunge. Be responsible. Grown-up, even. My financial aid money paid for a high efficiency front load washer, the matching dryer, a five year all-expense-included extended warranty, installation parts, and delivery. There's still money left over.

Two years ago, we would have put a purchase like this on a credit card. Today (Wednesday, actually), we paid cash. Today, we own it. Today is a good day.

Let me back up a bit. When I learned how much money I would get in financial aid, I decided that we needed a washer and dryer. Long before now, I'd been resolved to purchase something. The Conns circular from this Sunday caught our eye, because they advertised a Frigidaire HE front loader washer and dryer set for $999.99. This was very exciting, especially given the fact that these units would stack and they would cost about as much as a traditional stackable set.

This is important, because most washers and dryers are 27 inches wide. Our utility room is 36 inches wide, meaning that we would have to stack the dryer on the washer to fit both units in the house.

So we went to Conns. Let me preface this by saying that my wife is about a kajillion weeks pregnant. So we go to Conns. The guys there are like the rejects that are too slimy to work the local used car dealership. Greasy. Shifty. Desperate. Ick.

We left. Quick.

The next day (Wednesday), we went to Lowes. The experience couldn't have been more different. The first three people we saw said hello and smiled (nobody in Conns acknowleged our existance). We went to the appliance section to look at and touch everything. Conns was advertising a discontinued set of Frigidaire Affinity units. My wife thought they fely "cheap". The lowest-end models at Lowes felt "better". We looked, we touched, we asked questions.

First, the guy said he would match the Conns price for the Affinitys. Unfortunately, they had to be ordered, so we couldn't get them for two or three weeks. However, he pointed out a different set that he could also price match on that were in stock. Not only that, but they felt "great, not cheap at all".

Ten minutes later, I plunked down cash and we left happy.

Today (yesterday, as I write this), the units were delivered (early!) and installed. We started the first load at 12:30 and finished the ninth load at 10:30. Flawless.

Two salient points. First, the Lowes in Mesquite is the best. Evar. Second, Conns is scary.

Oh, and here are the washer (LTF2940F) and the dryer (LEQ 2152F). Ours are black.

Keeping up with everything

As I sit here listening to Metallica at an ear-splitting level, I have a strange feeling in the pit of my stomach. No, it's not the fried with cheese lunch I had. Upon closer inspection, I realize that this feeling is unfamiliar.

You know those times in your life when you should be overwhelmed, when there's too much for any one person to be able to reasonably handle, when you're holding more weight that you can swim with? You know how sometimes, if you're lucky, you feel perfectly calm and up to the task instead of weighed down with blind panic?

This is one of those times.

School. Family. New baby. Getting into this whole social networking/blogging thing. It's just too much.

Oddly, these are all things I swore I'd never do. I did better than college graduates for a while. I had no desire to have a family. Marriage? Not for me. Facebook? No thanks, I did that when we called it Chips 'n Dips. And I'm sure that there's nothing that I could contribute to the massive noise that is the blogosphere that would stand out.

Yet here I am eating all of my words. And they taste good.

(not) First Post

So I had planned on writing about other stuff yesterday, before sparky the coffee maker bit my wife. Here is what I had on my plate.

1. I really like fast cars. Actually, I like a rather thin subset of fast cars.
2. I'm crazy about aircraft from the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s. Also, Joe Baugher has too much time on his hands, in addition to being a huge resource for people like me.
3. I have one wife. We have 2 and 37/40ths children. Additionally, the cat runs the house.
4. Hockey is good.
5. I go to school at Richland College. From there, I'll go (tentatively) to the University of Texas, Dallas for a BS in Physics. After that, I want to go to Cal Tech or Cornell or MIT or some other school that's associated with NASA or Boeing or Scaled Composites or something.
6. I am an urban gardener. I grow food for my family. Nothing makes one feel so alive as the scent of freshly cultivated earth. Everyone should have a garden.
7. I used to be a bike messenger. I like to run. Roman chair sit ups separate the wheat from the chaff.
8. I forget what eight was for.
   
9. My typing skills are not 'leet. One of my goals for this blog is to learn to type better.
10. Aeronautics has a lot of interesting problems that should be addressed, like very high speed propeller research.

I will post five concrete goals later on. Today, I just tried to hang on :-)

Wake up

I had originally intended for the first post of my new blog to be about who I am or my interests or some other thing. Instead, I find myself humbled at having nearly lost a baby.

My wife was shocked at work by a faulty machine. The shock itself was not big, but it was big enough to startle my wife. Several hours later, it became apparent that the baby she is carrying hadn't moved. A frantic call to her ob/gyn resulted in a visit to the Baylor Labor and Delivery ward.

The sweetest sound I've ever heard was the baby's heartbeat, thumping clearly through the speaker when the nurse hooked up the monitor.

Mother and baby are both okay. Baby seems to be staying put until her due date in three weeks. Mother has gone back to work. I've returned home to a nap, Beowulf homework, and this, my first blog post.

Way to start things off with a bang...