We returned home around 4 and I hastily began packing all my bags. It probably took around a hour for me to get my stuff together and pack. We said our goodbyes to Summit 2 and left around 5:40.
I drove the second leg to Houston and we arrived around 8:30 at our hotel. I now really feel like I'm back in a city. There are at least three Starbucks within a block of our hotel and also a Target and a Ross around the corner along with many other stores that I have at home.
Living at a hotel is a luxury for us because we now have Wi-Fi, our own bathroom and shower, a kitchen, beds, and just the usual things you would expect in a regular hotel. But since our standard of living was already low, the normal things seem like luxury to us. They have washers here (we still have to pay), but at least we don't have to go to a laundromat anymore.
Day 49 - Monday (31), Can't believe that today is the last day of August! Time has really flown by!
Today was our first day of work. It was a rough start to the morning considering that we had to take the back roads to avoid toll roads until we get our toll pass. Our team got divided up into 4 groups of 2 and paired with a POC. Our POC, Dan, is pretty cool so far.
I kept fairly busy today due to the fact that Kristina pulled the IT card on me today so I had everybody coming to me for tech help. I managed to mustard my way and figure out what they wanted done even though I don't think I knew what I was doing half of the time.
We got off at 5 pm and headed back to our hotel and just relaxed. Alex and I watched a movie together and then we FaceTime Summit 2! It was nice to see and catch up with them again. On the other hand in the boys room, Drew bought a keyboard so he wanted me to teach him how to play. We started off easy with the C major scale and the first row of twinkle twinkle little star. He did pretty well considering I spent a short amount of time in their room.
Day 50 - Tuesday (September 1), Today was an early start for work, 7 am, but we get off at 3:30 pm. So just a regular 8ish hour work day. I did some more IT stuff and inserted data into an online database.
After work, we went to the Houston Zoo! We managed to get tickets for free so we spent about 2 hours there. We saw everything from mammals to reptiles. The zoo was a slightly small, but I enjoyed it anyways.
We returned back to the hotel and just relaxed until dinner. I taught Drew some more piano. He's trying to learn a new song so I'm helping him with that.
I took a shower tonight, it feels weird to take one whenever you want because we didn't have that option before. Back at the church, your evening activities, meetings, and dinner were all planned around shower time.
Day 51 - Wednesday (2), Today was the usual day at work. 7 am - 3:30 pm. Today was quite busy for me. I had a lot of data inserting and number crunching.
We left work and headed back to the hotel to drop people off, then I went with a couple others to pick up an EZ Tag, or like a Fast Trak in CA. It lets you go through the tolls without stopping and paying cash at the booth. We then went and got the oil change for the car.
That took most of our afternoon up and we got back to the hotel around 8. I ate dinner and spent the rest of the night chatting in one of the boys rooms and teaching Drew piano. Didn't get back to my room until 11:30 and went to bed from there!
Day 52 - Thursday (3), Usual work hours today. After leaving the office, we went to the gym to workout. The gym we went to is still the YMCA and since we had membership in Austin, they're letting us use it for 30 days as a temporary membership since we're on business which is great!
I was feeling very tired and exhausted when we got back to the hotel so I took a nap which turned out to be 2 hours. Was a little groggy and disoriented waking up but ate dinner and uploaded pictures for about 2 hour before heading to bed.
Our room almost got 'flooded' today, because one of my roommates though she could use the liquid soap for washing dishes to run the dishwasher instead of using the proper soap. I also don't think they closed the door all the way so it leaked out. Apparently, it was quite a foamy and bubbly mess in which I apparently just slept straight through!
Day 53 - Friday (4), Only two things went through my mind today. 1) It's Friday so just get through today, and 2) it's a 3 day weekend! My team and I much need this 3 day weekend to catch up on sleep. I've been lacking in sleep and been relying to heavy on coffee to fuel my body and have been getting really bad headaches.
Today, I went with some of the people who actually work for FEMA to a meeting and then we conducted some site visits. We were looking at places where there had been flooding and just taking notes and gathering information. It was pretty cool for me to sit through their meeting and actually understanding what they are talking about when a few weeks ago, I was clueless. And everyone very much treated me as an adult which was cool.
The afternoon I worked on more data entry and media stuff. We got off work around 3 because it was a Friday and headed to the gym for PT.
The rest of the day was just to relax. I ordered a pizza and uploaded pictures for the rest of the night.
Day 54 - Saturday (5), We went to the Lyndon B. Johnson NASA Space Center today which was pretty cool! I really enjoy science, especially space in which I find it really fascinating. I also don't think it was a coincidence in how much I enjoy science considering the fact that I spent my entire senior year in our school's science department. I'm hoping to eventually visit the Kennedy Space Center in Florida sometime next summer.
We didn't spent much time inside because it was more of a kids interactive center so we went on all three tram rides, which was much more informative and interesting to me than the kids area.
We went on the blue one first, which brought us to the actual mission control room in which all Apollo mission where launched and I believe around 9 Gemini mission where launched also. It was cool to think we were sitting in the same place where the Apollo 11 landed on the moon. It was also cool to see the equipment they used.
The second one was the white tour. It brought us to the current mission control room. They started to talk about Orion and the preparations they were making for the trip to Mars. The technology they have in the new control room compared to the old one was stunning. And on the monitors, we got to see some people live from space. They are conducting research on those astronauts to see how the body reacts to being in space for a year. This research is being conducted because in like 20 years, NASA are hoping to send people to Mars and they want to make sure the body holds up properly.
The last tram ride we went on was the red one. It brought us to the astronaut training area. There were multiple replicas of ship compartment designed by the US, Russia, and Japan. so astronauts can practice maneuvering and navigating their way around the ship. It's a mock-up of being in space and knowing how to operate different types of space crafts. They also showed us a robonaut, a rover, and some other cool looking equipment and gadgets.
We stayed at the space center for about 5 hours until we went to grab some food. I ate at a burrito place and it was really good! Almost reminded me of Chipotle. We then drove back to the hotel and crashed. We did a movie night and was able to watch two movies. I only watched the first one and the second one, I wasn't interested in so I just texted the whole second movie.
Day 55 - Sunday (6), Today was a easy and relaxing day. We went on a walk today in the park for PT. It was pretty nice to be in somewhere semi-isolated for once. Got a chance to clear my head and make some catch up phone calls.
We went on the blue one first, which brought us to the actual mission control room in which all Apollo mission where launched and I believe around 9 Gemini mission where launched also. It was cool to think we were sitting in the same place where the Apollo 11 landed on the moon. It was also cool to see the equipment they used.
The second one was the white tour. It brought us to the current mission control room. They started to talk about Orion and the preparations they were making for the trip to Mars. The technology they have in the new control room compared to the old one was stunning. And on the monitors, we got to see some people live from space. They are conducting research on those astronauts to see how the body reacts to being in space for a year. This research is being conducted because in like 20 years, NASA are hoping to send people to Mars and they want to make sure the body holds up properly.
The last tram ride we went on was the red one. It brought us to the astronaut training area. There were multiple replicas of ship compartment designed by the US, Russia, and Japan. so astronauts can practice maneuvering and navigating their way around the ship. It's a mock-up of being in space and knowing how to operate different types of space crafts. They also showed us a robonaut, a rover, and some other cool looking equipment and gadgets.
We stayed at the space center for about 5 hours until we went to grab some food. I ate at a burrito place and it was really good! Almost reminded me of Chipotle. We then drove back to the hotel and crashed. We did a movie night and was able to watch two movies. I only watched the first one and the second one, I wasn't interested in so I just texted the whole second movie.
Day 55 - Sunday (6), Today was a easy and relaxing day. We went on a walk today in the park for PT. It was pretty nice to be in somewhere semi-isolated for once. Got a chance to clear my head and make some catch up phone calls.
The crew went grocery shopping for lunch and dinner foods this week. I stayed behind and did some media work. Once every they got back, we unpacked the grocery into our room. We spent the rest of the night in our own rooms just taking personal time to ourselves.
* There are quite a few pictures from the Houston Zoo and the Johnson Space Center so I will put a link below if you want to view all of them in addition to the ones below.
Bye Austin, TX and Summit 2!!
Johnson Space Center/NASA
Mission Control Room in which Apollo 11 was launched
Saturn V
4 comments:
Nice that you can use the Y in Houston! Glad you guys are exploring the area. Any idea how long you'll be there?
Probably til somewhere in October
Thanks for the pictures! I have never seen the short,squat rocket and can't find any information about it on Google. It isn't the Deacon or Redstone which were the early rockets. No idea. The Mission Control center is amazing. Those monitors had so little information...people were working out of binders and doing hand calculations during the missions.
Please work on your sleep schedule. You won't be able to run on as little sleep as you have been getting and make it up on weekends. It just doesn't work. You can't function well and will get sick. Take care of yourself, sweetie!
I've been working mostly with county applications. Individuals go under individual assistance and were public assistance. I've been entering things such as contact info, dimensions of the damaged sites/facilities, cost estimated to fix the site if it was eligible, insurance policy as that affects how much money the county can receive, and picture and other attachments they may be useful as to determining whether the sites are eligible to receive money to repair it.
We sometime wear uniforms when we explore. For example, when we went to the space center, we wore regular clothes because that was on our free time and we don't get hours for it. When we went to the Houston Natural Science Museum, we wore our uniforms because we were getting hours for it because it was a diversity project arranged by our diversity person. Since it was a project, we have to write a reflection about it and the space center we didn't because that was on our own time. I'm by sure if I explained that too well, but in other words, if it's a project or work related, we were uniforms, if not then we just wear regular clothes.
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