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Duct Tape is like the Force

NASA uses duct tape to save the day. It secures “British astronaut Piers Sellers to his jet-propelled backpack today for the final spacewalk of the shuttle Discovery’s 13-day mission to the International Space Station.” I have patch stickers for this flight, STS-121. By the way, the saying goes: “Duct tape is like the Force. It…Continue Reading…

Vitamin A, For X-ray vision

I picked up a Yoplait nouriche SuperSmoothie from the 167 Cafe, and under the cap, the seal read: Vitamin A For X-ray vision Intrigued, I went to Google and typed in “vitamin a” “for x-ray vision” Only four (4) results were returned. Thank goodness for MySpace blogs (I never thought I’d say that!) — the…Continue Reading…

JPL Lunch with NASA Dryden

At lunch today, I decided to venture out and try talking to people. Engineers at JPL are very quiet, but nice once you start up a conversation. At least that’s my experience. Not a single person looked at me for more than a second, and none of them said anything other than one person who…Continue Reading…

JPL Speaker Series: Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter

Today at noon they had the third presentation in JPL’s summer speaker series with Jim Graf on MRO. He’s the project manager. Also from the MRO team was Dr. Richard Zurek, Project Scientist, who I spoke with after the talk. MRO was launched on August 12, 2005 — less than a year ago. I didn’t…Continue Reading…

Caltech Braun Athletic Center

I went to the Braun Athletic Center at the California Institute of Technology. As a new JPL employee, they gave me a one-day free pass. It’s a nice facility; one of their newer gyms, according to the guy at the reception desk. They have fields for baseball, soccer, rugby; basketball courts, swimming pools, racquetball courts,…Continue Reading…

JPL Vanpool

I just got a call from the JPL vanpool coordinator. There are 3 other summer interns also looking for a spot. Wow, it would be interesting to meet them and talk with them, see how their first 2 weeks were. I’ve been driving myself because I was staying at Jordan’s condo in Pasadena. But now…Continue Reading…