The Average Blogger

Remembering Rocketdyne

Twenty-five years ago, I pestered my grandfather, Tom Coultas, for his recollections of his work at Rocketdyne on the lunar project. Here's an abridged version what he said then. 

July 17, 1994

Dear Arwen,

Anecdotes come hard. I've got that block I used to disparage in young kids. We once wrote a proposal to the AF for some kind of acoustic cavity work on solid propellants. I assigned the proposal writing to two of the very best guys, Oberg and Kesselring. After about two weeks (we usually had a month to write), they had about 20 pages that proved conclusively that the work we were proposing could not be done. I ranted at these kids to get on with it, quit being so negative, get out of the block, etc., etc. After a good Vincent Peale pep talk and some technical hints, they went back and rewrote the thing, telling in glorious detail exactly how they would do it. We won. Great program. But I have the same kind of block they had at the outset. 

But since it is claimed to be the 25th of Armstrong, I want to do a little soul baring. It was perhaps in 1959 when some guy came to Rocketdyne to do a promo. I guess he was from NASA or maybe North American. Anyway, he wanted us to show how rocket scientists (an unknown term at the time) "dreamed" of space travel. For reasons totally beyond me, (I'd guess it was the influence of Bob Levine) he got Harley Burge and me and we took a walk down to the Hot Fuel Lab, him with his complete camera entourage (VCRs also unknown at the time). 

(Harley Burge came to R'dyne in about 1959, from a tour of duty in Alaska as a Lt. in the AF. [Burge: "I was in the Navy, not the Air Force. I think Tom always wanted me to have come from the Air Force, no matter how many times I corrected him."] I think I hired him, and he worked for me, directly. Among other things, we showed that alkali metal power pants were indeed possible. Art Fraaas at Oak Ridge did a little work in the 70s but I'm not sure he actually circulated a vapor as did Burge and I.  Burge had a hard time at Rocketdyne, especially during that time, because of competition with his boss -- me. Bob Levine, who was our boss's boss, insisted that every good thing was done by Coultas, but really, half or more of those things were Burge's. So he transferred to work for Zettle, who was a tsar, but so inferior to Burge that it was obvious who was doing all the work for that bunch. Burge gained a great reputation in the rocket community; he left Rdyne and went to TRW, and was the guy who really got the TRW Lunar Descent Module to work. TRW is now best know for keeping track of your credit card bills. They still have a good lab in Capistrano; do lotsa laser rocket, energy stuff there. Thomas was an auto parts maker;  my dad used to buy piston casings, pistons, bearings, etc. from him. Ramo and Wooleridge were perhaps the first of the techno-entrepreneurs. They built a company like WJSA that specialized in brains for the services.) 

So this promo guy gave us all these straight lines, like, "It must be tough down here making weapons of destruction (Navaho and Atlas), but I suppose you dream of the day when they can be turned into plowshares and be made to explore the unknown?" Burge and I essentially said "Huh?" Like Tom Lehrer's Wernher von Braun, we didn't really care where things came down (or what they did with the stuff) as long as we had lots of fun, did novel things, and got paid well. But we soon caught on and played along with the guy. Never did see any results of it. I guess we took too long to take the bait. It was a bunch of great shots, though. An Atlas booster booming up on the hill, maybe 200 yards away, and then a tiny plasma jet in a shipping container sputtering along. I sure would like to see that film. 

But then Kennedy got it rolling and the E-1 that R'dyne had been playing with on their own (?) dime was suddenly funded as a model for the F-1. The E-1 was something like half a million pounds thrust, (Atlas, per engine, was 250,000) but the F-1 would be 2.5 million. The E-1 was a wonderful thing. It always worked. The F-1 was so large that no test stand at Susy (Santa Susanna Field Lab) could handle it, and they had to build stands at Edwards. 

(Susy now includes Atomics Internationals lab, which was found to have rats swimming in pools of radioactive waste! Really was dangerous, wasn't it?) 

In one of the first few tests at Edwards at 1.5, the chamber melted in about 45 milliseconds. Combustion instability had reared its ugly head. Burgeons, Combs, Levine, and the rest of Levine's bunch was still puttering along on basic research—some space power plant stuff, funny little electric rockets, and miscellaneous. (I was made "supervisor of fluid mechanics." We didn't do any fluid mechanics, but as Levine said, "we couldn't call it Odds and Ends!") 

But with a real problem (it would have been downright disturbing if one of these F-1s melted while some folks were on top of it) there was real money. Burge went to Thompson-Ramo-Wooleridge (TRW). I took over Combs' people, became model rocket tsar, hired some more people, and away we went with Project First's research. Immense amount of fun, some wasted money, intense "pressure" to do "something" and, so far as I know, nobody ever thought of the ultimate goal of mooning. We were, however, very dedicated to (a) science, (b) the F-1, and (c) Rocketdyne—in that order. I guess we would nowadays be considered (idiot, workaholic) egotists. We were competing not only among ourselves, but with the rest of Rocketdyne, all of NASA, and—perhaps especially—all the string of PhD consultants they paraded through Canoga Park. I think Richard Priem is the only one who ever ventured to Susy or Edwards.

Research had no direct effect on the solution to the F-1 problem because the engine was so large that even decent models utterly failed to reproduce some aspects of the engine. The fundamental combustion part was perfectly replicated (I think), and agreement between our 2-D models and the F-1 were excellent. But I doubt that many people, even Priem, recognized that. 

In the process of diddling with all that money on the F-1, we did a lot of acoustic modeling stuff using a microphone and speaker. In the process, somebody (Evers, Huebner or me) found an anomaly. If the parts didn't fit well, it was very difficult to get amplitudes high enough to really measure. About that time, Bob Levine went to Purdue to recruit. There was some poor guy there trying to get a PhD on combustion instability under John Osborne (a real good ol' boy), and he too couldn't get his lousy experiment to go unstable. It was "just like" the ones that students had been using for years, but it was also new. Bob looked and looked and finally found that some of the fits between parts were on the loose side of the tolerances. When he brought that back home, we went to modeling with a vengeance. By introducing a tiny cavity into the acoustic space, it really damped the oscillation. It was really impressive when the length of the crack was equal to a quarter-wavelength of the sound. Tried it on F-1, 2-D, no effect. Ah, well, so it goes. 

About this time, Rocketdyne was making a pulsing engine for JPL's planetary missions. (I guess they are still working?) This RS-14, as it was called, might start 1 to 5,000 times a second. Turned out that about 20 or more percent of the starts, the combustion would be "unstable" and that would really louse up the very close tolerances desired on total thrust (integrated over time). Rocketdyne tried all kinds of F-1 fixes; although the instability might be reduced to 10% of the time or so, it still persisted. JPL was on the verge of canceling the contract and going to Marquart. Jack Han was the  boss on this project, and at this very critical time he went to Hawaii. He had planned it for couple of years, it was his 25th wedding anniversary, and he went. But before he left, he instructed one of his henchman to let me try a "Coultas Cavity" and the designers and the machinists would make whatever I wanted and test it. We did. Over 2 million times the RS-14 has started, and no instability. Wow! 

So our peddler in Houston suggested we try the cavities on an unstable engine, like Bell was making fo the Lunar Escape Module. Without the cavity, the engine was unstable every time it was "pulsed"; with the cavity, never. NASA was so impressed they took the injector part of the LEM from Bell and let Rocketdyne do it. Needless to say, that was quite an ego trip, having the president Sam Hoffman say that "Coultas Cavities" had saved the RS-14 and won the LEM.  To exaggerate a bit, Armstrong et al. would still be on the moon if it weren't for Coultas Cavities. Nowadays, no rocket engine is even designed without cavities. Oberg, subsequently, got several contracts from Houston NASA to try to figure out how they worked. Apparently it is totally viscous dissipation. 

And that, little children, is how the west side of the Moon was won. In reading about the trails, (Oregon, Santa Fe, etc.) I find a lot in common with us Rocketdyners. The trekkers did not care about making Oregon a yuppie state, California a home for hippies or New Mexico a Mecca for artsy-fartsy folks. They wanted to do something for their families and even if they died, it appeared they worked like heck, and if successful, it really helped their ego. Of course, things were very different in the 1860s from the 1960s, but the adventure, possibility for success, adulation, and especially self-satisfaction were similar. And neither time was all "me-ism." Sure, we liked to be singled out as individuals, but generally among the research folks they truly liked, respected, and worked for and with one another. Paul Combs hd a team of old-line Rocketdyne mechanics who assembled and plumbed the 2-D engine years before Project First. Generally, it was two months between firings. If really pressed, we could do three or four a week. I remember one we started to design on Friday night at 4, and had to have results in and reported by midnight Sunday. Made it at 2 a.m.  Humphries, Hoehn, Hines, Safechuck, Juleff, Wallace and I all got in over 50 of those 60 hours. Some clock punchers even punched out and came back because they couldn't work over 60 hours in a week. None of the rest of us got extra dollars. Dedication like that is pretty well gone—at least from industry. Maybe brokers, bankers or lawyers do it, but craftsman? Nah. Too bad. 

August, 1994: 

You asked me to explain instability, and I'm not sure you realize how complicated a question this is. Rocket engines that burn liquid fuel get very hot inside, like 7,000 degrees F. Further, the gases are going very fast, like Mach 3 or 4, and velocities over 10,000 ft/sec. This make the heat transfer to the container of these gases very good, and it must be vigorously cooled, usually with the fuel that is burned, leading to the term "regeneratively cooled." The can that holds those gases during the combustion is called the chamber. When it necks down to speed the gases to Mach 1, it is called the throat, as they expand on to higher Mach numbers, the can is called the nozzle. Normally these cans are sufficiently well cooled that they don't get over about 1,000 F., where steel or whatever has good strength. 

But when the combustion starts to oscillate—i.e., increase/decrease in rate—the heat transfer is increased by orders of magnitude because the oscillation causes waves, alternately stopping and starting (in opposite directions) in the gas flow. This erases the protective boundary layer and exposes the base metal to the very high core gas temperatures. Because steel and other metals melt at about 2400 degrees F, the 7,000-degree stuff is deleterious to their strength and continuity. Always, these waves become of an acoustic nature. That is, to satisfy the boundary conditions, both real and mathematical, the only way the wave can exist is to oscillate at an acoustic frequency of the chamber. Rooms have acoustic frequencies. For instance, a 10-foot dimension in a room would promote about a 50-cycle oscillation. (The formula is F = a/2/l; "F" is the frequency, "a" is the speed of sound (about 1000 fps at room temp), and  "l" is the length of the room. This math is more complex for cylinders. 

So, this oscillatory flow heats the bejabbers out of the can, and the thing melts. That is why one does not want instability. The F-1 was nasty in its instability because it was, at the time, the biggest and highest-pressure ever done. Both of these made the oscillations larger (higher amplitudes)—sometimes, instead of being 1100-psi constant, the pressure would vary from 0 to 6000 psi -- nasty. No matter how well-cooled the can (chamber/throat/nozzle) was, the thing would melt very quickly, in milliseconds. 

Nobody, even today, has a clue as to why combustion "goes unstable." I did some work for WJSA a few months ago, and I needed to see what was done on that score years ago. I looked it up and there were only a few pages in the reference book. After reading them, I thought, "well, that's about what I remember," and then discovered the author of the piece was T.A. Coultas. Many theories of causes have been projected, and all proved to be drivel. So we thought in the 60s that since we didn't know what to do to prevent it, we would cure it instead. To assure it was cured, we artificially started the instability with a bomb in the chamber. It work wonderfully-- too well. 

The Saturn moon rocket stack had 5 R'dyne F-1s, then four (I think) Rdyne J-2s, then another J-2. This put it in orbit around the moon. Then there was an Aero Jet "service module" that stayed in orbit. The descent engine (TRW) landed on the moon, and the Ascent (Bell) took off from the moon. In the beginning, R'dyne competed for all of these except the service module.  We lost the Descent engine (to Burge), and Bell was starving, so they got a crumb. Burge almost lost the Descent because it was so heavy and inefficient, but R'dyne saved it by making the J-2 and F-1 better, bigger, and more efficient. Bell had another problem. Their ascent engine was efficient and light enough but didn't work reliably.  Because R'dyne had shown how damn smart Tom Coultas was with the RS-14, we got a shot at the Ascent too. Bell retained all the stage, but R'dyne provided the injector, including the baffles and the Coultas Cavities. This minor triumph still chills me—when I waltzed my EPA guy (Pershing) through the Combustion Symposium halls and had all the combustion guys running out to shake my hand for not only proving the cavities in the LEM but beaten Pratt and Whitney on a turbo-jet contract. (That was also the day your uncle  decided  to go to Utah.) 

In 2002, my grandfather sent me an email after a visit with some former R'dyne colleagues: 

I had an ego boost in Utah. Seader was going on and on about how great it was to work for me at R'dyne from 60-65. I said we were lucky have Lawhead and Levine who gave us (me) so much freedom to do as we pleased, and that we had all those facilities, great hands, smart guys .. and then I slipped and said "and I was the brains." I didn't really mean exactly that, but before I could back things up, Seader jumped in with "yes, you were!" Over my shoulder, Joyce [my grandmother] said, "Brains?! Hammer!" Now that is really something, for I had never heard Joyce use that word in that way—I guess I intimidated her, huh? But upon reflection, our old friend Larry Carlson has often said "you were an old curmudgeon, everyone was afraid of you!" So I guess I was the hammer, though I prefer to think of it in a different context -- as in the way that Chick Webb, Gene Krupa "hammer" the drums and set the tempo. That I would agree with. Damn, ain't I a wonderful grandpa to have around to tell you how it was? 

He really was. I miss him. Shortly after he died, I got in touch with Harley Burge. He sent me a longer reminiscence, some very kind words: 

First of all, you are the granddaughter of a man who poured his heart and soul into research and development of propulsion for this great country. His guided research in combustion and heat transfer was highly instrumental in the later success of the rocket engines being developed at Rocketdyne, including Atlas, the Saturn booster F-1 engines (burning liquid oxygen and JP fuel and the largest propulsion engines in the world), the second stage J-2 engine (burning liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen), the lunar ascent engine (burning N204 and UDMH). When combustion  instability problems arose with the F-1 and the lunar ascent engine, he supervised Paul Combs in very sophisticated research to understand the instabilities and how to control the instabilities. The combustion and heat transfer research under his supervision was first rate and provided the basis for the thermal protection of these engines.

 

And Another Six Months....

I have deep respect for those writers who can work all day, write all night, raise a family, AND blog on a regular basis.  I have two blogs, and while I'm better at the other one than this one, both took a serious hit this year. This may be a sign I should shut this one down, but I just ... can't seem to bring myself to do it. Every few months I get the urge to assess and check in, and because the laptop is more of a habit than a journal at this point (and because blogging software is so much nicer about organizing and keeping things chronological and legible) I just do it here. 

So, OK. Checking in. 

Getting the book published was a struggle, but did finally happen. I think I am a bad client because I am in publishing myself and know how to do this stuff and really would have been quite happy to format everything and do it all myself. The things I wanted help on -- editing and citations -- I was told were fine. I don't think they are. The book has been out three months and I can't bring myself to look. I will probably never look.

Once the book came out, it was off to the races. I did two festival events, one bookstore event, and shopped the thing around a bunch of places that were low-hanging fruit. I went to a really cool Living History event in St. Louis centered around the 1872 election. This weekend I'm going to spend the night in the jail where the events of the book took place, and people are going to listen to me talk about it. (Which makes me equal parts queasy and excited. The talking part, not the sleeping in jail part. Not that I am accustomed to sleeping in jails.) 

Meanwhile, the kid flew through the second half of school, got some new meds and a counselor, had a reasonably OK summer with two great weeks of camp, one good week with my parents (as far as anyone would tell me), and a few weeks of slave labor at home that he took with varying degrees of acceptance. He's now back in school and seems to be doing fine, although his even keel of mood seems to come at a cost of losing the straight academic As (though nothing lower than a B, so that's not horribly horrible). I'm not sure why this is, and while I'm OK with the trade-off for now, I want a better understanding of why. The current plan, as far as I know, is to get him back into 'regular' school for high school, so he can sort of shuffle into the mainstream at the same time everyone else is trying to figure out the whole new weird thing and he won't stand out too much. I guess we'll see how that shakes out. 

Work continues to be work for Not Your Average Blogger and myself.  The work retreat was fun, I got to visit with friends and hang out with colleagues and generally not do as much work as I usually do, so that was good. 

In June, we took a whirlwind family trip to Austin when NYAB decided to drive there on business. We had some horrible spats on the way there which I think happened mostly because NYAB knew he was saddled with his family because his wife was spitefully annoyed that he took two extra days to drive when he could have flown there in four hours and not left her home alone with the kid for the extra time. The joke's on him, though: While we were there, one of my dearest and oldest friends took us around the UT film school, and I'm pretty sure the kid was so blown away by it that he may end up there. Which means his politics will skew wildly from ours, we will have horrible fights, the kid will decide we are stupid and choose to spend time with his in-laws instead of us, and it will all be because NYAB just HAD to drive to Texas that one time. Or perhaps I am just wildly speculating to the most absurd outcome possible. 

Fourth of July, we took a boat tour around the Inner Harbor and watched fireworks. It was fun, but I'm not sure I'd go again. 

 In August, we went to my cousin's wedding in Massachusetts. It was a lot of fun and great to see family that I don't see very often. I speculated that the next time I'd see them all again would be a funeral.  As it turned out, I was right, though it was sooner than I'd anticipated.  My grandfather died in October, and there most of us were, together again, but in Illinois. 

In between, I won four blue ribbons for jelly at the county fair, saw Lyle Lovett in concert (again), went to the timeshare and read books almost the entire time, went to what I think will be the last DragonCon for us, maybe, and Thomas got to meet some Stargate heroes and bond with other nerds, and school started again. 

And now the Cubs are in the World Series, which is nice for a lot of my friends and not-so-nice for assorted other friends who are Dodger fans.  So that catches us up, for now. We'll meet again, as Vera Lynn sang... 

 

Oh Daddy, You Could Hit the Jackpot Yet

(I always liked Adrian Belew's Oh Daddy far more than Fleetwood Mac's, not least of all because it's actually about a father...)

Yesterday was the final field trip of the school year, and the entire sixth grade of the Young Prince's middle school went to Gettysburg. It was a nice trip, and the kids seemed to enjoy it. I think my group learned at least one bit of history that they won't forget, and (most notable for me,) I think the YP was not terribly embarrassed at having his mom as chaperone. All in all, it was a very good day.

One of the nicest things I observed was the significant number of dads who were also chaperoning. You hear so much about the uneven distribution of labor in child-rearing, and I suppose there must be some truth to it (though in our household, that uneven distribution is probably skewed to Not Your Average Blogger carrying more of the load), but from what I saw yesterday, fatherhood is alive and well, at least within one suburban Virginia middle school population.   

When I was a kid, the first couple of weeks in June always brought a crisis of creativity. Being a child of few earning opportunities (and little restraint with what funds I did get), I generally had to figure out some handmade homespun effort when it came to gifts, and June meant my father's birthday, my parents' anniversary, and Father's Day in rapid succession. That meant a lot of writing/drawing/sewing/whatevering, especially for someone who was not particularly artsy (or crafty! ha!) by any stretch of the imagination, with the stress exacerbated by the fact that I knew my dad didn't REALLY need another ash tray or pencil holder or incomprehensible drawing, no matter how much praise he heaped on me upon receipt. 

I confess, I am not much help as an old person when it comes to helping the YP in such matters. On the other hand, he is better compensated for his help around the house and in a much better position to buy gifts, such as movies he likes thinks we will like. 

 Being older and and somewhat better funded myself, I can say definitively that it is much easier to throw food and drink and confetti and be on my merry way.  We are 2/3 of the way through those milestones this year (happy birthday, dad! happy anniversary, you two!), and I am Well On Top of Things. It's a nice feeling to be able to come through with gifts and sentiments that I know my parents will like and use—not just monetarily, but mentally, knowing their likes and dislikes and acting on that information—especially considering that Looming Mortality gave us all a rather nasty reminder earlier this year. 

I have so many friends and acquaintances who have parental issues, and these songs of how Daddy Was Never Home, Mama Showed Her Love With a Wooden Spoon make me so sad and angry and exasperated.  I wasn't there, maybe they were neglected and abused. Or maybe they expected more than their parents were capable of providing. Or maybe they were spoiled and wanted to live in a sitcom. I don't know. Having been on both sides of it, I will be very curious to see how the YP grows up to view NYAB and myself. (I'm reasonably certain NYAB will come out looking better than I do, not without reason.) Having been on both sides of it, I wish more people would give their parents the benefit of the doubt and try to get to know them as adults on more equal footing. 

I suppose my more liberal friends would tell me I should Check My Privilege in this regard. Frankly, I don't need to check it. And what good does that do, anyway? I know I've had massive advantages. I'm not going to intentionally restrict my resulting opportunities—that would be a disservice to said Privilege. And I'm not going to stop calling a spade a bloody spade when I happen to step on one and the handle pops up and smashes me in the sternum. 

I know I won the birth lottery in a lot of ways, my parents not the least of them. I'm proud of them, of me, of us as a unit, and of what I hope will come in future generations. I am blessed that they made family a priority, that they read to me, that they encouraged me, that they stayed married, that my dad was engaged in my upbringing and that my mom didn't let me get away with phoning it in. I hope that NYAB and I are doing the same for the YP.  I think we are, and I am hopeful that he will see us for what we are (and aren't,) and in time will appreciate (and forgive) all the same things that most healthy families have in common. 

So this Sunday, when Facebook and Twitter are swamped with expressions of paternal affection and appreciation, maybe we try a little harder to actually mean it than to just put on the Social Media Show. 

But what do I know? Our day will be spent in Fredericksburg on a Steak-and-Shake–fueled hike, followed up by a nice drive home and a nap, then a phone call to my parents.  Just don't ask me what sort of gift NYAB will be getting; that's between the YP and his glue stick and markers. 

Happy Father's Day, everyone.

Well, I Was Half-Right

I am, at least, back to blogging on Saturdays. 

So, since I last wrote, I have been to work, driven to Illinois and back, and returned to work. I love driving long distances.  I don't get to do it very often; usually Not Your Average Blogger drives and I am a passenger. I like that too, but I really do enjoy driving; it feels like an accomplishment and I generally see some weird sight to add to my list -- this time it was a water tower painted to look like a giant cat's head. I also like living in the modern era, where there are hotels every 30 feet and I can drive until I'm well and tired and then just fall into one without a reservation. (NYAB hates this. He loves the truly modern era, where you can decide six hours ahead of time where you want to drop and make an online reservation from your phone.) 

I always forget how bad the Internet is at my parents' house, and how busy I am talking instead of writing. No blogging is likely under those conditions, and obviously none happened this time.  My window for using the Internet is before I've left our guest room in the barn (nicer than it sounds! Really! It's got a bathroom and everything!) and that window is generally reserved for sleeping or picking on the Young Prince. On the days I was online, I was checking email or working on my book. (Nope. Not done yet. I did hand around copies of the manuscript; the reactions ranged from surprisingly positive to predictably cranky, so I was pleased and not surprised, respectively.) 

The visit was nice. We celebrated my grandfather's 90th birthday with a family dinner in town that one of my mom's cousins drove in for, and the next day, my parents and the kid and I celebrated my birthday with Steak and Shake and leftover cake at the farm. 

It was pretty restful. Mostly I sat, gabbed, and washed dishes, with the occasional errand thrown in. A lot of good talking, at least one family revelation on my part, and the kid was pretty good after one bad day and one firm, finger-shaking lecture. 

He's doing all right, I think. There was an altercation at school before we left that's having some lasting repercussions, but the ripples are getting smaller and we are in the home stretch before summer break, so I think we might make it through a school year with no major trouble. That would make it the first time in three years, so I'm focusing on keeping my fingers crossed and being happy for that. 

Not Your Average Blogger stayed home for this trip, and I think he rather enjoyed his week of bachelorhood, though he was also pretty happy to see us when we got back.

So, this weekend is catching up on ironing and cleaning and yard work and bleeblah. Next weekend is another book event for NYAB in Bowling Green, where we are also going to connect with a childhood friend of his.  Which, of course, means I probably won't be blogging on Saturday. Again. But I'll have good stories when I do get back to it! 

Did You Miss Me?

Well, that "post every Saturday" plan clearly didn't work out very well once things started happening on Saturdays, now did it? 

So what do I need to recap?  

Not Your Average Blogger's book is off to the publisher. My effort is motoring along. The Young Prince has embarked on a sequel to his James Bond effort of last year.

Everyone likes their job. Even the YP appears to be doing very well in school.  His interim report card was all A's, including conduct. I can't tell you how much this thrills me.

We went through a government shutdown; a few people I know were personally affected but mostly it was a lot of sound and fury. 

My dad came to visit as part of his East Coast lecture tour; we saw him give his spiel in DC and he was quite good. Much livelier and more interesting than a lot of the presentations I sit through for my job, I'll tell you that.  And of course it was nice to see him in a non-professional capacity as well. I had lucked into some comp time and let the kid take off school, so we all had a nice Friday together.  

The Red Sox beat the Cardinals in the World Series.  As I told NYAB, maybe this means my Illini-Cards fan dad can throw some hate his way and lay off me and USC for a bit.   

We threw a Halloween party and for reasons I'm unclear on, only one kid came. I think evite is not good when you use it based off a classroom list of email addresses, compounded by the fact that it was a rather late decision to hae a party. Overall, I think we need to stop having Halloween parties until the kid is old enough to reliably invite his friends and they are old enough to reliably show up.

 In other Halloween news, the YP has discovered he like horror movies.  We have run through Poltergeist, The Shining, The Exorcist, Halloween II (because Halloween has People Doing It) and Night of the Living Dead.  He informed me this afternoon that tonight he wants to watch Nightmare on Elm Street. Alrighty then. The good news is he has Monday and Tuesday off school, so any nightmare-related insomnia will be mitigated by then, I hope.

The other gory news I have to share is I had a wisdom tooth removed.  It was an interesting experience; last month I went to this oral surgeon who kept me waiting for 45 minutes in his front area, then another 30 minutes in the chair, then came in and talked about my tooth for five minutes before trying to sell me a "cancer preventative" chemical peel for another ten. At that point I was horribly late for my next appointment and shut him down with a plea for one ordeal at a time.  Then I spent a week dithering about whether to be knocked out or just get novocaine.  NYAB shared countless stories from the Crimean War book he was reading about people getting shot in the face until he shamed me into staying awake and saving the money. 

And as it turned out, it was no big deal.  The guy shot me up, ripped it out, and I was done in 15 minutes. 24 hours of vicodin later, I'm feeling fine, although I figure on keeping to the mashed potato and ice cream diet for a while yet. And the jury's still out on the chemical peel. 

In closing, two photos. The first is the record of this year's Halloween costume: 

And the second just because it cracked me up:

I don't know if they planned to drink it all or had to import doughnuts, but it amused me. 

 

So here's hoping November brings lots of entertaining events and empty Saturday mornings for me to share them with you! 

I'm Getting Too Old for This Nonsense

Last week marked my second-ever business trip. It was to the same place as my first business trip, for largely the same reason, but it played out rather differently. 

For the second September in a row, my boss sent me to Santa Monica to learn how to create more effective presentations.  I was excited about this, because I'm actually helping to build presentations, and I don't feel I'm particularly good at them. So every little tutorial helps. 

Last year, I arrived on the weekend, rented a car and stayed with family. I spent my days in the office and my evenings with a motley assortment of friends and relatives from various past lives. It was fun, but I felt rather as if I were shortchanging the office because I was off doing my own thing pretty much every day as soon as my 8 hours were clocked. 

So this year, I arrived on a Tuesday and took a cab from the airport to my hotel, which was three blocks from the office. I washed my face and hied myself to the office, where I made a colossal effort to wander around saying hello to people I ordinarily only commune with via email, and then I settled in to get some work done. 

I was pretty wiped out that night, so I wandered up to Pico and Main and opted for a gourmet meal from Jack in the Box wherein I sampled all my favorites and after which I was unhappily full. I miss Jack in the Box, y'all.

Next morning, I woke up at 5:30 and wished I could fall back asleep, but then the Young Prince's doctor called my cellphone to tell me his appointment was canceled.  Unfortunately, Not Your Average Blogger was already halfway to their office and I think he was probably 3/4 of the way there before he noticed my text. So at that point I gave up, got up, and went into work, where I breakfasted in the office cafeteria and did a little bit of "real work" before going to my training seminar. 

The seminar was interesting. It was half new material and half retread. It also netted me another copy of a book I already had. If anyone wants a copy of Slide:ology, I know a guy who knows a guy... 

After that, I went out with some colleagues and discovered the following: 

• Bar Pintxo in Santa Monica has excellent sangria. 
• I do not like tapas. 
• I especially do not like tapas involving mussels. 
• I do like beer. 

We wound up across the street at Kings Head pub, where we met up with my college friend Cynthia. We had a great time catching up, she got on great with my co-workers, and I learned the following: 

• The more Boddingtons you drink, the better it tastes.
• Trivia nights are fun.
• I suck at trivia nights and spend half the time going, "Frack! NYAB would know that!"
• I have not entirely forgotten the lesson that when "one more drink" sounds like a good idea, it's probably not.

After coming in second and getting a gift certificate we couldn't use that night, my compatriots decided it would be a good idea to traipse down to the beach. I was not enthused as I had my laptop and 500 lbs of work papers with me, but I went along anyway because I figured the walk would do me good. It certainly didn't hurt me any, although I maintain that the Pacific is too damn cold to go jumping around in, particularly in my work clothes. Eventually we all meandered back up the hill and parted ways for the night. 

After about five hours of sleep, I woke up next morning feeling strange — not sick, no headache, just sort of spaced out and slow. I spent a half-hour wondering if this is what hangovers feel like as an old person, and was halfway to the office before I realized that no, I was just really, really tired. I loaded up on caffeine and plowed through the day, going back to my room a wee bit early in hopes of a nap, but instead talking to NYAB and the YP before going out for the night with another college friend, Sharidan, who works in The Industry.  She regaled me with awesome swag and tales of drama from the editing rooms of Breaking Bad and Witches of East End, and after an hour and a half in the car, we had made it the 18 miles to Los Feliz, where we went to The Rockwell Theater and saw the Baz Luhrman show, which was very impressive, as was the food.

After another six hours of sleep, it was Friday and my last day on the Left Coast. I made another round of face-to-face meetings with people, including lunch with a project editor I work with on a fairly regular basis, and then I made my way to the airport with 15 minutes before my plane boarded — only to learn my flight was delayed an hour. This put me into Dulles at 1:40 a.m., at which time there were no cabs and 30 people looking for one, with one poor cab-stand guy shrieking into a walkie talkie that HE NEEDED RIDES NOW, and the dispatcher snotting at him that they'd be there when they got there.  All in all, this put me home at 3, where for some dumb reason all the menfolk were still awake. I think we all finally crashed around 4, and slept until noon, glorious noon. 

To wrap up this week of excitement, we had tickets to Saturday night's Nats game. As it turned out, the kid got sick, so we left him with NeighborGirl (who isn't really our neighbor anymore, but that's OK), and then the game was rained out anyway, so we came home and watched Almost Famous. 

It is now almost Tuesday and I feel mostly recovered, although I now need a week to catch up on all the things I skipped doing over the weekend in favor of sleep. Here's hoping for a week of humdrum. 

Backtracking, Part 1

So, a little while back, I went on vacation.  Two glorious weeks away from work that were packed with other events—so much so that I'm going to bust them up into two posts, and you'll hear about the Young Prince's 15 minutes of geek fame next week. 

The first week of vacation was great. It started leisurely, with me picking up my ribbons from the fair and being surprised to learn there were cash prizes attached! (I won a whopping $5 -- $3 for the jelly and $2 for the lemon bars.) I did laundry. I did yard work. The YP and I watched some movies.  On Wednesday, I got up sort of early to get the car serviced and was treated to the waiting room vision of a woman across from me kicking off her shoes and propping her bare feet up on the seat next to her, about 2 feet from another woman, who gave one sort of WTF? look and then ignored her.  I think I would have moved.  

Around 6 that night we headed out for Illinois, and drove all night. Somewhere around West Virginia we realized we'd forgotten our tickets. It didn't end up mattering; we were able to print them out again, but the OMIGOD moment was equal parts funny and irritating. We arrived about 7 a.m., and Not Your Average Blogger went to bed in our usual barn office digs while the YP and I futzed around until it was apparent my mom was up in the main house and then we went and visited with my parents.  

Around lunchtime, NYAB and I ran an errand to WalMart and while we were there, he got an email from his agent that she had a buyer for his book -- so he sold his book at WalMart.  (Well, I thought it was funny. It didn't turn out to be true -- another publisher offered a better deal.) And there was much rejoicing. It'll be out next fall and you'll hear more about it when it's closer to being relevant to people besides us.  

We had dinner with my parents and grandparents that night, and had many long and enjoyable chats with the old folks while the kid monopolized my dad's time. 

That Friday, NYAB and I took off for Kansas City. We had a lovely evening, although I wouldn't recommend Hereford House to people looking for a big fancy night out. On Saturday, we took a tour of Independence, Mo., and saw Truman's house, the Trails museum and the train depot museum.  We also popped in to the Mormon Visitor Center, where we were assiduously courted by two earnest young women. NYAB did a good job of ignoring, deflecting, and keeping on the history track, but the woman who attached herself to me was not so easily deterred. She asked about my relationship with God ("Well, I wouldn't call it a first-name basis thing. I figure I'm the cockroach to his human,") and telling me all about Joseph Smith and his pillars of light ("Like Albert Speer?!" -- I didn't give voice to that thought,) and living a good life (Well, that's hard to argue with.)  When we were walking back out to the car, NYAB had the good sense to look sheepish and agree that he owed me. I settled for a milkshake at the soda shoppe where Truman had his first job.

When we'd exhausted all that Independence had to offer, we went back to the hotel, where I was surprised with anniversary roses that were apparently supposed to have shown up at dinner the night before. They were lovely. Then we changed into Nats gear and sauntered across the overpass to the ballpark, where we had a great night in our front-row seats and the Nats won.  (And apparently we got on TV -- a friend said so on Facebook and added, "You looked great, but I certainly was surprised to see you there!")

Next day we drove back to Illinois, had another visit with my grandparents, then dinner with my parents, and then we hied our way to Indianapolis, where we stopped for the night, and drove the rest of the way home Monday. It was probably one of the more whirlwhind trips we've made to the Midwest, and it didn't feel long enough, but I reckon they'd had enough of us, so it was all for the best. 

The kid and I were home Tuesday and Wednesday -- just long enough to do laundry, mow the yard, go to the doctor, and buy a low-maintenance costume for him -- and then the two of us set out for Atlanta and DragonCon.  Look for details of horrific traffic and hilarious encounters in next week's post. 

So Long, 2012.

I'm wondering if this blog has jumped the shark. I apparently lack the time and inclination to post regularly, and Facebook is so much easier, with the photos and the feedback and the stuff.  Then again, I'm a little appalled at how easy and lazy things are on the Internets and was telling a friend the other day that I probably ought to spend more time looking into anti-social media.  Jury is still out on all that.

The past month was pretty good, though.  The cookie party was a success-- had about 30 people show up.  We changed things around and invited everyone we know for one time, instead of splitting it up into work people in the afternoon and neighbors at night.  Only one neighbor came, but it was the neighbor I like best, so that worked out well.

We spent the past week doing the family visit thing, and that was nice.  It felt a bit short and rushed, as usual, but maybe that's what makes for a good visit -- to leave wanting more.

The Young Prince was very happy with his holidays and the trip. He was also so happy to get home he spent a good ten minutes hugging the dog, which is something I never thought I'd live to see.

And now, because I do this every year, to read in my dotage:

1. What did you do in 2012 that you'd never done before?
I went to work for a think tank, where I feel very inexperienced and ignorant. I view this as a good thing, however, because it means I'm learning more.  We went 15 rounds with the public education system, and while I don't think we won, we weren't totally defeated, either. I do hate that it felt like a 2-month fight, however. We also took the plunge and medicated the kid, and it's turned out to be a hugely good idea. Even my mom seemed to think so.

2. Did you keep your New Year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I did not gain 40 lbs. This year I resolve to watch TV 25 hours a day.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Yes, although we didn't get to see the sprite for nine months or so. 

4. Did anyone close to you die?
No, huzzah. Made it through another one.

5. What countries did you visit?
Does Harry Potter Land count? Our one big trip was to Universal in Orlando.

6. What would you like to have in 2012 that you lacked in 2011?
Same as last year: more free time.  For everything.

7. What date from 2012 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
Nov. 1; the first day of the New YP.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Not killing bitchy public bureaucrats and fast food cashiers.

9. What was your biggest failure?
Time management. See No. 6.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
We had a shitload of doctor bills, but they weren't for anything horrific or worth mentioning.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
Uh. Well, I'm pretty fond of the iPhones.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
The Young Prince's, far and away. It was a rough first 9 months, but I truly believe he came out the better for all of it.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
It was an election year. 'Nuff said.

14. Where did most of your money go?
Bills.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Time off. Time with NYAB.

16. What song will always remind you of 2012?
I'm sorry to say it is Call Me Maybe.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
    i. happier or sadder? Much, much happier.
    ii. thinner or fatter? About the same.
    iii. richer or poorer? About the same.

18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Writing. Reading.

19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Working. Facebook.

20. How (did) you spend Christmas?
We had two! One for us, and one with family.

21. Did you fall in love in 2012?
I fell in love with Concerta, for sure.

22. What was your favorite TV program?
Walking Dead? Downton Abbey?

23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
Yes, a certain Threat Assessment Coordinator for Prince William County. I wouldn't mind her head on a pike.

24. What was the best book you read?
I read a lot of brain candy last year. I'm not sure I'd call any of it Best.  

25. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Well, I like Hugo quite a bit.

26. What did you want and get?
The way the YP has been for the past two months.

27. What was your favorite film of this year?
The Avengers. Yeah, yeah, shallow violent whatever-ness. It was awesome.

28. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I turned 41. I ate myself sick on ice cream cake with Miss Angela, and Not Your Average Blogger was most solicitous and lovely.

29. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
More money.

30. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2012?
Lazy, same-old same-old.

31. What kept you sane?
Hope. Faith. Not so much charity.

32. What political issue stirred you the most?
Watching the YP get all fired up about the presidential election.

33. Who did you miss?
I spent a short while missing my old job when I got the new one.

34. Who was the best new person you met?
Erin, who is smart and sharp and nice and like-minded.

35. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2011:
Don't give up. I already knew this, but it was driven home in all manner of ways. 

36. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:
It's getting better all the time.

Peaks and Troughs

Well, the last couple weeks have brought a bit of sturm und drang to ye olde Blogger household.  JB was felled by an affliction that required an ER visit and lots of drugs, but he's on the mend.  The boy has had some issues with school that required after-hours attention and bureaucratic paperwork nonsense, but we keep muddling on as best we can with all that. On Wednesday we have Part Two of the three-part ADHD-Or-What doctor assessment thang, so we'll see where that lands.

All that aside, we're all doing pretty well.  I'm still healthy and sane -- at least by comparison, so I guess that means I win.  None of us have been booted from our respective Daily Grind establishments, which is also good. The weather is lovely.  My yard is lovely. My house -- well, it is untidy, but that's what next weekend is for.

The big news since my last post is that my parents came to visit. And as far as I know, we all had a good time, which is nice.  Mom and I spent hours wandering around on various shopping expeditions, Mom and Dad went to a party on Saturday, I worked, JB worked, Thomas did all his homework, and he also took his first stab at mowing the lawn.  Admittedly, he's a tad unclear on the concept of mowing in nice, even rows and circles, so the result looked a bit like the work of a drunken midget, but when he hopped down and I explained it to him, he understood immediately.  Something to shoot for next time -- although I'm sort of fruitlessly hoping that "next time" will be next spring, not next weekend.  It's October, for pete's sake.

I'm also still debating whether to have a Halloween party.  We've done this every year since Thomas was in kindergarten, but I'm not sure why -- attendance has dwindled each year, and last year it snowed on the big day, which was a nasty deterrent. I'm just not sure it's worth it.  And unfortunately, I have to hurry up and decide -- it's October, for pete's sake!

Still, the only thing I feel like I am consistently falling down on is blogging.  Well, and writing.  Last week I was so unmotivated to sit down and tap out a diary entry or a new chapter that I persuaded myself it would be a good idea to start exercising instead, and I began a couch-to-5K program.  The dog is happy, as she loves the exercise. The kid is less thrilled, as he is about as big a fan of sweating and panting as I am. And I'm not sure I have much interest in actually running a 5K, which sort of diminishes my motivation.  Which do I hate more: running or writing? I guess it'll depend on the day.  Besides, the Nats are looking good for the postseason, plus there are lots of movies in my Netflix.  Perhaps TV will win again. Because, yeah, that would be a shock....

 

 

News From Home and Abroad

Oh, I have so much to report, and so little energy.  This new job is really doing a number on my free time. After decades of hurry-up-and-wait jobs, it's kind of nice to spend 8 hours a day Just Hurrying, but it does cut down on the freestyle writing exercises.

So, I went to California, and it was great.  The office out there is gorgeous, the people are all super nice, the training session I was sent there to attend was actually educational and interesting and I can see all sorts of ways to apply it both to what I do now and to what I assume they'll expect me to do at some point down the road.  Awesome.

The free time part of it was every bit as great.  I got there on Monday and spent the day gabbing with my aunt and uncle, which was really nice because usually I'm with them in a huge family setting and someone's always interrupting or picking a fight or a dog is escaping under the fence or some damn thing. So it was a fairly rare treat to focus on them exclusively.

Tuesday after work I had plans to be in Pasadena at 8, but I got out early and traffic was light so I made a surprise stop at USC to buy swag.Of course I wore my work shoes and blistered the bejeezus out of my feet stomping around campus, but it was worth it.  The best part was visiting my friend in the band office -- it was just after a practice, so all these kids were milling around, and there I was all decked out like a Real Professional Type Person, so I marched in and leaned over her desk and sniffed out, "I'd like to lodge a complaint about the profanity."  The kids looked stricken until she leaped up and shrieked in excited surprise while bouncing out from behind the desk to give me a hug. 

So after my trips to Tommy Trojan and the bookstore, I continued up the 110 to Pasadena, where I had dinner with a friend from high school who has relocated to Ontario, which is sort of like the trap door to hell and not much of a destination spot unless you're a race fan. We ate at a place called Gale's and had a lovely time catching up, although we're already pretty much caught up what with email and social media and all. 

Wednesday I went the other way from work, down to Manhattan Beach, where I met up with a friend from my second stint in Florida (the one who introduced me to Not Your Average Blogger, as a matter of fact),  who now lives in Long Beach with her husband. It was a lot of fun to see them and we really did spend time catching up because we aren't in nearly as constant contact. 

Thursday night, I went north, over the hills to North Hollywood, to visit a friend from college (at last, someone Not From Florida,) and we stayed up talking about God and everything until 1 a.m., even though I planned to get up at 5 to make my flight.  If she hadn't had a dentist appointment, we might very well have just stayed up straight through. 

Y'all, I can't tell you how amazing it is to me that I have people like this in my life.  I mean, we go for years without seeing each other and then pick up where we left off.  This is even more amazing to me when factoring in how incredibly lazy and antisocial I am -- I hate Making Effort and Being Friendly and Putting People at Ease, so the fact that I manage to hold on to anyone 3,000 miles away is a miracle, and the fact that they all seem willing to put up with me and my nonsense is even more astonishing. I'm blessed.

That Friday was an exercise in marathon traveling.  I got up at 5, flew from LAX to Dulles, where NeighborGirl picked me up and drove me to my house.  We got there about 10 minutes before NYAB, so I had about 25 minutes to unpack and repack before hopping into the car and driving to New Jersey -- where we met up with a friend of mine from college to watch USC play football, and then had dinner with my friend who works for the band that I'd surprised earlier in the week.

(Are you seeing a pattern yet?  Last time we saw NYAB's brother, we were all in Alaska even though he lives in Arizona and we live in Virginia.  Last time we saw NYAB's sister, we were all in Florida even though she's from Indiana. I see two Florida people in California. I see California people in New Jersey. It's cognitive dissonance!)

The game was great. We tailgated with my roommate and a bunch of her friends -- and who had a tent, so when the first bout of rain blew through, we all remained relatively dry. It was a lot of fun to yap with her and meet or re-meet her friends. But the best part was the Young Prince -- he got all fired up, to the point he  out-cheered the guy who had slammed six beers before entering the stadium. More shocking to me was that he actually followed the game and paid attention the entire time and KNEW WHEN TO CHEER. That's a first, by a long shot. When the start of the second half was delayed for "lightning" -- which everyone with a smartphone knew meant "tornadoes,"  the stadium officials shooed us all out of the seats and into the interior of the stadium, so I texted my friend, found the band and spent a good half-hour talking to her and making plans for dinner. 

And SC won, although they looked awful doing it.  (Not as awful as they would against Stanford, sadly. Where's the running game?)

After all that whirlwind of activity, Sunday was for laundry and sleep and another week of work.

Things sped up again this weekend; Saturday was the annual Haymarket Day, and we had all kinds of Stuff to Do.  We watched the parade, then headed over to our Fancy New WalMart and admired how clean and shiny it was, and bought a small storage unit for the YP's 600 action figures. My other goals for the weekend were to do our every-two-months sprint through Costco and to shop around for a desk for the kid so he can do homework without being distracted by the TV or having to sit with his knees in his chin because his table and chairs were designed for a kindergartener.

As it turned out, we found the desk without going very far -- my old desk has been in the basement since we moved in, and as it turns out, it fits the kid pretty well.  So that was one problem solved, except we decided to punt on actually moving the thing up two flights of stairs. Costco was a piece of cake, although we went so late in the afternoon that the free samples were a little weak.  Then the YP and I spent hours sorting and storing his mountains o' toys, until the SC game started. We might as well have just kept cleaning. 

Sunday was devoted to yard work -- except for when the dog collared her first kill, an unsuspecting squirrel in tall grass. I know I should feel bad for her doing that, but since that rodent's great-grandfather was probably the one who ruined the fuel line on my car and forced me to buy a new one because a replacement $200 part couldn't be found, I pretty much praised her to the skies while I made NYAB dump the body.  The YP also hit a milestone; I let him drive the riding mower on his own for the first time. He loved it and asked for his own.  I said he could have that one if he mows the yard from now on.  He seemed pretty happy with that idea.  Sucker!! 

Then the neighbor came over and volunteered to help us move the desk.  That sidetracked me into scrubbing mold off the desk and cat hair off the chair to go with it. It's a great desk for the kid though -- lots of slots and drawers and places to store things.  It does crack me up that 3 of the 4 pieces of furniture in his room come from my great-grandparents. Poor kid. I'm sure he'd love a Spiderman bunk bed. Too bad he's stuck with a cheapskate mom trussed to family tradition. And at the end of a pretty productive weekend, we scampered off for ice cream after dinner and a long drive on a dusty back road. My favorite.

And now I'm off on another work week -- which was leavened today by lunch with a former co-worker and eternal kindred spirit who always makes me laugh.

I really don't think it gets any better than this. I love my life.