I-X Marks the Start

Excitement was in the air. It was a little hard to tell after about 15 trips out the door to peer at the lightning towers in the distance, but it was there. Then, on a beautiful Wednesday morning, a new start took off.

Florida Today sometimes annoys me with the corny puns on the front page (and I'm a punny guy) but this was an historic headline. The Shuttle, wonderful flyer that she is, has just about flown her last. She was a grand science project, and truly marvelous, but it's time to move on. Whether she flies until 2010, 2011, or 2014, her days are numbered.

As the Ares I-X engine burned out and she began drifting to a certain splash down in the Atlantic Ocean, the crowd outside the Headquarters Building broke into spontaneous applause. I haven't seen that since Challenger return to flight. There was something new and fresh in the air. Those of us that never get near a pad or launch control room don't often feel the excitement that the controller and hands on people feel, but this launch was something special and everyone knew it.

I've seen it in the halls, in the lunchroom, and around the center. The engineers are getting excited. Someone that doesn't work at KSC, taking a walk down the hall at headquarters, might not discern it. I've been there 22 years and I can tell the difference between excitement and the same old thing. People are excited. It's a good thing.

We've got a new pad, new rocket, new firing room, new firing room windows, new O&C, new Base Operations Contractor, and soon a new launch contractor, and a bunch of new, young engineers.

We don't know what Congress and Obama are going to do, but it's now a sure thing that something new is coming. Bring it on. GO ORION!!

Legacy Floppy Data

Did you ever forget to copy forward your legacy data? From a post at www.forum.manifold.net...

Found my backup floppies from 1994. Discovered that no recent Microsoft backup software will recover files from Microsoft’s backup program circa 1994. Found an old copy of MS-DOS 6.2. Found an old laptop with no operating system on it and installed DOS. Ran MSBACKUP to recover the files. Copied them to more floppies. Found another old laptop running Windows XP that has a floppy drive. Used it to copy the files from floppies to a stick. Used the stick to get the files onto my working machine, which has no floppy drive. Discovered that no modern version of Access will open v 1.x files. Found that Open Office Base will open Access 1.x files. Copied data from Open Office Base to Open Office Spreadsheet and then exported from OOS to Excel. I love Microsoft.

Saturday September 19

Wake up for the last time in a Comfort Inn, eat waffles, and head for Florida. It was a great two weeks. We arrived home safe, and sound, praise the Lord!

Friday September 18

We continued down the peninsula through Delaware, Maryland, and then Virginia. South of Salisbury we got off the main highway and drove a few miles east to NASA Wallops Island base and then out to Chincoteague Island. We stopped at the visitor's center and looked at the Chincoteague Ponies, made famous by Marguerite Henry in her book "Misty".
At the end of the peninsula is the Cheasapeake Bridge/Tunnel. The whole thing is about 15 miles with two tunnels underneath the ocean (instead of bridges). In the middle its as though you are out in the ocean in your car. Pretty cool.

We continued across the bay, into Norfolk, north across another bridge/tunnel and into Hampton. We went to the Mariner's Museum there and visited for several hours. It was my second visit and I really like that place. I think that I still have a couple of days worth of visits to go to say that I've really visited. We ended our day in Smithfield, NC. Our vacationing was over. Tomorrow we would drive all day to get home!

Thursday September 17

We started out the day with Carol's homemade waffle in the Comfort Inn Waffle Maker. (She loves those things :-)) In the morning we drove from Allentown down to Philadelphia. That was an adventure. Philly was the only truly large city that we entered during our trip. We didn't get lost but you can ask Carol sometime about how she felt about my route choice to downtown!

We entered from the northwest, drove by the Franklin Institute and around the huge Franklin traffic circle. There in front of us was a very large, ornate, 1800's style building. Thinking that we were there we drove around in a circle about three times to find a parking spot. We had to pass several open parking garages because the truck looked like it is taller than the 6ft tall entrances. We walked across the street and began wandering around this huge, very non-touristry edifice. We wandered around until we found a very small visitor center in one of the halls.

Some very nice ladies were there ready to tell us that we were completely confused. We had landed at the Philadelphia City Hall. Historical (1860's) for sure, but not the history we were looking for. That would be eight blocks down Market St.

Back to the truck, pay the folks for our half hour and drive around some more looking for a parking spot. At least once we parked, we were in the correct area of town. We walked down the street to the open mall area in front of Independence Hall and immediately noticed the US Mint. Ok, that sounds like fun, so in we went to see coins made. It's kind of cool to see a box that is about four feet square and three feet high full of pennies!

We walked across the street to Constitution Hall. It was full of shcool kids on tours and did not seem to have much we really wanted to see so we headed out down the grassy mall to Independence Hall. We went to the ticket booth to get into one of the half-hourly tours. Our tickets were for about an hour in the future so we asked around about Philly Cheesesteaks. We were referred to Sonny's, down Market St.We walked down there and we each had a freshly cut and cooked cheesesteak. Don't ask anyone for a Steak and Cheese sandwich because they will look at you with a quizzical look and make you a baloney sandwich. It's a cheesesteak!

Back to our tour and a history lesson from an fellow that teaches like a college professor. This guy really knew his stuff. Ind. Hall is really only two rooms but it's a very cool place. Very moving.

We then walked across the street to the liberty bell museum. The window behind the bell is very large and faces Independence Hall. Again, very moving. We found the truck and escaped the city just ahead of the rush hour traffic. We drove on down the peninsula to Salisbury, MD for the night.