I'm trying to not make this blog just about races. However... RACE UPDATE :)

Monday, May 25 2009 - Cotton Row 5k - downtown Huntsville - 33:28 - 837/1687

Saturday, June 6 2009- Eurocross 5k - UAH - 36:44 - 148/180

Saturday, June 27 2009 - Spirit of America 5 mi - Point Mallard Park, Decatur -57:42 - 155/183

Saturday, June 27 2009 - Spirit of America 1 mi - Point Mallard Park, Decatur - 10:29 - 8/16

Saturday, July 4 2009 - Fourth of July Music City 5k - downtown Nashville - 31:06 - 115/294

Saturday, July 18 2009 - Twilight 5k - UAH - 32:15 - 112/172

Sunday, August 2 2009 - Hennepin Lake Classic 5k - Lake Calhoun, Minneapolis - 31:05 - 324/422

Saturday, August 8 2009 - Run with the Celts 5k - MN Irish Fair, Harriett Island, St Paul - 31:09 - 214/371

Saturday, August 15 2009 - Minnesota 5k -downtown Saint Paul - 30:12 - N/A


Total Race Miles Run: 27.7


Upcoming races:
(through the end of the year)

Running of the Bulls 5k - Saturday, August 28 - Hampton Cove
Marine Mud Run 5k - Saturday, September 19 - Knoxville
Monte Sano 15k - Saturday, October 10 - Monte Sano State Park
Liz Hurley Ribbon Run 5k - Saturday, October 17 - downtown Huntsville
Huntsville Half Marathon & Heroes 5k- Saturday November 14 -Southeast Huntsville

Updated Race Post

Monday, May 25 2009 - Cotton Row 5k - downtown Huntsville - 33:28 - 837/1687

Saturday, June 6 2009- Eurocross 5k - UAH - 36:44 - 148/180

Saturday, June 27 2009 - Spirit of America 5 mi - Point Mallard Park, Decatur -57:42 - 155/183

Saturday, June 27 2009 - Spirit of America 1 mi - Point Mallard Park, Decatur - 10:29 - 8/16

Saturday, July 4 2009 - Fourth of July Music City 5k - downtown Nashville - 31:06 - 115/294

Saturday, July 18 2009 - Twilight 5k - UAH - 32:15 - 112/172

Sunday, August 2 2009 - Hennepin Lake Classic 5k - Lake Calhoun, Minneapolis - 31:05 - 324/422


Total Race Miles Run: 21.5


Upcoming races:
(through the end of the year)

Run with the Celts 5k - Saturday, August 8 - Saint Paul
Minnesota Half Marathon & 5k - Saturday, August 15 - Saint Paul
Running of the Bulls 5k - Saturday, August 28 - Hampton Cove
Marine Mud Run 5k - Saturday, September 19 - Knoxville
Monte Sano 15k - Saturday, October 10 - Monte Sano State Park
Liz Hurley Ribbon Run 5k - Saturday, October 17 - downtown Huntsville
Huntsville Half Marathon & Heroes 5k- Saturday November 14 -Southeast Huntsville

There's a fundamental truth to our nature, [hu]man[s] must explore . . . and this is exploration at its greatest.
-Dave Scott, Apollo 15

<3

Races

I started running races a few months back and I decided I needed a place to keep track of results mainly so I can see how I'm improving and to allow me to set new goals (but also because I'm a little bit proud :) ). Here are my races to date. I'll try to keep it updated.


Monday, May 25 2009 - Cotton Row 5k - downtown Huntsville - 33:28 - 837/1687

Saturday, June 6 2009- Eurocross 5k - UAH - 36:44 - 148/180

Saturday, June 27 2009 - Spirit of America 5 mi - Point Mallard Park, Decatur -57:42 - 155/183

Saturday, June 27 2009 - Spirit of America 1 mi - Point Mallard Park, Decatur - 10:29 - 8/16

Saturday, July 4 2009 - Fourth of July Music City 5k - downtown Nashville - 31:06 - 115/294



Upcoming races:
(through the end of the year)

Twilight 5k - Saturday, July 18 - UAH
Hennepin Lake Classic 10k/5k - Sunday, August 2 - Minneapolis
Run with the Celts 5k - Saturday, August 8 - Saint Paul
Minnesota Half Marathon & 5k - Saturday, August 15 - Saint Paul
Running of the Bulls 5k - Saturday, August 28 - Hampton Cove
Marine Mud Run 5k - Saturday, September 19 - Knoxville
Monte Sano 15k - Saturday, October 10 - Monte Sano State Park
Liz Hurley Ribbon Run 5k - Saturday, October 17 - downtown Huntsville
Huntsville Half Marathon & Heroes 5k- Saturday November 14 -Southeast Huntsville

My Dad

My dad came into town a couple months ago to take my car. He sent an email about a week before saying that he was going take it back. The email was rather cold and distant. There was no greeting. He didn't even refer to himself as "Dad". It was signed "Jim".

I cleaned out the car and made arrangements for him to pick it up. He showed up with his best friend who has known me since I was born. As soon as I handed my dad the keys to my graduation gift he handed them over to his friend, the new owner.

Seeing my dad was hard beyond the reason why he was there. He has lost a lot of weight. When he came to my high school graduation he was definitely thinner than the last time I saw him. By that point he had had two heart attacks and a triple bypass. He was already diagnosed diabetic. I saw him about a year and a half later. He seemed to be about the same. I met his girlfriend which was difficult. He came to visit me almost two years ago. He was obviously thinner and looked a little less healthy. We spent a week together talking, eating, laughing, learning. It was difficult but I was glad to have more good (actually I was at a point where I would even settle for neutral) memories to keep. The trip this spring made me realise that my dad is dying.

I always thought that it would be easier not having my dad around. At least I would know why I didn't get a call on Christmas or a card on my birthday. He wouldn't be able to call me, yell, and then hang up on me. My life would be at least a little bit more consistent. I thought my life would suddenly be easier to deal with.

I was wrong.

I never thought this would be so hard. I'm having a hard time coming to terms with everything, thinking everything through, talking everything out. I feel like I'm against a deadline, one that I can't know, and am playing alone for both teams. I feel caught. I don't want to filter out the bad memories and only remember the good times but twenty years down the road I want to be able to remember the good memories of times my dad and I spent together. I refuse to allow the negativity of some of the memories to be what I carry through life with me; I vow to remember the happy ones.

I already miss him.

The Monthly-ish Update

Summer semester has begun. I'm not working but I am taking 12 hours -all math related courses. Today I had three classes for a total of six hours. Woohoo. (I can foresee myself not looking forward to Mondays and Wednesdays.) Tuesday, Thursday and Friday aren't as bad. I have set goals for this semester and I'm working hard to obtain them. Setting goals are good. :)

I ran the Cotton Row 5k on Memorial Day. My time was 33:28. It was a fun experience. My muscles have finally stopped screaming as I walk up and down stairs, so I'm thrilled. (That means I get to run tomorrow! :) ) It was my first race but I'm already planning on four other races this summer (Hennepin Lake Classic 10/5k, Run with the Celts 5k, Eurocross 8/5k, Twilight Run 5k) and a triathlon (Wet Dog).

Really besides classes and running there isn't much going on except for the occasional hike or climb. My weekends are dedicated to outdoors stuff (weather permitting) and traveling around the south.

Hope everyone's summer is going well. Congrats to my friends who have/will graduate!

Peace, Love, and virtual air hockey on walls,
-m

Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper, CAPT USN

Today was the STS-126 Crew Visit at Marshall Space Flight Center. I was giddy from the day I found out about it. Onboard the shuttle for the mission there were six shuttle members and one station crew member that was rotated out during the course of the mission. Four of the shuttle members were at MSFC today. The most exciting for me was Heide Stefanyshyn-Piper.

Heide became a mentor for me during high school. A family friend's daughter, found out that I was attending the same high school Heide had graduated from. Knowing how much I loved space and that I wanted to be an astronaut, she found my email address and gave it to Heide. One morning while at school I received an email from Heide saying that she heard I wanted to be an astronaut and that I loved science. She also told me that if I needed anything she would be glad to help. I was incredibly excited.

Over the course of the next few years Heide and I exchanged emails fairly regularly. She talked me out of biology and psychology majours and suggested I look into engineering. I had always loved figuring out how things worked and taking them apart. She apparently knew engineering was right for me and gave me little pushes towards it when I needed them. Everyday that I learn something new or really enjoy something I'm doing in school, work, or in the engineering community I am extremely grateful to her for everything she has done and is doing.

During Heide's first mission STS-115 in fall '06, I never turned off the tv. I would come back to my room after class and sit in bed with my textbooks all around me. The EVAs and daily activities played in the background and I would catch myself becoming distracted often. I loved watching every moment of the mission. I was so proud to know such an amazing person and to see what an awesome job she was doing.

That spring I went to Houston to fly and conduct experiments on the C-9 at Ellington Field. When we found out that we would both be in Houston at the same time, Heide told me that she would take me around and show me some of the behind the scene activities at Johnson Space Center. I had gone to JSC countless times as a kid (I first went when I was 3. My parents thought I would be tired and lose interest in the Space Center within a few hours. We got there when it opened. ...And stayed until it closed. I was enthralled and didn't want to leave. That was the beginning of my love for space.) but I was where everyone on the tour wanted to be. Down on the training center floor. With an astronaut! Heide reserved a few of the trainers for us. I got to climb in orbiters, flip switches, ask questions. It was amazing and is something that I will never forget.

My favourite memory from that trip to Johnson was when Heide was taking me back to Ellington. We drove by one of the hangers for the T-38s and she saw my face light up. She asked me if I wanted to stop by there to look around the hanger. I of course said yes. We stopped in the office to make sure it was okay to walk around. As soon as the door opened a chorus of "Heide!"s begun. It was a common thing for me to hear. Heide introduced me to everyone as a friend of hers. When someone asked how we knew each other she turned to me with a huge grin and said "my turn!". "I graduated from the same high school she did." She was so proud. And I couldn't hold back my smile.

This past summer Teledyne Brown worked on some hardware for Heide's new mission assignment, STS-126. The hardware was having a lot of problems and had been redesigned by the crew a few times. Heide and I emailed back and forth and joked about what was going on. I was so excited when the hardware finally shipped to the Cape. A few days later I got an email from Heide asking for my address because she was putting me on the guest list. I had never seen a launch before and what better of a launch to see than one with a friend in the crew (who also happened to be the first and currently only female lead spacewalker) and hardware I helped build in the Bay? The night launch was amazing and I met some wonderful people while I was at Kennedy Space Center.

Today's Crew Visit was fun to attend. I got to watch footage from their mission and also heard the four of them speak. The crew seem like a great group of people. Afterward they had an autograph line. Heide was the first in line so I got to talk to her for a quick second. She was really happy to see me there and told me I should send some of our pictures to Derham. :) I also got a pretty big hug.

Sadly, Heide is probably best known for two exciting events, one from each mission. She was the astronaut who fainted not only once, but twice during the STS-115 welcome back ceremony at Ellington Field the day of their landing. After the second time she collapsed she was ushered off the stage and taken to visit the Flight Surgeon. It just turned out to be a touch of reacclimation sickness. Happens all the time. Seriously. Heide's other infamous happening was from her more recent mission, STS-126. During an EVA to fix the Solar Alpha Rotary Joints her grease gun exploded in her bag. As she was cleaning it out one of the toolbags floated away. After talking to people at Kennedy I am fairly confident that it wasn't Heide who let go of the bag; the bag and it's contents weren't packed and tethered correctly for microgravity. Though Heide has gotten the blame, it more than likely wasn't her fault. Though what is the point of finger pointing, now?

Heide ranks up there in the top of my heros. Not necessarily because she is an astronaut. But because she took the time to really care. She has pushed me when I had stopped reaching. She has encouraged me when I got frustrated. She has been a role model when I needed someone to look up to. She has taught me a lot through her actions and I hope I am able to one day be a "Heide" to someone else. I am truly proud of everything she has done and I cannot express how grateful to her I am.

Don't Hang Up Your Dancing Slippers

It has almost been a year since my last post. Don't want to rush into anything. :)

Things that have happened in the last year-ish:

Over the summer I took Cal B and Engineering Economy while I worked full time. TBE had a project that I spent a lot of time working on during the entire summer. Didn't get enough sleep all summer. lol. People from Lockheed were flying in from Houston all the time and I made a lot of new friends. CPK (the hardware we were building) flew on STS 126 in November. I was so excited that hardware I worked on for so long was now in space.

I went home to surprise my mom after summer finals. She didn't know I was coming so I made plans with a friend to get her out to dinner where I was planning on meeting them. Long story short I missed my flight and ended up coming in like 3 hours later that I thought. Our friends kept her there that long and my best friend picked me up from the airport and dropped me off at dinner. My mom started crying as soon as I put my arms around her neck. :) The break was nice. I spent a weekend at home, got to see my friends. I was happy.

In the fall I took Physics 2 & lab, Cal C, Statics, and Differential Equations. I also worked about 16 hours a week. I ended up getting sick in the middle of the semester, had surgery and had to drop most of my hours at work. I finished Physics and the lab in addition to Statics. I incompleted DE and Cal C and am finishing them up this semester. I'm rather happy to have that behind me.

One of the most awesome things to happen to me (quite possibly ever) was to get a personal invite from one of the crew on STS 126 to watch their launch. My sophomore year of high school Heide randomly emailed me and told me that she had heard I wanted to become an astronaut. She had graduated from the same high school I was going to and became somewhat of a mentor. We've continued talking ever since and finally got a chance to meet up when I was in Houston to fly on the Vomit Comet a few years ago. The entire trip was pretty awesome. I got to watch the night launch from the causeway and had an invite to a pre-launch party (I didn't get to go, but the invite was awesome!). I couldn't imagine anything more amazing than that day.

This semester I'm working full time in addition to taking Numerical Methods and Circuits. I'm also finishing up the two incompletes so my hours are up to thirteen. Thirteen hours of engineering classes and a forty hour job. Crazy? Probably. :)

Another pretty awesome thing is I got an internship working with a zero-g group near by. I get to work alongside some pretty amazing people. I'm really looking forward to working more with them as time goes by.

I hope to get back into this blog. I've started a few others but never stick with this one. Maybe now I'm back at work this term it'll stay updated. That tends to happen. :)

Hope everyone is doing well. I miss everyone terribly.

Peace, Love, and waffles,
-m

Two in one week! Get excited! :-D

The whole blogging this is picking up, again. Mainly because I'm still rather bored at work.

Work is going well. I still have my hopes up for going to Houston to "help" with Heide's mission's part. Cause, you know, I would rather live delusionally and be happy. :-) Anyway, around TBE I've had a few things to do. Mainly status. But it gets me away from my desk. Otherwise I just hang out in people's offices. Fred and Jimmy tend to see a lot of me. As well as the guys on the floor. :-) I haven't seen much of Kimberly. She came over to see me twice. The second time I wasn't here so she left a note. It made me smile. :-) We are going to lunch on Monday. I'm excited. :-)

Grades came out and I did well in everything except for Calculus (which I'm taking again this summer). Did I already say this in another post? Eh. I'm thrilled, so I don't mind writing about it again. :-)

Pete had his 6 month vet appt yesterday. He is super healthy and is up to date on all his shots. No more tapeworm and roundworms. This made his mom very happy! :-) Yay for having a healthy, happy puppy! I'll post pictures up here sometime so you all can see how much he's grown. (Okay, maybe not that much... but looking at his pictures from when we first got him to now, he looks a lot bigger to me.)

Melissa and I had lunch today. We went to a fast food Mexican restaurant here. It was pretty good. She enjoyed her meal and I thought mine was tasty. We talked that it might be the replacement for Q'doba. Which brings me to my next stream of thought...

I think I've been doing well with moving on. A few things the past few days have happened and I was rather indifferent. I'm pretty happy with the progress I've made. Which is good seeing the new possibilities that are presenting themselves. :-)

My fish who lives on my desk at work has officially been named. His name is Zvezda. Zvezda (which is Russian for star) was the name of the third module added to Station. It's the home for two astronauts/cosmonauts and has some, if not most, of ECLSS (which is their environmental and life support control system). I think I went to camp too much...

Anyway, it's Friday and I'm counting down the hours until I get to go home. Hope everyone who is finishing up finals does really well! And everyone who had no finals to take, we are all jealous.

Peace, Love, and that fun flip floppy jump my heart does,
-m

I'm back.

I'm back mainly because I'm at work again and I don't know what to do with all my "spare" time right now. It's like I feel as if I need to be in the library or something. School is starting again in a few weeks, so that'll keep me busy, eventually. And things should pick up some at work.

Speaking of work... I started back at TBE on Thursday, about 14 hours after my last final finished. I've worked two days already and am getting back into the swing of things. There are a *lot* of changes that have happened and are happening so it's taking a little getting used to. But I've jumped back into some of the Manufacturing stuff I used to do (even though Kimberly isn't there for awhile) and helped out where I can. I went over today and set up my office to be more "Megan". I think I'm liking it over there more than the last semester by this time. I just need to bring over books and stuff to keep me busy for when I'm bored.

School ended well. Grades aren't out, yet, but I'm pretty sure I did okay in the class I don't know the grade for, yet. I will be taking Calculus B again this summer (mainly because my professor this semester was a dick) and should get a really good grade as well as taking Engineering Economy (which makes me excited because it's a 300-level course as well as finally in Tech Hall (and we know I don't mind being over there. :-) ) I'm on my way to becoming an engineer!).

I'm going to start playing hockey hopefully pretty soon. I got my skates and my stick and random gear the other day and headed out to the rink with Virginia this afternoon to try out the new skates. I didn't fall at all (and it was my first time on hockey skates!) and was able to do some of the same things from figure skating with the hockey skates. I was excited!

Pete is doing well. He's asleep on my bed right now. :-) He's been loving the fact that someone is almost always home now. It means more playtime, more time outside and more time to nap on our beds. He's a pretty happy puppy (that is tapeworm free! :-D).

I'm pretty homesick right now. I think it just dawned on me that I'm not coming home this summer. I knew I wasn't but I don't think I realised I wasn't. Every time I see something on Facebook or something about Twins' games or Grand Ol' Day or the U my stomach does a little flip flop thing. I'm going to try to come home sometime before Thanksgiving; I just don't know when I will be able to. Until then, though, all my Minnesota friends know that I miss you tons and can't wait to spend time with you as soon as I can make it up there!

Peace, Love, and Sunsets,
-m