Aperture Science Chronological Life Data Tracking System

Yesterday Jess and I finally took advantage of the tickets from my missed shuttle launch ( *grumble* ) and decided to head down to Kennedy Space Center for the day. It was about 9 AM or so when we hit the interstate, and according to a quick glance at Google maps on the way out the door it would have been about a 2 hour drive. No sweat, right?

Well, unknown to me Google decided that the best place for me to get off the interstate was an exit that was about 5 miles before the one I should have taken, leading me through a fairly abandoned town and to what could have only been the restricted back gate of NASA. It was close to where we needed to be since you could see the launch pads and everything, but at the same time nowhere near where we needed to be. So we spent a good bit of time not exactly lost, just not sure how to get there from where we were.

Now my car has this weird quirk where sometimes the a/c box will actually get too cold and completely ice over, not allowing any air to blow through the vents and into the car. I noticed this starting to happen on the interstate but wasn’t really worried since I thought we’d be leaving the car soon.

Also, I’d planned on getting gas at Kennedy Space Center, so I really didn’t have a ton to spare.

The end result of all this was Jess and I driving around the back roads of Florida with no a/c and the needle hovering over empty. Fun fun.

Fortunately we were able to make it back to the interstate (and nearby gas stations) without adding more than 45 minutes or so to the trip – and once Jess was able to get a signal on the cell phone, we hit the KSC website for the correct directions.

Once we actually got to KSC it was a just a fairly normal theme park visit. Jess was the shutterbug for most of the trip, and we both got to see some areas of the space center that we hadn’t seen before – the Saturn V exhibit for her, the International Space Station center for myself, and a few other things that were new to both of us!

So after all was said and done it was a pretty awesome trip. I would have preferred a slightly different beginning, but sometimes you just have to take the bad with the good, right?

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So, one of my projects (for lack of a better word) this month is to do some form of creative exercise each day, be it writing, drawing, music, whatever. Just something. I will be tacking that on to the end of my posts here,, just as a way to hold myself accountable for doing it as much as anything else. We’ll see if it’s still happening at the end of the month!

We have a little web-based time clock here that all the hourly employees have to use (*grumble mutter*). It’s slow as hell, and kind of a pain, but one of the few useful things it can do is keep track of sick, personal, and vacation time.

I’d never really looked at the totals before today. I mean, I know I have vacation time – it’s just a matter of getting everything here at work set so I can actually use it. This morning I was somewhat curious though, so I flipped over to the tab to see what the numbers said.

*sigh* And trying to open it up just now for the exact numbers, it made my other computer seize up completely. These people shouldn’t be making software, they should be making automotive brakes.

Anywho. I have some carryover vacation from last year (which is technically not company policy, but my boss pulled a string with HR), and some comp days from working a holiday or two. With that added to my normal vacation time, I have 15 paid days off.

I could just up and disappear for three weeks. This is made further appealing by the fact that Jess doesn’t have a job, which makes it FAR easier to coordinate.

Three weeks. I love road trips – I wonder where we should head off to?

Man, this weekend just flew by.

Thursday Jess and I headed down to Disney to make use of the last day of our four-day passes. Our destination: Disney’s Animal Kingdom. Since the park was open until 8 (and honestly, DAK isn’t that large of a park) we didn’t leave the apartment until 10 or so, arriving at the park right around one.

I made Jess go down the slides in The Boneyard where I used to work. She didn’t seem entirely thrilled about having to do it, but she got me back by getting me soaked on the water ride.

It was a pretty fun day, though! We hit all the major stuff we wanted to, had some pretty yummy food, and made it back home around 11 pm or so.

Friday (Happy explosion day!) we met David, Alice, Brandon, and Jessica – who I will try to consistently refer to here as Jessica so as to avoid confusion with Jess – at the Orange Park Mall. After a yummy lunch in the mall’s food court, we all trekked over to the theater to see Get Smart. The movie was surprisingly good!

Jess and I hung out for a bit that evening, and then I went back to the apartment and listened to things blow up in the area… until 2 AM.

Saturday we hijacked Jess’ mom’s truck and helped move a desk into my parents’ house that my boss happened to be ditching. Also worked on packing up what little bit of stuff I still have left at my parents’ house – now it’s just all in various boxes that are scattered around my apartment.

You’ll probably notice that I did a fair bit of driving throughout the weekend so far – Disney is probably about a 300 mile round trip, and the other two days I drove at least 50 miles. Not so Sunday! I didn’t get up until sometime after 10-11, and I didn’t get out of bed until after 1. It was nice to just lay there half-awake for a while, then pull the laptop over and fuss around with it a bit. Other than some laundry and an interesting attempt at cooking eggs and bacon, it was a fairly lazy day. I almost got away with not having to drive anywhere at all except for a trip to Jess’ house. I definitely love going over there, but ugh – sometimes I just really, really don’t feel like driving. Anywhere.

Now that the weekend is over (I still can’t believe all four days have already come and gone), I have to get busy finishing moving in to the apartment. I’m having people over for dinner Friday!

So once again, Jess and I got bored with Jacksonville and headed down to Walt Disney World for the day.

Our target this time? The Magic Kingdom.

This is probably gonna be a somewhat long post, so click the link below for more!

continue reading…

Jess and I took advantage of our four-day passes and headed down to Disney yesterday – Disney’s Hollywood Studios, to be specific.

It used to be Disney-MGM studios; I have no clue when they changed the name.

Anyway! The day was a blast. I’d only hit a few major attractions back when I used to work for Disney, and Jess had never been to that park at all, so a good bit of it was fresh and new for us. Jess loved Tower of Terror, and I got to see her geek out over the Star Tours stuff.

Jess also had my camera and went somewhat nuts with it. Pictures soon!

On a more somber note: As we were driving down, we witnessed a car accident. In the close lane on the other side of the freeway ( headed back towards town ) a car just randomly cut a hard left – at freeway speed, mind you – and plunged nosefirst into the guardrail. It hit with enough momentem that it slid off the rail and continued back the way it was originally headed for a short bit.

The timing was such that I drove through the flying debris from the wreck, and if the guardrail hadn’t been there, it would have been us that the car had hit.

I don’t think that’s a memory that will be fading any time soon.