Happy Birthday Bro!

Happy Birthday Brandon!

Hope it was a good one!

Love ya.

A Wii Bit O' Fun

Yesterday, for Josh's birthday, a group of us had a nice dinner at Texas Land and Cattle Company. There we enjoyed a fine meal, fine conversation, and a tasty cookie cake.

We then moved the party to my house. And the main event was gettin' down and dirty on the Wii. We had a few rounds of Guitar Hero, some boxing, some tennis, some bowling and some mario cart. No doubt some people will be rather sore in the morning. Wii will do that to you. I'm glad i have the space to accomodate such an event. And, i'm sure there will be more Wii parties. They are just too much fun!

Here are some pictures from the night's event.

Happy Birthday Luke!

Today was Luke's 4th birthday! I think the boy had fun...here are the pictures.
Once again, i didn't have time to filter them...so there is a bunch of em.

Luke_4_Bday

Happy Birthday, Dad!

It's that time of year when the life clock rolls through to the next number.



Happy Birthday Dad. Ok, so this is a Christmas picture, but it was the most recent one that i have.
Hope it was a good one...
I'll see ya tomorrow.
Love ya.

Happy Birthday Brandon!

Today, my little brother (well, he's not little anymore) turned another year older. Happy Birthday Brandon. Hope it was a good one? Hope you didn't have to work today? Anyway, i hope you had a good time with whatever you did today. Hope to see you soon. Love ya bro!

Happy Birthdays

Got a few birthdays to mention.

June 13: Ann Marie
June 14: Erin
June 16: Metro (fellow member of the XVI club)

Happy Birthday to all!

A Great Travesty/A Great Birthday

The internet was down at my house today!! Such a travesty!! I was not able to give you something to read. I'm sorry. I hope that the internet has been restored. Although, i won't have much time to even use it tomorrow (er...today) with my current schedule.

Yesterday was a wasted day for me...trying to sleep shift and not getting much done around the house...i feel like such a slacker sometimes.

I want to wish Josh a happy birthday today! A great birthday! Looking forward to the celebration tomorrow night! I hope i won't be too sleepy.

Speaking of sleepy...it's 3am, and i can feel the effects of wanting sleep. I'm a little bit silly right now...although it's not conveyed very well via the written word. I can be entertaining when i'm silly...too bad you are all asleep! Oh well, relief will be here in about 4 hours...and i'll be in bed in about 5 or 6 hours...and if the internet is working at my house, you might get another post from me later today...but don't hold your breath...unless that is something you do as a hobby...then go right ahead...told you...silly...

Happy Birthday Mom

Hope it was a good one! Hope you and Dad did something fun!
Anyway, Happy Birthday Mom!
I love you!

A Very Long Day

Well, the day is over...and it was a very long day. I didn't get to see everyone that i wanted to see, but it was a rather interesting day nonetheless.

The day started off around 6:30am. I wanted to watch the Soyuz landing to close out my increment. I made a pan of cinnamon rolls for breakfast and watched NASA TV for the landing footage. As the previous post stated, the crew landed safely and was in good health.

The first stop was the regularly scheduled saturday morning football fun. This week was a little different...we had visitors. The Tobin's, Jim and Jenny, were in town for a wedding. Jim is the originator of saturday morning football and that is where i met him and his wife. I had only known them for a few months before they moved to D.C. So, it was nice to see them again.

My original plan was to leave football around 10:30 go home and get cleaned up and then head to Boondoggles. Well, that didn't quite work out. I decided to go straight to Boondoggles from football...yes, i was unclean and in my football clothes. I had just pulled up and Ginger had a Jack & Coke on the way. Thanks Ginger. For a while it was just me, Ginger, Al Drew and Joan Higginbotham. Little by little more and more Increment 14 members arrived at the party. Part way throught the celebration, Mike Lopez-Alegria called Ginger's cell phone to say hello. Wow...talk about surreal. It wasn't a few hours earlier that i watched a recovery crew pull him out of a Soyuz capsule. So very cool.

Just as the party was getting into full swing, i had to bail to get to Luke's b-day party. I flew home took a quick shower and headed out to the park. The weather was great, the food was great, the entertainment was great, the birthday boy had fun. Josh, the photographer took some pictures of the event. if you ask nicely, maybe he'll post some?

Next it was home for another quick shower and a shave. I had another party to attend. By now it is about 5:30pm. The Merancy's (saturday morning football friends) were throwing a BBQ for the Tobin's. After several hours of eating, drinking, and socializing, i decided to call it a night. I started to get a headache and it kept getting worse. I don't normally get headaches, so it is really an annoyance when i get one. The night ended about 11:45pm. If you do the math, that is about an 18 hour day.

Call me crazy, but i still managed to spend some time writing you this update. I hope you had a productive day. For those of you that i saw today, it was good seeing you. For those that i missed...well, i missed you. Have a good Sunday.

I'm off to bed...

Happy Birthday Luke!

Today is my Godson's 3rd birthday! Happy Birthday Luke!! Tomorrow is the actual birthday party...the weather is supposed to be great!
Tonight i hung out with the Green's (Denny & Joan (the grandparents), Jena (the aunt), melissa & rob, josh & lisa, and eventually scott & hope & ayden). We played a little poker and had some fun. I think i walked away with an extra dollar or two.

See ya tomorrow!

A Picture For Your Enjoyment

Here is the Increment 14 Flight Control Team, well most of us anyway. Unfortunately, some of the leads couldn't make this photo opportunity, but they were there in spirit.



In the next day or so, i'll post about the increment...

Today is also Debbie's birthday. Happy Birthday Debbie!

On another note, i was able to get some chores done around the house today...mowed the backyard and did a few loads of laundry. I just realized that i write about the most boring things. I apologize to my loyal readers for those type of things. i'm really not this boring...i promise.

And, thanks for taking time out of your day to read the things that i write here. Hopefully the posts here will become more entertaining and meaningful.

Horelica House of Music Edition # 17

Ok, i know you've been wondering where the latest installment of Horelica House of Music was...and here it is...

This first band is somewhat obscure. This album was given to me by my brother back at Christmas. As i was trudging through my studies today at work, one of their songs rolled through the iPod. So, i listened to the whole album. Not too shabby. Here they are, Grey Haven.



While i don't have the entire album from this next band, the song that is on my iPod also played while i was trying to study. It immediately brought back memories to Friday, march 16th. This song was on Nel's birthday CD. That was such a good night!

Chattin' with Astronauts in Space...

It's not every day (ok, for Capcom...it is) that one get's the opportunity to chat with the astronauts orbiting high above in the International Space Station. I was given the opportunity to say a few words to LA and Suni today. We were at Boondoggles having the 500 day party for the crew. (LA = 200 days, Misha = 200 days, and Suni = 100 days: 200+200+100=500 days) The crew called Boondoggles and we had a phone set up with a microphone and speakers set up so that everyone could hear.

I thanked the crew for the birthday wishes they bestowed upon me last week and said a few additional words. It's a little surreal, but a really cool thing to do. This has been an incredible increment and i'll never forget the experiences that i've had while acting as the lead ADCO. Although hard, the space business is quite the adventure!

Speaking of birthday wishes...here is what the crew had to say to me. The first 10 seconds or so are of a russian transmission that was going on on another loop...just ignore the first 10 seconds.

Happy Birthday from LA and Suni

I hope this works...this is my first attempt at uploading an mp3. Let me know if you have any issues.

Everything Happens For A Reason...

Tonight's theme on Scrubs was "Everything happens for a reason." I heard this quite a few times during my ordeal and never really gave it much thought until tonight. I began to ask myself, does everything happen for a reason? Perhaps! Of course not! or Absolutely! I don't think there is an easy way to answer that question...perhaps it is just rhetorical. I thought about the following phrase: "I never would've ______ if _______." Fill in the blanks...i know you can. This phrase is so repeatable it nearly answers the question with a resounding yes! And because it is so repeatable, it's got to be more than a coincidence. One event that leads to another...and this leads to yet another, and so on... Would the outcome be the same if things were different in the middle...or the beginning? Who knows...there are many routes to get from point A to point B. Obviously the path would be altered in that it is more or less enjoyable, painful, exciting, (insert any adjective here). Just something to think about...

I don't think about the past much anymore...there is no point...you can't change it. You can learn from it though. Although it takes some more time to learn than others. Yeah, i've learned some things. I have changed.

I'm just going to roll with the punches...whatever happens, happens.

So, do you believe everything happens for a reason?

____________________________________________________________________________


Next topic:

Sadly, Texas A&M lost to Memphis tonight and was ousted from the NCAA tournament. I think that A&M lost the game...as opposed to Memphis winning. A&M was not very good tonight and was capable of winning it...but everything happens for a reason...hehehe (sorry, couldn't resist)

Next topic:

So, i decided to listen to the mp3 of the ISS crew wishing me happy birthday today. And it turns out that i do have the entire transmission. For some strange reason, when i listened to it from home, i only got the first 15 or 20 seconds of it. I plan to post the mp3 to the blog here in the next few days. I just need to turn on the desktop and find my passwords to my other website and upload it there. I can then link the mp3 for your listening pleasure. It may take me a few days to get there though...the desktop is mighty slow!

The Birthday Pictures...

And here they are...

***Happy Birthday***

Erin did an awesome job on the captions...you must read the captions...

Enjoy. ;)

The Call Came From Outer Space

Yes, for those of you wondering, I made it through the night...a post to come later.

So, it's no secret that yesterday was my 31st birthday. I've been working on console all week and working hard...it was not an easy week to be there. I put in 50 hours this week. On Friday afternoon, i got a call on console and on the other end was Mike Lopez-Alegria the commander from the ISS. As soon as i answered he broke into song...the happy birthday song. Unfortunetly, the communication gods were in my favor and we were cut off before i could thank him or talk to him. But i did get to hear the song. That was Awesome!!

A few minutes later before the evening daily planning conference, Mike played a song by Big Head Todd and the Monsters on account of my birthday. He and Suni then wished me a happy birthday and thanked me for all the work that i do. We were able to see this on video. I did get an mp3 of the conversation, but when i played the mp3 it didn't cover the whole conversation...only the first part of the song...i was a little bummed. But i think i can get a copy. At any rate, that is one of the most unique birthday wishes i have ever received. And thanks to all that sent me email or called. It means a lot.

Earlier in the day, Ginger, bought me an icecream cake to share with the team. So, it was a great birthday. Better than i could ever have imagined.

Thanks...