Blue Monday

Total bummer today.  I came in this morning to find that my mighty Mac wouldn't start.  The power adapter was disconnected over the weekend, and it went into a deep sleep, a very deep sleep.  The sleep that nobody wakes up from.  The DVD drive spins, fans come on, power light comes on....and that's it.  Zilch, nada, zippo, nothing - no happy chime, no "spinning beachball of death", not even a frowny Mac symbol.  After futzing with it for the better part of the morning, I fired up the netbook and I've been limping along today.  I'm headed for Oregon this weekend, so I have to figure out what to do.  I think an order to the Apple website is on my list.

Catching Up (again)

Well, in spite of my promises to the contrary, I'm way behind again.  I won't bore you with the specifics, here's the highlights:

- Mockups of the ship are done through phase I (boundaries and most outfitting)
- We are approaching the end of the initial design review and verification.  The weekly meetings are over, but we still have a lot of stuff to do.
- Shipyard has placed orders for the steel, which should be arriving in a week or two

- I was in Oregon for 2 weeks around the 4th of July, and am heading back there on Saturday, 8/14, for a week.

- We had our second Quarterly Management Review with the shipyard, and our first Annual Construction Review by a panel of experts from the National Science Foundation.
- Fabrication will begin on Oct. 26, when the shipyard starts cutting steel.  That will go on for a month or two before they actually start building recognizable parts of the ship.

Mockups as they looked a few weeks ago. 

(Most of the material in the foreground is now in the background )

BUT, the biggest event was just this past weekend.  It was Waterfront Festival!  That's right, Waterfront Festival.  It started on Thursday, and ended on Sunday.  I am told that the fireworks were fantastic.  Just as I was going to leave to head over there, the skies opened up, lighting and thunder, the works.  I passed.  I did make it over on Sunday for the parade and some music, and here's some pictures.

"Iiiiiii Love a Parade.."

Nice vintage car from Angeli's Grocery Store

VFW Marching Band

Hey!  It's the Car Plunk Van!

It was a beautiful afternoon

Everybody loves the food at Waterfront!