Our counselors were Jeramy and Andrew. They were both great!
I arrived around 12 on Sunday to find that we weren't gathering until 3 p.m. and I was the first one there. Picked up my messenger bag (black with the USSCR logo in red) and my badge. I was so glad we didn't have the wristbands! There was about an even mix of men and women and ages on my team. Once we were all together we had the usual welcome speeches and got a tour of the TCF. We didn't get to see any of the new sims or parts of the space station....only Enterprise, MOCR and the Zarya Module. When we went to dinner Sunday night we found it wasn't ready yet. I didn't know you could mess up pizza, but they did.
Fortunately, the food was great the rest of the week. Mexican Wednesday is still alive and well. I took a photo of one night's dinner: Grilled chicken breast, rice pilaf, green beans and mashed potatoes with peppers and pasta salad. Desserts ranged from chocolate cake, tiramisu and ice cream.
That night, we watched October Sky in the digital theater and had wine and cheese beforehand. I tried Chardonnay for the first time and quite liked it.
We did four one-hour missions during the week. I switched to MS track, because they had way too many pilots. So my positions were MS2, CATO, PROP and SS2. I was MS2 for the EDM. I'm usually really nervous about MOCR, but I had a great time this year. We had fun with it....we had a banana called Top Banana with the position TOP. It wasn't a very good flight controller....it wanted to split every time things got stressful. <G>
Anyway, for some reason I found the EVA in the harness exhausting. I've done it before, but this year it really tired me out. I was pouring sweat before I'd been out there 10 minutes. I mean, it was dripping down inside my helmet onto the faceplate. I was so tired the sims people had to pull me the last few yards back over to be unhooked when we were done. My arms just gave out. Maybe having the faceplate down was part of the reason...just couldn't' get enough air. But every time I pushed it up, it fell back down.
I tried SCUBA, but couldn't get past the part where you throw your regulator away and pick it up again. I kept wanting to hold my breath. I wasn't able to do SCUBA on my other trips, so I was happy to get so far.
We went over to the lake twice to fly the MACH 3 sims and ride the centrifuge. They didn't have any AC groups so we didn't get to do the Helo Dunker or zip line. The second time we were there, they had a vegetable and fruit tray and sodas waiting for us. We watched Top Gun when we weren't flying. A few people planked on the plane out front. I have photos on my Flickr. See link at the end of this post.
We did both Area 51 and the Pamper Pole. Well, everyone else climbed the pole....I couldn't get up my nerve, but I helped belay on the ground.
My 35th birthday was Wednesday, and I was presented with a piece of cake at dinner and an unlit candle. Couldn't they light it, we asked the kitchen staff? One lady said she would try to light it on the stove. As she walked back into the kitchen she said, "I hope I don't burn myself." She came out with with the candle which promptly blew out. Back she went. It went out again. Finally, we found someone with a lighter and got the darn thing lit! Following loud singing of Happy Birthday, I blew out the candle...which promptly relit!!!! A trick candle! Later, we went over the Otters for a drinks and they taught me to play pool. It was a great birthday!
I spent most of the EDM lying on the floor pretending to be unconscious. That was fine with me because I only got in bed before midnight once the whole week! EDM got off to a wild start when the Commander had a heart attack during launch (don't they always?) and one of the other three MS down on the middeck with me started flipping out. She tried to get up and broke her leg. I tried to help her and broke my back. Another MS also broke his leg. So we have a broken back and two broken legs cluttering up the middeck moaning like zombies. When they treated me, they gave me Valium. In real life Valium makes my hyper, not sleepy. So I started jerking around and trying to get up. They had to sit on me to keep me still so they could get a neck brace on. Once we docked with the station, we had a problem with too much CO2 and everyone ended up on the floor again sharing one oxygen mask. We had one guy go berserk so they duct taped him to a chair with a note: "Send ransom money to moon." When we took time out to eat lunch, two guys carried him, chair and all from the ISS into the cafeteria. They almost dropped him going up the steps, but the made it. They loosened his hand so he could eat still tied up. The way home was pretty uneventful. I did an EVA, and when I got back in I got a note telling me to lie down across the middeck seats and go to sleep, still in my space suit. It was quite uncomfortable, but since I had on the ice vest, I wasn't too hot. I was on the flight deck for the landing. We died and had to sing "Row, row, row your boat" to be resurrected. Good times!
During the week, we had several guest speakers, Ed Buckbee, David Hewitt and Alex McCool spoke just to us adults. Before graduation all the teams heard from astronauts Serena M. Aunon and a man who was part of astronaut group 16. I didn't catch his name (I'll find out), but he spoke about building the ISS. Aunon talked about astronaut training.
Graduation was neat because there was one SC group, one SA group, one ASA group and us. We saw the kids every day at meals and spoke to them a bit. The littlest girl at Space Camp became our pet, and we cheered loudly when she got her wings.
Here's a link to my photos on flickr: http://flic.kr/s/aHsjw1JX1N
We left right after graduation was over so we could get through Atlanta before the traffic got too bad. I was sorry to miss it.