Sometimes I really love my job, and taking business trips is one of those reasons.

On Monday I left for Dayton Ohio, by car, for our first set of meetings at Wright Patterson Air Force Base. I got to stay at a motel that night, and sleep uninterrupted for eight hours.

It wasn’t as good as I thought that would be. I wasn’t as rested as I would have liked – that is, was just as tired then as I am now after being up with Elaine because of Marcus for four hours last night. Maybe it is because I can’t really relax when I’m away from home. Maybe it is because I like my bed more than any other. Maybe it is because there is some justice in the world and no matter where I am, if Elaine doesn’t get a good night’s sleep, I won’t either.

That just isn’t fair.

The meetings at WPAFB were fine. I got to see some very high tech rooms and systems, and meet a lot of very interesting military people and civilian employees. I hope we get to do work with them. Actually, two of the rooms we saw would be fantastic for LAN parties. Lots of large high definition flat panel screens, all networked, with plenty of room to spread out.

Of course, war simulations are the ultimate LAN party games. If only they had a refrigerator full of beer and a food buffet … wait, they did have that.

That night I flew out to Syracuse. Thanks to our efficient air traffic system, I went through Dullas in Washington, D.C., on two puddle jumper prop aircraft. You know the kind: 30 seats, each one of which has no room unless you lost both of your arms and legs. You feel every bit of wind as it rocks the airplane. And, you can’t fly above storms. You get to go around them, or, more often than not, through them.

I can’t complain though – they were on time, and I didn’t have any cancellations. Some colleagues who were just going to NY went through Chicago, and their flight was cancelled on Tuesday night.

Our Wednesday meeting was at Rome Air Force Base for one of our projects. That went quite well. The meeting went smoothly. We detailed what our work would be for the next two years and were our technology can be used. We also met a number of other people (military and civilian) who are very interested in our technology and who might be able to help us in our commercialization.

We didn’t see any high tech rooms, though quite honestly, I don’t mind at all. That second day was a huge success, and I hope to be able to write why in less than a year.

Two more puddle jumpers and I was back in Ann Arbor. The route from DC to Detroit was exciting. They kicked off one of the passengers because, get this, we had too much weight on the aircraft. One person makes that much difference? When he disembarked, a young lady got up and said, “I’m getting off, now. We are going to crash, I’m getting off.” And she got off. Another passenger wanted the pilot to assure us that we wouldn’t crash. The pilot didn’t do a great job of that, but oh well, I doubt they would fly if they were thinking, “Wow, we might not make it this time!”

I have to admit, we were moving on the runway for a long time before we finally took off, and the climb seemed very slow. I wish I hadn’t eaten at Denny’s twice that day.

Also, never ever fly with a retired Air Force combat pilot. They know just how to make you feel perfectly terrified on any aircraft you are on, while they sit nice and happy and smug.

I’m glad to be home. Marcus welcomed me home by being very crabby last night, just to let me know what I missed. Poor little guy.

Oh, on another note, MichCon is outside my house right now, fixing the gas leak. Yay!

Marcus and Elaine are back from the Hospital. I went in and visited them around Noon, and there was no change. I hung around for an hour for one of the doctors to tell us, channeling through a nurse, that yes, we had to stay until 5 PM no matter what.

I went home to pay bills.

Elaine spoke to the doctor, without a medium this time, and said, "The tests are fine, my husband is going out of town soon, he's feeding fine, and I'm not getting any rest here. May we please go home?" Since he wasn't keeping Marcus here for more tests, he agreed since the last feeding was fine.

So, Marcus is being cudded by Grandma Prather, Elaine is upstairs sleeping, and I'm still paying bills.

I'm glad they are home.

As Elaine said earlier, I'll be out of town for a few days. I'm leaving Monday night to travel to not one, but two Air Force bases. I'm looking forward to this trip, as I love seeing what our miliary is doing in the high tech world, and also I love seeing how I can help.

Getting two nights of full sleep is not a bad thing either! I mean, I'll be wide awake all night long worrying about my wife and child.

I'll be getting home at around 1 AM Wednesday, just in time to change a diaper.

He’s only five weeks old, but this has to have been the worst day of Marcus’ life, and it isn’t even over yet.

We admitted him to the hospital at around 5:30 PM. Before anyone panics, he’s probably fine, and so far (it is 2:30 AM, Saturday night / Sunday morning as I type) all the tests are fine.

Last night was bad. He wasn’t feeding well, and spiting up what food he did get. He also wouldn’t sleep more than 15 minutes before waking up and being really upset and sounding like he’s in pain. It lasted into today, and Elaine’s Mom suggested we call a nurse and get an opinion.

She suggested we go to the emergency room – why take chances?

Well, all the tests and such took … sheesh … over 8 hours.

He got:

Anal temperature (98.6 degrees Fahrenheit)

Weight (9 pounds, 1 ounce – nice! But not bigger than Pythagoras yet)

Urine, via a catheter.

Blood samples, from the top of his hand, then arm, then other hand. Two of the samples clotted, so…

A heel blood sample. But, the potassium level might be high, and that heel sample usually has elevated levels, so…

An arterial blood sample. That hurt a lot, apparently, and took a while. Fortunately, his potassium level was fine.

An EKG.

A spinal tap (Meningitis check). Three tries, but only blood came up, so they gave up.

An ultrasound, to check his kidney again. No news on that.

During that time he fed fine once, then poorly, then fine. Elaine was up way past her bed time, and we didn’t think we’d be there that long, so we didn’t pack anything. We had Wendy’s food.

Elaine and Marcus are now in the Children’s hospital. They won’t let her use the bed in the room, so she has to stay on the sofa. They’ll let Marcus out when he feeds well consistently, whenever that is.

I’m home to take care of the cats, to try to get some sleep, and to bring stuff that we’ll need in the morning. I hope I can just go and take her home, no matter how early it is.

Sigh. So much for going to our friend’s party.

I had a very fun day today. I was fortunate enough to be a judge in the Future City Competition. For this, middle school students work with a professional engineer to design and then build a model of the city of the future. This was the regional competition.

As I said, it was a lot of fun. I got to see some very creative ideas, and some very smart boys and girls illustrate and talk about their ideas. It also took place at the same place Elaine and I got married (Laurel Manor), which was just too cool.

I was in a group of five other professionals who judged four groups (although we only did three because one school didn’t make it). Each school has a team of 30 to 50 students working on the project, but only three students did the actual presentation.

We judged them on Creativity, Accuracy and Scale, Transportation, the Moving Part Component, and Attractiveness of the city model. We also graded the presentation on the Delivery, Knowledge, and Cooperation (that is, did the students work as a team, or did just one person talk).

One group we saw was one of the best. They based it on the island of Crete, and had beautiful workups of the buildings and lands. They powered their city from oil bio-engineered from kelp. All three students talked equally, and really knew why they made their decisions. I especially liked the old computer chips rotating to represent satellite dishes.

Another group had a city that, while not as good as others I saw, had the best presentation. They pretended to be city officials (Mayor, Chief Engineer, etc.) who were presenting a plan to the City Council (the judges) for enhancements to their city. They had everything memorized, talked very well, and really presented it in an amazing way. I get them high marks. One of the girls in that group was an outstanding presenter on her own right. If they were older I’d probably offer them internships.

Another group had a city that was based on the moon. I asked one of them how it would be powered and a young boy proceeded to explain to me all about Hydrogen 3, and how it would not only power anything there (“It could power the Earth for 1000 years…”), but how mining for it would also produce air and water as byproducts.

Two girls from another school had built their buildings from rocks and matchsticks, but the final product was glazed and put together in such a way that it was better than most buildings I’ve seen in model railroad shows.

One group had a river with flowing water running through their city. Another had magnetic rails for a transportation system that worked. Yet another had a multi level structure that you could take apart and look inside to view more details.

And all of these were done with recycled parts costing less than $100.

The students had to think about overall city planning, including transportation, power, sewage, pollution, industrial business, retail business, and residential housing. The students also used the game “Sim City” to help them think about some of these features!

I very much enjoyed interacting with the students. We always hear bad things about schools in the news. It was pleasant to be able to interact with bright and outgoing boys and girls who are doing more than playing computer games (like me…).

The other judges were very nice people too. I’m glad I was able to interact with them and the students. And, I’m very glad that IEEE does a lot of judging of these activities, and therefore it is easy for me to be active in them.

A couple of months ago, people started to smell gas outside of my house. Now, I’m a cleanly sort of person, not usually subject to bouts of flatulence, so I assumed it wasn’t me.

I went outside and sniffed around, and beyond the decaying leaves and that faint whiff of war in the air, I did not detect any gas.

My neighbors thought otherwise, and called MichCon.

I very nice gentleman came out at about 11:30 PM and checked inside and outside. No gas leaks inside, but by the curb there was a gas leak. He would flag it, and within a few days a crew would be out to fix it, at no cost to me.

Great!

Months pass. The flag is there and now gone due to the snow storms.

I, now, can smell the gas. Visitors can smell the gas. “Hey, did you know you have a leak outside?” Nightingales periodically fly by and die on my sidewalk just to fulfill their destiny.

Still no sign of MichCon.

I called them again last night. They said they would send somebody out, and suggested that I don’t smoke near the leak.

Thanks guys.

Another gentleman came by and checked inside and outside. No gas leaks inside, but by the curb there was a gas leak. He would flag it, and within a few days a crew would be out to fix it, at no cost to me.

Um…great?

At around 2:30 AM last night there was a crew, digging and drilling and poking around. I now have a nice little flag outside my house. I’m sure my neighbors are pleased.

I do hope they fix the leak soon. I have enough gas on my own, thank you very much.

When I first started this web log, I made a few rules for myself. I would try to not talk negatively about specific people. I wouldn’t attack others. I wouldn’t discuss work. I wouldn’t air dirty laundry about my social clubs. Things like that.

Well, rules are made to be broken.

It is time to talk about work, because something very odd has happened. Come with me to the bathroom, and you will understand.

Don’t worry, it is safe. No one is in there now, and it was cleaned this morning.

What? You don’t see the problem?

Go and wash your hands.

Now do you see it?

You still don’t?

How does your hair look?

Aha! That’s right! You’ve noticed that the large mirror is missing!

Now, I’m a Vice President here. You would think people would inform me when certain events happen, but I suppose this is a rather trivial event that doesn’t warrant my attention.

Still, I am quite confused. Why remove the mirror? Was it broken? Did someone get too much soap on it? Did it fall off the wall?

Did they remove one from the Women’s room too? I decided not to check, as that is just begging for trouble.

I have no idea why it is missing. I could ask around, and I would probably get a truthful, unimaginative mundane answer. Boring.

So, since we are stuck in this bathroom together with no mirror, I thought we’d pass the time by sharing with you all of the theories I’ve come up with.

1. It is being used as part of our laser weapon research system – large mirrors are hard to find.

2. Mr. H. Persius, a new hire here, finally decided to stop complaining out our Medusa problem and just do something about it himself.

3. It is now up on the roof to help focus sunlight in an aid to reduce our overhead rate by providing solar power.

4. I don’t know where the mirror is, but the chipped ice in the machine is awfully tough and doesn’t even melt!

5. It was moved to the conference room and mounted on the ceiling, to add that extra pizzazz to those extra long meetings.

6. A diffeomorphic transformation was applied to it, and now we have our very own disco ball!

7. It is being used in the lab as part of our gesture recognition system. Now that you can see your own gestures, our recognition rate should increate nicely.

8. A colleague mounted it on his cubicle wall to make it look like he is getting twice as much work done.

9. It wasn’t just the mirror that was removed – the espionage room behind the one-way mirror was also walled up. It is about time!

10. Someone finally gave up on getting a new surface for their desk, and used the mirror instead.

11. Pieces of it will be attached to the seats in the conference room to make meetings go faster.

12. Hey, we can sell anything on E-Bay.

13. It was removed and cut down into smaller hand mirrors for everyone to use.

14. We are going to be replacing the mirror with a white board – why can’t people get work done in the bathroom too?

Do you have any theories of your own?

With apologies to Elton John...

Marcus Man - parody by Michelle Goepp, NASA, Johnson Space Center

They packed my bags last night pre-flight
Zero hour nine a.m.
And I'm gonna be high as a kite by then
I miss the womb so much I miss my mom
It's lonely out in space
On such a timeless flight

And I think it's gonna be a long long time
Till nap time brings me round again to find
I'm not the man they think I am at home
Oh no no no I'm a Marcus Man
Marcus Man yelling out his lungs out here alone

Michigan ain't the place to raise your kids
In fact it's cold as hell
But there're friends there to raise them if you did
And all this science I don't understand
It's just dad's job five days a week
A Marcus Man, a Marcus Man

And I think it's gonna be a long long time
Till nap time brings me round again to find
I'm not the man they think I am at home
Oh no no no I'm a Marcus Man
Marcus Man yelling out his lungs out here alone

Thank you Michelle!

And, speaking of Marcus man, I now have baby pictures set up. I'll be updating them periodically for family and anyone else who likes to look at babies. I also have some more regular photographs that I will scan in this week. Enjoy!

Just a bunch of unrelated things to write about for today.

My boss came up with a great idea on Monday, which I’ve implemented. Right now, at work, it is proposal writing time. I have proposals to write, edit, review, as well as other things I need to write and research. However, my sleep is still messed up. I find that, around 3 AM, I’m wide awake, yet at 8 AM or 3 PM, I’m in a bleary eyed stupor. So he suggested that I just work at home. Sleep when I need to, and write when I’m fully awake, like at 3 AM.

I did this yesterday (Monday night), and it worked great. I got a lot of work done, changed a lot of diapers, and then went to bed at around 5 AM after watching two back to back episodes of the 1960’s Batman and finished up a proposal. Not to shabby. Being able to sleep until 1:30 PM was a bonus.

So, that will be my schedule all week (including the weekend). I’ll sleep when I need to, work when I’m awake, and go to work for a couple of hours to keep things rolling. I’ve scheduled some trips, got some other proposals on track, and did other work.

Next week I’ll have to really learn how to get on a proper sleep schedule, but that can wait. I figure I’ll be sleeping well in 18 or 22 years.

People have asked me if I had my computer and took notes while Elaine was in labor. While it is amusing to imagine me hunched over the computer yelling “Push!” while Elaine was in agonizing pain, that isn’t the case. Remember, we were so rushed and surprised that my computer was still at work. So we had a tablet where we were recording the duration of the contractions, and during the night I used that to jot down quick notes, like:

12:40 AM: Parents.

That would remind me that her parents arrived and other stuff that happened around that time. Or:

3:15 AM: Tortured woman.

During the birth I would write even less, but I wrote enough.

What else.

[10 minutes pass]

Sorry, just had to change a diaper. Every time I change his diaper, I can’t help think about that horrid black stuff I first cleaned up his first him when he was born. Yuck. I don’t know why that visualization keeps floating up into my consciousness like a dead body in a river, but there you have it.

We had a Buffy night tonight. Every Tuesday night my friends get together to watch either Buffy the Vampire Slayer, or some movie that people want to watch. Eric and Katy will host one week, and Elaine and I will host another, alternating when possible. Tonight we saw not only a new Buffy, but I rented Bob Roberts, a wickedly funny movie. I wish there was a soundtrack for that movie. I love listening to that Republican Folk singer. Most people hadn’t seen it, and they really liked it. If you like movies like Spinal Tap, I recommend it.

Elaine has started to bottle her breast milk. I’m hoping that soon we’ll have enough so that, with Marcus’ cooperation, we’ll be able to go see a The Two Towers soon. Maybe even this Saturday. Better still, once this works out, I’ll be able to stay home and feed him while Elaine goes out and has fun, like at dance practice.

Marcus has started to get some nicknames. In addition to ‘little guy’ (which we call the cats), we now like to call him Marcus Man. That always reminds me of Elton John’s Rocket Man, but I can’t think of any good lyrics (probably because I never could understand what Sir Elton was saying in the first place).

There are other names: Marcus Man, Benjamin Boy, or The Cohen Kid. I like that last one. My son, the gun slinger.

Well, it is around 12:30 AM Tuesday night / Wednesday morning. May as well publish this and get to work on another proposal.

Good night, everyone.

I’m tired.

Those of you who have kids, especially newborns, are saying, “Well, duh!”

But this wasn’t what I was expecting. I’m totally exhausted, but not in the way I imagined.

I figured I’d have to get up a lot, with Elaine, to take care of Marcus, and that I would always be busy. I have and I am. However, I’ve pulled all nighters before (albeit in the last millennium), even for consecutive nights. I’d be exhausted and sleepy and bleary.

Again, this is different.

My sleep schedule is totally shot. I’m wide awake at around 3 AM, and can’t really fall asleep for two hours even when the baby is asleep. I can’t drag my lazy ass out of bed at 8 AM to go to work. Right now this is okay, since I’m writing proposals, and my main job is to do that. But by Monday I really want to be back on a good work schedule.

I think I know a bit how a medical intern feels. On call all the time, catching sleep whenever possible, and not sure what time it is. Oh, wait, yes I do, it is time to change the diaper!

I’m also always tense. I worry constantly about SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome), so even when I am sleeping, I’m almost awake, listening to the baby. When he’s asleep, I put my finger in his hand until he grips me so I know he’s fine, and it doesn’t wake him up.

Marcus had his two week checkup today. He’s doing great. The bad news is that he could become a colicky baby on the third week, and there is a 50% chance of that! The good news is that even if that happens, it goes away around the third month.

The best news is that in about four weeks he should start smiling and interacting a bit. Then the fun really begins!

But for now, I’m tired. And as tired as I am, Elaine has it far, far worse.