Bye bye Trieste

OK I am pretty sure I'm gaining a good bit of my weight back. It's definitely due to the freaking way I've been eating, my screwed up biological clock, and the lack of running capability here (no treadmill). The streets are too crowded and weird to run. I can't take another minute of Italy simply because soon I won't be able to fit into the clothes I brought with me.

OK maybe it's not THAT bad but I am pretty sure I am undoing about 1 month's worth of weight loss in just one week. That's the sucky part about being a slow loser. I am hoping I can make up for some of it in Germany. Let's face it, I don't think I like German food (hell I don't really know) and my hotel has a fitness room. So no excuses, I can bust it out next week. Especially since I will have a little less committed schedule. The few rounds of the boot camp-derived exercise sessions I've done in my hotel room just isn't enough to battle the calroies I've no doubt taken in.

But tomorrow's Venice, a 2 hour train ride from here. I will be staying at Hotel Luna Baglioni, the oldest hotel in Venice, right on San Marco's square. Once it housed Templar Knights passing through during the Crusades. I am hoping to learn some fabulous history. As for my train ride, Rail Euro screwed up and never sent me my train passes so now I have to piece meal my train trip from Venice to Bonn, Germany on Monday. Wish me luck, considering I've only ever ridden an Amtrak in the US! People have been giving me tips on how to do it all so I'm hoping for the best.

NASA screwed up on my iPhone and never gave me international roaming for data. So I've had no iPhone capability like email or internet the last few days, other than phone calls (yay for that at least). They're trying to resolve the problem but it's one troubleshoot after another and hopefully it'll get fixed soon.

In the meantime I found a little "farmacia" that sold me some all natural "Digestivo Antonetto", finally. Apparently the sign for "heartburn" is universal ;) Actually as soon as I cut out the wine, the heartburn went away. Noted. Didn't need the calories anyway. And I'm WINED out. Then I realized in my haste to get on the plane here I forgot to pack enough hairspray. So back to the Farmacia, where they gave me "All Natural" hairspray. Really? How in the world can hairspray be "natural"? Isn't it required to be a chemical mess? The first ingredient is still alcohol. There seems to be pictures of plants all over the bottle but I can't see it in the list of ingredients.

The cool thing is that most of the stuff the Farmacias sell here are "all natural". How easy it is to walk into a pharmacy here and get something that's all natural, and likely to work, without any research. There's a Farmacia everywhere you look. It's as easy as eating pasta for dinner, then walking across the canal to eat pizza. Which I did one night. (Oh the weight gain).

Today was the last day of the conference. It was an entire day of exercise countermeasures for use in space. Ironically, they talked about Paul's exercise device as one that's under evaluation for future exploration class missions. Talk about feeling weird?! So I took a photo of that slide for him :)

Yesterday they took us on a bus tour all around Trieste, and we went to the castle of Maximillian, who lived here with his young wify Charlotte until he went over to become the emporer of Mexico. Then in a revolt of which I don't remember, the Mexican's (Republicans) overthrew him and executed him. His wife had fled, came back to the castle, went nuts, and then moved out 9 months later. It was my first visit to a real castle, though its only purpose was luxury living and not defense. I am told it was small in comparison to other European castles. Then for lunch we went up to a vineyard and had a freaking feast of fantastic local cuising. No pasta here, it was cured meats and spreads and wine of all types. Water flavored with rosemary, mint, lemon, and something that looked like little weeds but tasted really good. Then dessert and finally real schnapps. PEOPLE. These things were in little shot glasses and it was like drinking Chloraseptic. Just a taste numbed the tongue! I couldn't do it. None of us could, except one JSC researcher who slammed TWO then talked me into it once we got outside of the building. I buckled to peer pressure, feeling like if I was gonna puke, at least it was outside :) I slammed two not even a spinning head came from that horrid moonshine! Thankfully, because I did preface the shots with the fact that I did realize that the last place to get drunk was in front of my NASA peers, which included the deputy division chief of a Life Sciences division at JSC and the head of the Human Research Program. And oh yeah, a couple of guys from Headquarters. But we all had so much fun on the tour, it was great to get to know each of them personally. I had only heard of them through their research or through emails, etc. They really were down to Earth. And I learned TONS from talking to them.

With all of the craziness of travel going on tomorrow and the wacked out time difference, I suspect I am totally going to forget Father's day. SO HAPPY FATHER'S DAY! And sorry in advance if I'm a loser.

Paul and Anna are at his parents' camp for the weekend. He says she's being a little bratty and just oppositional. It's included Time Outs and it started the morning before they left to go to the camp. I hope she straightens up. I know she really wanted to go and has been asking to go for WEEKS and it's nothing we'd even put into her head or mentioned. One look at peanuts and she starts asking about Papa (he shares his nuts with her). It sounded ike other than her bratty attitude (good timing, baby, make us look like we're raising a spoiled brat who needs a good beating), she's having fun.

Anyway, I guess I'd better go do some exercise, then pack and get ready for the travel tomorrow. Without having data and who knows about internet till I get to my next hotel room in Venice, who knows when I'll post again.

I did get a lot of pictures posted to Facebook and Twitter before I lost data. As soon as I get it back, I'll post more.

Good night!

All done with my 10 minute International Spotlight!

Ding, all done! My presentation at the Life in Space for Life on Earth is all done! It went well but dang, 10 min goes by so darned fast when it's your turn up there. Now the world's space agencies are better informed about the microbiological studies and advancements we've made on ISS. yippie!

I saw some familiar old faces in the crowd, and afterwards, several of those faces came over to say how proud they were of me going from X (their lab, whatever as a student) to Y ("look at you now!"). I do think it must be weird for anyone who's worked with me in my former life either when I was a student or when I was an engineer just recently to see me wear grown up clothes and use big, smart-sounding words while throwing in some agency-level blah-de-blah too. I have come to realize that the role I'm in right now is full of agency-level "stuff" I had NO IDEA even existed when I was an engineer, just keeping my head down to stay on schedule/budget/solve technical issues for spaceflight hardware. It's definitely eye-opening and I am soooo happy to have been an engineer first because now it helps to make sense of the work I'm doing now. I have some really useful insight in situations where I think I need to speak up on behalf of the process I knew as an engineer. Most folks at the agency level have also been engineers, or scientists, or whatever, too but maybe they've been out of it for so long that they forget or don't want to speak up for some reason. As the new kid, I can say "forgive me for asking a stupid question, or proposing a route that sounds silly, but..." and then I can put it out on the table the most obvious stupid things. Which sometimes helps.

Or maybe I'm rambling.

Anyway my work in Italy is almost done! Tomorrow's a field trip to tour the city and then Saturday is an Exercise Countermeasures workshop which should be interesting at the least. Since that's definitely part of my past, I've already run into people I first met over 10 years ago, as well as the big name scientists I cited in my master's thesis.

Things are good on the home front. I call at least twice a day. Yesterday I poorly miscalculated the time difference and called Paul at 3am! Har-de-har-har. Oops! The only problem Paul has is that Anna has started screaming her head off, terribly, when he drops her off at school. The week before I left she was doing fine adjusting to a new classroom with new teachers but it was going well. One day last week Nanna let her stay home to play, and now I'm gone and the result of the whole shake-up is a 3-year old screaming while attached to her daddy as he tries to leave in the morning. Yesterday I talked to her teacher who says she stops the screaming when Paul leaves, and participates in all the activities through the day. But during downtime and transition between activities, she "whimpers" (no tears) and asks when is Daddy coming to pick her up. I suspect things might be helped if she were at least in the same classroom as her best friend, but since the school didn't set up her class that way (now I think what BASTARDS) I can't even use that to soothe her. Bleh. We've tried to reason with her and get her to "not cry" ahead of time but no joy. Hopefully things will settle with her soon.

Well, off to exercise. Since there's no gym here I've set up a work-out schedule based on our boot camp exercises, in 1-minute intervals. I set the timer on my Ipod so the alarm sounds like I've hit the jackpot :) It's a motivator.

Follow my Twitter account for photos and updates on the spot. You
don't have to join. Just click on my stream onthe right aide of my
blog. Since I'm awake when you're not for part of my day, I post while
you're sleeping.

Eventually I will post the same pics here but it's not as easy so it
may be awhile.

Not sure how I can have heartburn at night: the food here doesn't seen
as greasy as American! I guess it's just different. Need antacido. I
went out on my own into the real world today in search of Tums. I
didn't find it. My translator said "antacido". The clerk seemed like
he hadn't heard the word. "How about Tums"? No. Apparently indigestion
is an American problem?

It's mild but it's noticeable at night while I'm sleeping. Well, last.
Night was a 4 HOUR dinner with 5 courses. That's 1.25 courses per
hour. It was s.l.o.w. I couldn't talk to the nice couple next to us
for another second. We started out talking about his experiment on ISS
that investigates blood flow in the brain, and ended up talking about
how they juggle 5 kids. By the end of the night my head hurt and my
shoulders/neck were tight. It takes so much energy from me to be
social. I'd be happy sitting quietly at the table staring at everyone
if it weren't an akward thing to do at a function like that.

I stayed up till 2am and slept till 10am. What?! My body had no idea
what time it was anyway. But it apparently was aware that I ate 5
courses in the hours before I lay horizontal :) One of this courses
was octopus or something with tentacles. I am more willing to try
strange food when in the environment. It wasn't bad! Added it to the
list of snails and raw scallops in France. By the way this food is
better than France :)

Trieste, Day 1.5

Today two shots of the little espresso cups they have at the conference kept me awake during a crash at around 3:13pm (about 9:15am my body's time). The meetings were very productive. Two days ago I was talking to farmers at the largest grown-up science fair in the midwest, and today I'm talking to international heads of ISS science programs about space experiments. Neato.

Lunch was gnocci with tomato sauce and cheese (AMAZING) and tonight was a trio of eggplant parmesean, asparagus crepe, and ravioli. Not to forget the tiramesu (sp?) that is the best in the whole wide world. I mean, it's ITALY and all. Holy cow I am totally going to have to run every morning here. And since it's light at 4:45am, and my body's confused as hell anyway, meh, why not? Till I'm exhausted, anyway. I was born to eat this food.

Good night!

Trieste Tidbits

Last night I had my first Italian meal. Granted it was from the hotel but dang it, it was GOOD. Potatoe and cheese "cake", pasta with fresh veggies, and fried chicken with lemon sauce. The American women at the table gave me their last glass of the best red wine on their menu (here's to TJ! ;) ). I watched the sun go down (finally, at almost 10pm) and the moon come up over the ocean as I indulged!

The sun came up around 4:45am here. Good grief, not much time for darkness.

Anyway, on to breakfast and the conference, day 1. My body is wondering why I'm up, showered, and abouot to eat at midnight.

Made it to Trieste, Italy

After 14 hours on travel between Houston, Frankfurt, and Munich, I just got to Trieste, Italy. Home of the...I don't know...the symposium I'm going to attend?

My hotel is the Savoia, right across from the symposium. http://www.starhotels.com/hotel/savoia_excelsior_trieste/starhotels_savoia_excelsior.php?idalb=17 The front desk felt for my lengthy travel so upgraded my room to a suite at no cost with a little living room and a kitchenette and a view of the ocean and the convention center for the symposium, which is just right across the street. Wow, did I pick right? ;) This place is super neat. Nice accomodations for the week.

The super friendly (and pretty, might I add) people of Frankfurt and Munich put a smile on my residually grumpy face since the events of yesterday. And more talking with Paul about how the whole recital planning went made me feel lots better so I'm slowly recovering. It just sucks when my bad choice screws someone I love over. Blah...anyway... thanks to you all for posting and emailing. It really helped since I couldn't tell if I was just being overly sensitive.

Anyway, I'm here for a week and at least the diggs are nice! NASA screwed up my cell phone and never issued an international data useage plan (and hello at $20/MB) I will not be tweeting from my iPhone till they get it right. So I'll tweet when it's free wifi or from my hotel till then.

My presentation is Thursday, just a 10 minute quickie on some of the successful microbial research that's happening on ISS and some of the biotech advances that's come along as well. I'm still creating it: I know what my plans will be tonight :)

Paul said Anna cried her head off last night before bed and at school drop off today. Not indicators she's missing me exactly but indicators she's had too much fun with my mom, my niece, and her friend since last Thursday when we were in Minnesota! The little booger was appropriately spoiled and had loads of fun (even skipped school for Kemah) and now they're gone and she's a little pissed. Vacation over, welcome to reality my little princess. In the meantime Paul will have his hands full till she gets over it but the good news is it's a chance for them to bond with only the two of them there. It will be good.

OK I'm stinky and need to unpack and see what the spa here is good for. Tomorrow starts the real brain work!

F bombs continued

All of the schedule shifting and stupid sacrifices we went through to ensure both of us would be here on time, out the window.

I am beating myself to death over it but Paul seems fine with it all. Well happy birthday to him. We aren't very sentimental about these things but well, this bites. Bites bites.

Now I'm on a plane full of German people bound for Frankfurt before Munich then finally Trieste. I hope I packed everything. At least now that I have my iPhone maybe that feeling I forgot something will go away. And I'm not in the mood for a fully packed plane for 10 hrs full of Germans.

This baby is full. Ugh.

I am depressed. Someone tell me I'm overreacting.

On to Frankfurt.

F Bombs

Actually the words going through my mind the last. Few hours is more like bullshit. I was just about to sit down in my seat at the airport terminal to write about it on my iPhone when I realized I left it in the car. Given the chains of bad decisions I made over the past few hours, of course I left it in the car. I called the driver who was still at the airport and after a dash that once again made me happy I keep running in the morning, he passed me the phone through security.

I went from depressed to "oh shit" to now relieved and a little depressed. Now where was I...

Back to depressed. I was told by a fellow dance mommy weeks ago that anna's class was the first to dance. When, after waiting awhile, I inquired when was it going to be their turn, I was told "they're #15". WTF? No, no. No I didn't hear right but she said I did so I dialed Paul. Since we had so much time, could her run home to get my suitcases and bring them back while I called the airport driver to come pick me up a little later a the dance recital instead.

Because my husband has always done everything in the world to ever help me, he left. And then Anna's turn came up faster. One after another dance, I was calling Paul to tell him to book it. My last call to him was while they were on stage and her music was starting. He was just down the street.

He missed it while I watched her from the side stage, crying. I knew I'd be crying. I didn't think it would be because of this. I had to consciously tell myself to enjoy it. She was so cute. Bit Paul missed it because of me and my stupid trip.

When I make stupid mistakes they hurt really bad. They are hard for me so I don't do it often. Which makes it worse when it happens. I am racked with guilt and I couldn't keep from creating my own unhappy drama of tears.

All that we had gone through

More thoughts on the invention convention

I am at the Minn airport waiting to head home after attending half of day 2 of the convention. Today was busier and I think we learned more and made more progress and connections today. We had 2 licensing agents that came by and wanted us to seriously consider submitting to them. One is Ron Docie, the guy who wrote "The Inventor's Bible". Paul doesn't like him so much because he would only look at Paul when speaking to both of us (thus seemingly minimizing my importance...and we know how important I am ;) ). But after the second or third time he tracked us down he was way more interactive with me. He has brought products to QVC, Walmart, etc, etc. Well known and respected celeb among these inventor types. He is friends with potential licensing agent #2 and when I tell him we're still deciding who to go with he tells me he has friends in "made for TV" which I don't know much about but I guess it's a big deal. He thinks the machine has real potential for
home gym market. He never pointed out any fatal flaws of our design. This concerns me a bit. His commission is 20% of our licensing award if he can get you one.

The second guy is a young professional and their firm is very highly successful and recommended as a "good guy" in this field (Lambert & Lambert). In fact I loved that he came by and instantly recognized some of the potential fatal flaws of the machine and talked with us about it. He knows people in the exercise machine commercial universe. He said good things and realistic things. Their firm does not accept all ideas pitched their way. They pick those submissions with the best potential because they have a team of creative brainiacs who take it and run with doing all it takes to bring it to a license agreement. Then they take 25-30% of your licensing up-front payment if they're successful in getting you one. But these guys do everything from industriL design concepts to protoypes to sales pitches. Basically polishing your concept, making it marketable, then making the phone calls for you.

Paul and I have lots to talk about but first step is gettin an updated market survey. Due dilligence.

But first our baby dances tomorrow! And I gotta get my head out of this invention stuff and get my NASA head back on. I have a presentation to write for the conference next Thursday.

Invention convention

Reporting from Podunkville, Minnesota! Home of the world's oldest adult science fair (invention symposium). Last night we placed silver in awards for our machine, which isn't best. Meh. It's hard to compete our exercise machine with a wheelchair improvement or the system that prevents firefighters from backing over their firebuddies with the big red truck.

What I've learned so far:
1) We know more about what our next step should be than we thought we knew.
2) Inventors are weird
3) If the people we've been talking to at our exhibit represents the average American, I now understand how idiot politicians keep getting elected.
4) I am not an inventor. I'm a scientist and Paul's a PT. No more invention conventions for us. Let's just leave it at that.
5) Our patent was the best thing we could have done for ourselves.
6) I totally wanna pay someone to do the foot work for pursuing our license approach. No time for Do-it-yourself.
7) Chances are we won't "get rich" on licensing our exercise machine.

This has been somewhat enlightening but I can't say we'll do another invention expo. But we did learn that the scienific basis behind why our exercise machine is hard to communicate to the lay person. That's a problem for the lay American. May not be a problem for medial/rehab professionals. That leads me to:

7) Our machine would probably do better with a target market of rehabilitation rather than home gym. Because on one hand, our machine's scientific advantage may be lost on the lay person so why should they buy it over any of the other exercise machines on the market? On the other hand, the American public does buy every crappy exercise machine type put there (who cares if it works) if it's flashy and cheap enough. So I guess it could go either way.

Our next step is to get an updated market research plan and then hire a reputable licensing firm to pursue it for us. We've found a few potential agents out here and it looks like they charge no real up front fees, but charge 20-30% commission on the final license payment they negotiate for you. Sounds good to me.

Paul and Ken are staying till tomorrow morning but I'm headed home tonight. Anna's dance recital is tomorrow at 3pm. If all goes according to planned, we should all be there to watch her twirl and hop on stage in her bright crazy stage make-up. On Paul's birthday!

Out...

Minnesota (po-dunk, that is!)

My God we're at the world's most advanced science fair and I have no
iPhone data service. No precious Twitter. Surrounded by farmland and
Walmart.

Tonight we set up our invention booth while Anna parties At home with
my mom, my niece, and her friend. She'll have fun but I miss her
already.
Out!

I met Anna’s summer teachers today. Anna’s had them as subs in the past and likes them just fine. I was explaining to them I was bummed that her best friend, Karma, won’t be in the same class this summer. As I was carrying on about how they’ve been together since babies, love to hold hands and lots of sweet hugs, and Anna talks about her all the time, they empathized and promised she’ll have fun in the new classroom. Anna interrupted and looked up at me, “Mom, can I go PLAY?”

 

OK so maybe she’ll be fine.

 

A few of her friends did go to the new room with her. And even some old friends she hasn’t seen all year from a previous class. One of the kids, unfortunately, is the one little boy who gets on BOTH our nerves the most. That kid hangs on me and tries to get hugs from me quicker than my own daughter can get to me! Annoyingly, he is not about personal space, and both Anna and I ARE. Blahhh, what am I supposed to do, come off like a jerk: uh, get this kid OFF me!

 

Summer fun.

 

The past two times now, as Paul tells us goodbye and on the way to the door in the morning, Anna shouts: “Go make some MONEY!” What, I’ve only said it like once, jokingly, in her whole child life. And it was several months ago! Oh how they store that stuff away for later.

 

So long June

June is a beast. Already in my mind it's almost over because of its schedule.

On Thursday morning, Paul, his brother, and I head to Minnesota to showcase our exercise machine to an inventor's convention. It's the machine that's evolved since we were students. It's time to commercialize. We're taking some of our prototypes to demo at a convention but mostly we're hoping to get lots of good new info on the licensing process, etc. A one stop shop full of workshops and also exposure for our machine. Between the 3 of us, we should come back full of good plans!

My mom's coming to stay with Anna while we're gone and they're both psyched about that. I come home Saturday night but Paul and Ken have to stay till Sun morn, and I hope their plane is on time because Anna's dance recital is Sunday at 3:00. They're first up! After her dance, we leave early to get home for celebration cake (and Sunday is also Paul's birthday! Happy birthday, we are soooooo happy you were born!)...then at 4:45 a car is coming to take me to the airport for my flight to Trieste, Italy. It will be a little sad for me after such a special day but I know it'll be ok in the end. I'll be in Italy for a week for a conference where I get to present a paper I'm currently writing for space station science. Then I catch a train to Venice for an overnight stay in Venice's oldest hotel while on my way to Bonn Germany for the entire next week. I've decided to take the long train ride from Venice to Bonn since it goes through scenic Switzerland! In Bonn
I have a day off before I cover some programmatic meetings. So unless an act of nature spoils my travel plans (think my Berlin trip in April!) I will return home June 25. That's 2.5 weeks away from my baby girl, 2 of it overseas.
I still doubt this adventure will take place. Too good to be true.

I don't speak italian or german. I have the iPod translators and I hear they speak good English over there so here's hoping for the best. I am super excited about the conference, the meetings, and the new travel! But I will totally miss my little family. Anna is super attached to mommy right now, so it will be good for her and Paul to bond. on fathers day I will be gone and he's taking her to the camp at the swamp with his parents because she's been asking to go so much.

But I am cutting out on paul's birthday and going to be absent on fathers day. Frankly I think we're ok with that since we don't take that stuff too personally or seriously. But let me tell you something about my husband. When it comes down to it, I'd always rather be with him than without him. We would be happy to be around each other 24 hrs a day and never need a "break". How lucky is that? I am so lucky to have had him in my life for so long. Pre-Anna and pre-clinic, Paul would have come with me on this trip. Especially because it's seriously not as fun if you don't share it with the person you love to be with. But in the past 3 years I have accepted having to do some things (like the heavy travel) alone, and I've learned to enjoy it as best I can. Partly because I tell myself that one day he'll come back with me. And maybe Anna too. Because when she's old enough she'll be able to enjoy it with us, and that's part of the fun of having a little family:
hopefully it's having more people you love to spend time with.

Unless your kid's a brat. Then I imagine you want to run far away :)

On that note, I hope Zo keeps her lite boy in her uterus just a day or two past the due date so I can be home to visit in the hospital :)

What else? I am still going to bible study as long as I'm in town but now I will be gone eery weekend till July 9. And the bool we're studying (20 Christian Beliefs, which I hate) is done. Frankly I got no new revelations from my attendance and so I'm not sure I'll be going back. But give me credit for m attempts to learn something about Christianity for almost 6 months.

I'm still running at 4:30am and this week starts boot camp as well. Well at least till the travel starts, then I pick up on it again through July. I did a few days last week but had a cold come on too so it was extra draining. My arms were so sore I couldn't reach for the sore throat spray from my bed at night.

I wonder if it's not a strategic move to start another week of boot camp right before I have to showcase our exercise machine??? Ouch!

Goodnight!

Dec 10

Our calendars are marked. The tickets have been purchased. Here at the Hobby Center. The weirdos in person.

Anna updates

I swear she said "Goddamit, they forgot my drink!" But I couldn't get her to repeat the first part of what she said. She was like, "why do you ask me to repeat?"

I don't think she heard me say "Goddamit, they forgot your drink!" because I wasn't really angry or anything, though yes, they did forget her drink. I can't imagine I said that but maybe I did? I mean, where else would she have gotten that??? Did I say that?

Anna's calling God on the phone for stuff, telling me to "OK, RE-LAX, mommy!", and acting like the grocery store is a trip to Disney (MOMMY, I am sooooo EXCITED to go to the grocery store!!! Oohhh, look at all the cholocate! And the bananas! And the milk! Can I help you? We need TWO goldfish packs, mommy. No? RE-LAXXX, mommy!!). I think I've blogged this before: I never take her to the grocery store. I hate shopping and it's all in my mind too much. But now I'm tired of going at 9pm after she's in bed. So let's do this together and make it fun. And we did. And it was a hoot. I think the people around us enjoyed watching her too. Then when we checked out, she asks loudly: "Mommy, is Daddy coming home tonight?" Like he never comes home. Or he never sees her or something. Totally false. He just wasn't home yet when we decided to go to the grocery store at 6pm. I laughed it off and "WHAT? Ofcourse!" in case the people around me thought this cute kid's daddy was a louse.

When I tell her she's growing into a neat little girl, she says "Awwwww, thanks mommy!" And she totally is.

Kids really do say some cute stuff. And it's cuter if it's your kid. Anna's always been a talker but just now she's getting more quirky, sassy, grown up and personal and really makes us laugh. Maybe she's behind on that part. Maybe others her age are already that funny. Dunno. It seems to come out much more lately.